Alcohol and the Human Brain

by Joseph Cook

The graduates of Amherst College met at the Parker House, in Boston, some years ago, and, although a wine glass was placed at the side of each plate, not one of them was filled. Niagara itself, a recent traveler in the United States says, is not as worthy of description to Englishmen as the pure array of goblets with ice-water at the usual dinners at hotels. Mrs. Hayes has expelled intoxicating beverages from the Presidential mansion.

The latest investigators of the influence of alcohol on the brain are Schulinus, Anstie, Dupré, Labottin, and Binz. The latter in a series of remarkable articles published in the Practitioner, in 1876, maintains that a portion of every dose of alcohol is burned in the system, and yet he considers the use of alcohol in health as entirely superfluous. The experimenters agree with the majority of physicians that, in the army and navy, and for use among healthy persons, alcohol, even as a ration strictly limited to a moderate quantity, is physiologically useless and generally harmful.

Upon different portions of the brain the action of alcohol can be distinctly traced by medical science and even by common observation. The brain, it will be remembered, is divided into three parts. The upper, which comprises the larger part, and which is supposed to be the seat of the intellectual and moral faculties, is called the cerebrum. Below that, in the back part of the organ, is another mass, called the cerebellum, parts of which are believed to control the contractions of the muscles in portions of the body. Still lower is the medulla oblongata, which presides over the nerves of respiration. Now the action of alcohol can be distinctly marked upon the different parts of the brain. The moral and intellectual faculties are first jarred out of order in the progress of intoxication. The tippler laughs and sings, is talkative and jocose, coarse or eloquent to almost any degree according to his temperament. The cerebrum is first affected. His judgment becomes weak; he is incapable of making a good bargain, or of defending his own rights intelligently, but he does not yet stagger; he is as yet only a moderate drinker. The effect of moderate drinking, however, is to weaken the judgment and to destroy the best powers of the will and intellect. But he takes another glass, and the cerebellum which governs several of the motions of the body is affected, and now he begins to stagger. He loses all control of his muscles, and plunges headlong against post and pavement. One more glass and the medulla oblongata is poisoned. This organ controls the nerves which order the movements of the lungs, and now occurs that hard breathing and snoring which is seen in dead drunkenness. This stoppage is caused by impure blood so poisoning the medulla oblongata that it can no longer perform its duties. The cerebrum and cerebellum now seem to have their action entirely suspended, and sometimes the respiratory movements stop forever, and the man dies by asphyxia in the same manner as by drowning, strangling, or narcotic poisoning by any other substance. (See Prof. Ferrier. The Localization of Cerebral Disease. London, 1878.)

Who shall say where end the consequences of alcoholic injury of the blood and of the substance of the brain? Here within the cranium, in this narrow chamber, so small that a man's hand may span it, and upon this sheet of cerebral matter, which, if dilated out, would not cover a surface of over six hundred square inches, is the point of union between spirit and matter. Inversions of right judgment and every distortion of moral sense legitimately follow from the intoxicating cup. It is here that we should speak decidedly of the evil effects of moderate drinking. Men may theorize as they please, but practically there is in average experience no such thing as a moderate dose of alcohol. People drink it to produce an effect. They take enough to "fire up," as they say, and unless that effect is produced they are not satisfied. They will have enough to raise their spirits, or dissipate gloom. And this is enough to impair judgment, and in the course of years perhaps to ruin fortune, body, and soul. The compass is out of line in life's dangerous sea, and a few storms may bring the ship upon breakers.

It is to be remembered that, by the law of local affinity, the dose of alcohol is not diffused throughout the system, but is concentrated in its chief effects upon a single organ. When a man drinks moderately, though the effects might be minute if dispersed through the whole body, yet they may be powerful when most of them are gathered upon the brain. They may be dangerous when turned upon the intellect, and even fatal when concentrated upon the primal guiding powers of mind—reason, and moral sense. It is not to the whole body that a moderate glass goes; it is chiefly to its most important part—the brain; and not to the whole brain, but to its most important part—the seat of the higher mental and moral powers; and not to these powers at large, but to their helmsman and captain—Reason and Conscience.

