system. With every breath inhaled
the life-giving oxygen is taken into the body; providing that the person
is not in a close room from which the fresh air is excluded.

Any substance taken into the body which interferes with the reception of
oxygen into the blood, and with the giving off of carbon dioxide from
the same is a dangerous substance.

_Alcohol is such a substance._

It has already been stated that it is the duty of the little red
corpuscles in the blood to take up oxygen in the lungs, and carry it to
every part of the body, and upon the return passage to the lungs to
convey the _debris_, or used-up material, from the tissues, called
carbon dioxide gas. A little vapor and ammonia accompany this gas. The
action of alcohol upon these little corpuscles, or carriers of the
blood, is to somewhat harden and shrivel them, so that they are unable
to take up and carry as much oxygen as they can when no injurious
substance is present in the blood. In consequence of this, the blood can
never be so pure when alcohol is present, as it may be in the absence of
this agent.

The following is taken from _The Temperance Lesson Book_, by B. W.
Richardson, M. D.:--

"When the blood in the veins is floating toward the right side
of the heart, which communicates with the lungs, it carries with
it the carbonic acid (_carbon dioxide_), and, as I have found by
experiment, a great part of this gas is condensed in these
little bodies, the corpuscles. Arrived at the lungs, the blood
comes into such contact with the air we breathe, that the
oxygen gas in the air is freely absorbed by the little
corpuscles, while the carbonic acid is given up into the
air-passages of the lungs, and is thrown off with every breath
we throw out. In this process the blood changes in color. It
comes into the lungs of a dark color; it goes out of them a
bright red. * * * * * The parts of the blood on which alcohol
acts injuriously are the corpuscles and the fibrine. The red
corpuscles are most distinctly affected. They undergo a peculiar
process of shrinking from extraction of water from them. They
also lose some of their power to absorb oxygen from the air. In
confirmed spirit-drinkers the face and hands are often seen of
dark mottled color, and in very bad specimens of the kind, the
face is sometimes seen to be quite dark. This is because the
blood cannot take up the vital