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ALCOHOLIC POISON,
increase of weight, Tt is by this means that the
drunkard often acquires a bloated appearance.
Every one knows that such an accumulation of
tissue is not healthy flesh; yet it is of the same
character as that which leads some prejudiced
scientists to pronounce in favor of aleoholie bever-
ages as a preventive of waste.
Surely, such science must be of the kind re-
ferred to by the apostle Paul when he spoke of
“science falsely so-called.”
3. Alcohol Strengthens the Muscles.
The laborer, the traveler, and the soldier use
alcohol under the delusion that it strengthens.
When fatigued, the laborer takes a glass of grog
and feels better, or thinks he does. He imagines
himself’ stronger. His increased strength, how-
ever, is wholly a matter of the imagination.
The use of alcohol makes a man feel stronger—-
wakes him believe that he can do more work, en-
dure more fatigue and hardship, and withstand a
greater degree of cold than he could do without
it; but when an actual trial is made, it soon be-
comes apparent that the ability is lacking. Feel-
ing and doing are two wholly different things; and
herve is where alcohol is so deceptive. It is a nar-
cotic, and paralyzes the nerves so that they lose
their normal sensibility. The weary man takes
a glass of brandy, and continues his toil—not be-
cause he has been strengthened, not because his
vital forces have been reinforced, but because he
THE DRUNKARD'S ARGUMENTS. 47
no longer knows that he is tired. Weariness
is an appeal for rest on the part of the tissues.
They have become worn and broken by action,
and they require time to repair themselves. Al-
cohol has the same effect upon the nerves which
control the building up of the body that chloro-
form has upon the nerves of general sensibility,
and it allays the sense of weariness in the same
way that chloroform allays pain during a surgical
operation, by paralysis. A person whose hand
has been rendered insensible to pain by intense
cold may place his fingers in the fire without suf-
fering at the time, but he is not thereby pre-
vented from being burned, any more than though
his sensibility was unimpaired; and the effects
of the destructive action of heat will ultimately
become painfully apparent.
When a man has labored until his tissues are
50 broken down that they demand time for re-
construction, alcohol will so paralyze his sensibil-
ities that he may continue laboring for a time,
but he does so at a terrible cost; for he is all the
time continuing the process of breaking down
his tissues beyond the point at which nature
warned him to desist. Not infrequently this
reckless expenditure is continued so long that
the life forces become so completely exhausted
that the individual becomes a victim of delirium
tremens, or perhaps dies from exhaustion.
Numerous experiments have shown that alco-
hol decreases muscular strength. Says Dr. Brin-