"Ship ahoy! All aboard! Let your one shot come," shouts the sailor to the pirate craft. Now, one shot will not shiver a brig's timbers much, but suppose that this one ball were to strike the captain through the heart, and the helmsman through the skull, and that there are none to fill their posts, it would be a terrible shot indeed. Moderate drinking is a charmed ball from a pirate craft. It does not lodge in the beams' ends. It cuts no masts. It shivers no plank between wind and water. It strikes no sailor or under-officer, but with magic course it seeks the heart of the captain and the arms of the helmsman, and it always hits. Their leaders dead, and none to take their place, the crew are powerless against the enemy. Thunders another broadside from pirate alcohol, and what is the effect? Every ball is charmed; not one of the crew is killed, but every one becomes mad and raises mutiny. Commanders dead, they are free. Thunders another broadside from the pirate, and the charmed balls complete their work. The mutinous crew rage with insanity. Captain Conscience and Steersman Reason are picked up, and, lest their corpses should offend the crazy sailors, pitched overboard. Then ranges Jack Lust from one end of the ship to the other. That brave tar, Midshipman Courage, who, in his right mind, was the bravest defender of the ship, now wheels the cannon against his own friends and rakes the deck with red-hot grape until every mast totters with shot-holes. The careful stewards, seamen Friendship and Parental Love, whose exertions have always heretofore provided the crew seasonably with food and drink, now refuse to cook, furnish no meals, unhead the water-casks, waste the provisions, and break the ship's crockery. The vessel has wheeled into the trough of the sea; a black shadow approaches swiftly over the waters, and the compass and helm are deserted. That speculating mate, Love of Money, who, if sober, would see the danger, and order every rag down from jib to mainsail, and make the ship scud under bare poles before the black squall, now, on the contrary, orders up every sail and spreads every thread of canvas. The rising storm whistles in the rigging, but he does not hear it. That black shadow on the water is swiftly nearing. He does not see it. In the trough of the sea the ship rocks like a cockle shell. He does not feel it. Yonder, before the dense rush of the coming blow of air rises a huge wave, foaming, and gnawing, and groaning on high. He does not hear it. With a shock like the opening of an earthquake it strikes the broadside; with a roar it washes over the deck; three snaps like cannon, and the heavily-rigged masts are gone; a lurch and sucking in of waves, and the hold is full of water, and the sinking ship just survives the first heavy sea. Then comes out Mirthfulness, and sits astride the broken bowsprit, and ogles a dancing tune. The crew dance! It were possible, even yet, to so man the pumps and right the helm as to ride over the swells and drive into port, but all action for the right government of the ship is ended. Trumpeter Language mounts the shattered beams of the forecastle, and makes an oration; it is not necessary to work, he tells the crew, but to hear him sputter yarns.

It is fearful now to look upon the raging of the black sea. Every moment the storm increases in fury. As a giant would toss about a straw, so the waves handle the wrecked timbers. Night gathers her black mists into the rifted clouds, and the strong moaning sound of the storm is heard on the dark ocean. By that glare of lightning I saw a sail and a life-boat! Men from another ship are risking their lives to save the insane crew whose masts are gone. They come nearer, but the boat bounds and quivers, and is nearly swamped upon the top of a wave. Jack Courage and Independence see the boat coming. "Ship ahoy," shout the deliverers. "Life-boat from the ship Temperance! Quit your wreck and be saved." No reply. Independence grinds his teeth and growls to Jack Courage that the offer of help is an insult. "I will tell you how to answer," says Jack, stern and bloody. There is one cannon left with a dry charge. They wheel that upon the approaching boat, and Independence holds the linstock over the fuse-hole. "Life-boat for sailors on the wreck," shouts Philanthropy from the approaching boat. "What answer, ship Immortal?" Then shoots from the ringing gun a tongue of flame, and ten pounds of iron are on their way. The Temperance boat rocks lower from the wave-top, and the deadly reply just grazes the heads of the astounded philanthropists and buries itself heavily in their own ship beyond. It was an accident, they think, and keep on board the ship and stand upon its deck. Then flash from their scabbards a dozen swords; then click the locks of a dozen muskets; then double the palms of a dozen fists; then shake the clubs of a dozen maniac arms, and the unsuspecting deliverers are murdered on the deck they came to save. As the lightning glares I see them thrown into the sea, while thunders are the dirge of the dead and the damnation of the murderers.

The drunken ship is fast filling with water. Not a man at the pumps, not an arm at the helm. Having destroyed their friends, the crew fall upon each other. Close under their bow rave the breakers of a rocky shore, but they hear it not. At intervals they seem to realize their condition, and their power even yet to save themselves, but they make no effort. Gloom, and storm, and foam shut them up against hell with many thunders. In this terrible extremity Independence is heard to refuse help, and boasts of his strength. Friendship and Parental Love rail at thoughts of affection. Language trumpets his easy yarns and grows garrulous as the timbers crack one after another. Rage and Revenge are now the true names of Firmness and Courage. Silly Mirth yet giggles a dance, and I saw him astride the last timber as the ship went down, tossing foam at the lightning. Then came a sigh of the storm, a groaning of waves, a booming of blackness, and a red, crooked thunderbolt shot wrathfully blue into the suck of the sea where the ship went down.

And I asked the names of those rocks, and was told: "God's Stern and Immutable Laws."

And I asked the name of that ship, and they said: "Immortal Soul."