“In 1883, R. Dubois, by direct experimenting upon animals, found that the presence of alcohol in the blood much intensified the action of chloroform and thereby rendered a much less dose fatal.
“Prof. H. C. Wood of the University of Pennsylvania, in an address upon Anæsthesia to the Tenth International Medical Congress, of Berlin, in 1890, said: ‘In my own experiments with alcohol, an eighty per cent. fluid was used largely diluted with water. The amount injected into the jugular vein varied in the different experiments from 5 to 20 c. c.; and in no case have I been able to detect any increase in the size of the pulse or in the arterial pressure produced by alcohol, when the heart was failing during advanced chloroform anæsthesia. On the other hand, on several occasions, the larger amounts of alcohol apparently greatly increased the rapidity of the fall of arterial pressure, and aided materially in extinguishing the pulse.
“Sir Henry Thompson says: ‘That alcohol is an anæsthetic and paralyzant is a fact too well established to be questioned or contradicted.’
“Dr. J. J. Ridge, of London, has published elaborate tables, showing that even small doses of alcohol, averaging one tablespoonful of spirits—not quite half a wineglass of claret or champagne, and not quite a quarter of a pint of ale—impair vision, feeling, and sensibility to weight, without the subject’s being conscious of any alteration. Dr. Scougal, of New York, has repeated and confirmed these experiments, and also demonstrated that the hearing was similarly affected.
“Drs. Nichol and Mossop, of Edinburgh, conducted a series of experiments on each other, examining the eye by means of the ophthalmoscope while the system was under the influence of various drugs. They found that the nerves controlling the delicate blood-vessels of the retina were paralyzed by a dose of about a tablespoonful of brandy.
“Dr. T. D. Crothers, of Hartford, Conn., has deduced some valuable facts from his experiments with the sphygmograph, upon the action of the heart. He has found by repeated experiments that while alcohol apparently increases the force and volume of the heart’s action, the irregular tracings of the sphygmograph show that the real vital force is diminished, and hence its apparent stimulating power is deceptive.”—Extract from the Annual Address before the Medical Temperance Association at San Francisco, Cal., June 8, 1894, by Dr. I. N. Quimby, of Jersey City, N. J.
Dr. J. H. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, Mich., has made extensive experiments as to the effects of alcohol. In summing up the results of these he says:—
“It would seem that no further evidence could be required that alcohol is a narcotic and an anæsthetic, rather than a stimulant, and that its use as a supporting and tonic remedy is a practice without foundation in either scientific theory or natural clinical experience.”
Sir B. W. Richardson at a medical breakfast in London in 1895, stated that though alcohol produced an increase in the motion of the heart it was ultimately weaker in its action, so he resolved to give up using such an agent.