poeia of aids to further indigestion, in which the
afflicted who nurse their own diseases so liberally and innocently
indulge, are tried in vain. I do not strain a syllable when I state
that the worst forms of confirmed indigestion originate in the practice
that is here explained. By this practice all the functions are vitiated,
the skin at one moment is flushed and perspiring, and at the next moment
it is pale, cold and clammy, while every other secreting structure is
equally disarranged."
TIC-DOULOUREUX AND SCIATICA.
Nervous derangements follow as a matter of course, for the delicate
membranes which envelope and immediately surround the nervous cords, are
affected by the alcohol more readily than the coarser membranous
textures of other parts of the body, and give rise to a series of
troublesome conditions, which are too often attributed to other than the
true causes. Some of these are thus described: "The perverted condition
of the membranous covering of the nerves gives rise to pressure within
the sheath of the nerve, and to pain as a consequence. To the pain thus
excited the term neuralgia is commonly applied, or 'tic;' or, if the
large nerve running down the thigh be the seat of the pain, 'sciatica.'
Sometimes this pain is developed as a toothache. It is pain commencing,
in nearly every instance, at some point where a nerve is inclosed in a
bony cavity, or where pressure is easily excited, as at the lower
jawbone near the centre of the chin, or at the opening in front of the
lower part of the ear, or at the opening over the eyeball in the frontal
bone."
DEGENERATION OF THE LIVER.
The organic deteriorations which follow the long-continued use of
alcoholic drinks are often of a serious and fatal character. The same
author says: "The organ of the body, that, perhaps, the most frequently
undergoes structural changes from alcohol, is the _liver_. The capacity
of this organ for holding active substances in its cellular parts, is
one of its marked physiological distinctions. In instances of poisoning
by arsenic, antimony, strychnine and other poisonous compounds, we turn
to the liver, in conducting our analyses, as if it were the central
depot of the foreign matter. It is, practically, the same in respect to
alcohol. The liver of the confirmed alcoholic is, probably, never free
from the influence of the poison; it is too often saturated with it. The
effect of the alcohol upon the liver is upon the minute memb
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