Gout is the common nemesis of those indulging in alcoholic beverages, more especially wine and beer, due to the excessive formation or retention of urate of soda in the body. This produces inflammation of the joints, and other evils—among them the gouty kidney, named above, which is always ultimately fatal. Rigid arteries are likewise commonly due to alcoholism and gout. If one of these bursts in the brain, apoplexy results.
Longevity is diminished by immoderate indulgence in alcohol. The statistics of Temperance Insurance Societies, show much better results among teetotalers than among moderate drinkers. It is only fair to add that although the latter are supposed to consist of moderate drinkers—and particular enquiries are always made on this point before insurance—it is probable that a large proportion of them exceed 1½ ounces of alcohol per day. Making due allowance for this fact, the statistics show a great superiority in the expectation of life of teetotalers.
Factors Modifying the Effects of Alcohol.—1. Age and Sex.—Until adult life is reached, total abstinence from alcohol should be enforced. The delicate nervous system of children is easily disturbed by it, and it appears in some measure to retard growth. Another argument against giving alcohol before adult age is reached, is still more important. It is at this period of life that habits are chiefly formed, and a craving for alcohol may be insidiously produced, destined to have most baneful results.
Old people, if ordered spirits for medical reasons, should drink them well diluted.
Women are much more easily affected by alcohol than men, and if they acquire the habit of excess, the hope of reformation is even less than with men.
2. Exercise has a most important influence in modifying the effects of alcohol. Those of sedentary occupations and living in towns, cannot oxidise as much as those engaged in active out-door work, and are consequently much more prone to suffer. A game-keeper in the Scotch Highlands may possibly live to a good old age, notwithstanding the fact that he consumes an amount of whiskey that would have sent a sedentary man to his grave in the course of a few years.
3. The Condition of the Stomach has also great influence. When the stomach is empty, alcohol produces at once a powerful reflex stimulation of the heart, and becomes quickly absorbed into the circulation. Thus intoxication may be produced by a quantity that would have had little effect if taken with a meal.
4. The State of Concentration or Dilution modifies greatly the action of alcohol, the local action on the stomach and the reflex stimulation being much greater than when it is concentrated, and injurious effects being much more likely to occur.
5. Cold and Heat modify the action of alcohol. A smaller quantity of hot spirits and water will intoxicate than of cold; the heat stimulating the heart, and so making the absorption of the alcohol more rapid. A glass of hot spirits and water will often cause sleep, by drawing the blood towards the abdominal organs. The fact that persons, who have been drinking spirits in a warm room, on going out into the cold air become suddenly intoxicated, seems opposed to what has been already said. But probably this is due to the cold causing contraction of the arteries of the skin, and so driving more of the blood loaded with alcohol to the internal organs and the brain (Brunton).
6. Mental Occupation has some influence in modifying the effects of alcohol. Topers have found that if they try to converse during their debauch—the conversation implying increased functional activity of the brain, and therefore a freer circulation of blood in it—intoxication occurs much more readily, than when the mind is not active.