Dr. Chenery says further on in the same book:—
“There is another disorder of a very serious nature which science is now laying at the doors of the liver—diabetes mellitus, or sugar in the urine. Till quite recently, this formidable affection has been regarded as having its seat in the kidneys; and it is so classified in medical writings. Later researches, however, show that the sugar has been formed in the economy before it reaches the kidneys, and that these organs act only as strainers with respect to it, removing it from the blood as they remove salt and various other substances. In seeking for the fountain-head of diabetic sugar, it is found that the liver is the great glycogenic, or sugar-originating factory of the body. In an ordinary state of health this substance is produced in just the proper amount for the uses for which it is intended, so that it is all disposed of in the organism, and does not pass off by the kidneys. If any cause interrupts the processes by which the sugar is consumed, while its manufacture goes on normally, there will come to be an over-supply of sugar in the blood, which, when it reaches 3 parts to 1,000 of the blood, will begin to pass off by the kidneys and appear in the urine. On the other hand, if an undue amount of it is formed, the consumption remaining normal, it will also accumulate in the circulation, and be eliminated by the kidneys. In either case we have diabetes, the sugar irritating and diseasing the kidneys as it passes.”
Dr. Harley, of the Royal Society of London, has made the subject of alcohol and diabetes matter for considerable study. He says a small quantity only of alcohol injected into the portal (liver) circulation of healthy animals will cause diabetic urine.
“If any one doubt the truth of the assertion that alcohol causes diabetes, let him select a case of that form of the disease arising from excessive formation, and after having carefully estimated the daily amount of sugar eliminated by the patient, allow him to drink a few glasses of wine, and watch the result. He will soon find the ingestion of the liquor is followed by an increase of sugar. If alcoholics increase the amount of saccharine matter in the urine of the diabetic, we can easily understand how their excessive use may induce the disease in individuals predisposed to it.”—Dr. Harley.
Some physicians claim that in jaundice and certain other bilious disorders even medicines prepared in alcohol are decidedly prejudicial and aggravating.
Dr. J. H. Kellogg, and other writers draw attention to the effects of alcohol in hindering the liver in its duty of destroying the toxic substances generated within the system of a sick person by the specific microbes to which the disease owes its origin, saying that the activity of the liver in destroying these poisons is one of the physiologic processes which stand between the patient and death.
The more this question is studied the more apparent is it that, other things being equal, the sick person who is cared for by a non-alcoholic physician has a much better chance of recovery than the one dosed by “a brandy doctor.”
EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL UPON THE KIDNEYS.
“The kidneys, being the chief organs for the excretion of nitrogen waste, are among the most important organs of the body. Any defect in their healthy activity leads to serious interference with the working of many organs, due to the accumulation in the body of nitrogenous waste products. If both kidneys be cut out of an animal, it dies in a few hours from blood-poisoning, due to the accumulation of waste poisonous substances which the kidneys should have got rid of. Serious kidney-disease amounts to pretty much the same thing as cutting out the organs, since they are of little use if not healthy. It is always fatal if not checked, and often kills in a short time. The things which most frequently cause kidney disease are undue exposure to cold, and indulgence in alcoholic drinks.”—Martin’s Human Body.
“The kidneys are supplied with arterial blood, which, having given up water, urea, salt, and certain other substances, either secreted or simply strained from it, returns to the kidneys nearly as bright and fresh as when it entered them. While the lungs are concerned in removing carbonic acid—the ashes of the furnace—it is the peculiar province of the kidneys to remove the products of the wear and tear of the bodily machinery—the wasted nerve and muscle—in the form of urea, or other crystallizable substances, the presence of which in the economy for any considerable time is attended with disastrous results.