ely lubricated and kept apart. In old age
we see the effects of modification of membrane naturally induced; we see
the fixed joint, the shrunken and feeble muscle, the dimmed eye, the
deaf ear, the enfeebled nervous function.

"It may possibly seem, at first sight, that I am leading immediately
away from the subject of the secondary action of alcohol. It is not so.
I am leading directly to it. Upon all these membranous structures
alcohol exerts a direct perversion of action. It produces in them a
thickening, a shrinking and an inactivity that reduces their functional
power. That they may work rapidly and equally, they require to be at all
times charged with water to saturation. If, into contact with them, any
agent is brought that deprives them of water, then is their work
interfered with; they cease to separate the saline constituents
properly; and, if the evil that is thus started, be allowed to continue,
they contract upon their contained matter in whatever organ it may be
situated, and condense it.

"In brief, under the prolonged influence of alcohol those changes which
take place from it in the blood corpuscles, and which have already been
described, extend to the other organic parts, involving them in
structural deteriorations, which are always dangerous, and are often
ultimately fatal."

ACTION OF ALCOHOL ON THE STOMACH.

Passing from the effect of alcohol upon the membranes, we come to its
action on the stomach. That it impairs, instead of assisting digestion,
has already been shown in the extract from Dr. Monroe, given near the
commencement of the preceding chapter. A large amount of medical
testimony could be quoted in corroboration, but enough has been educed.
We shall only quote Dr. Richardson on "Alcoholic Dyspepsia:"

"The stomach, unable to produce, in proper quantity, the natural
digestive fluid, and also unable to absorb the food which it may
imperfectly digest, is in constant anxiety and irritation. It is
oppressed with the sense of nausea; it is oppressed with the sense of
emptiness and prostration; it is oppressed with a sense of distention;
it is oppressed with a loathing for food, and it is teased with a
craving for more drink. Thus there is engendered, a permanent disorder
which, for politeness' sake, is called dyspepsia, and for which
different remedies are often sought but never found. Antibilious
pills--whatever they may mean--Seidlitz powders, effervescing waters,
and all that pharmaco