“These investigations of Professor Martin, being directly corroborated by those of Drs. Ringer and Sainsbury, complete the series of demonstrations needed to show the actual effects of alcohol on the cardiac, as well as on the vasomotor, and also on the direct contractability of the muscular structure, when supplied with blood containing all gradations in the relative proportion of alcohol, leaving no longer any basis for the idea, popular both in and out of the profession, that alcohol in any of its forms is capable of increasing, even temporarily the force or efficiency of the heart’s action.”—Dr. N. S. Davis in Influence of Alcohol On the Human System.
The following letter will be of great interest to all students of the physiological effects of alcohol:—
“Chicago, Ill., March 3, 1899.
“To Mrs. Martha M. Allen,
“Syracuse, N. Y.,
“Madam: Your letter asking my attention to the apparent contradiction of authorities concerning the work done by the heart when influenced by alcohol was received yesterday.
“The explanation is not difficult. It depends entirely on the different views of what constitutes the work of the heart.
“One class of investigators, led by the original and valuable experiments of Parkes and Wollowicz base their estimate of the heart’s work entirely on the number of times it contracts or beats per minute. Thus Dr. Parkes, finding that moderate doses of alcohol increased the number of contractions of the heart from three to six beats per minute more than natural, readily estimated the number of additional contractions that would occur in twenty-four hours, and thereby demonstrated a large amount of increased work done by the heart under the influence of alcohol. All writers who speak of ‘stimulating’ or increasing the action of the heart by alcohol follow this method of measuring the amount of work done. They generally add that it is like applying ‘the whip to a tired horse.’
“The other class of investigators who claim that alcohol diminishes the actual work done by the heart base their estimates on the amount of blood the heart passes through its cavities into the arteries in a given time. This is the physiological function of the heart; i.e. to aid in circulating the blood. Professor Martin’s experiments were admirably contrived to determine, not how frequently the heart beat, but the amount of blood it delivered per minute under the influence of alcohol and without alcohol.
“He, and all others who take this basis of work, found that alcohol in any dose diminished the efficiency of the heart in circulating the blood in direct ratio to the quantity taken.