WE DISEASES FROM INTEMPERANCE. E know of no limit to the diseases produced or provoked by the use of alcoholic liquors. It makes bad blood, and bad blood is a fertilizer for all kinds of disease. The liver of the drinker of alcoholic drinks is always diseased. Sometimes it is inflamed and enlarged, as we see in beer-drinkers, though it is by no means confined to them. Dr. Francis of Edinburgh (Scotland), says: "I once asked Mr. Fife, the anatomist at Edinburgh, who was many years dissector at the University, 'how great was the larg-| est-sized liver he had ever encountered in his preparation of dead bodies for collegiate purposes.' He answered: Fifty pounds, and this occurred in the person of an inebriate who had long lived in the East Indies.'" The ordinary weight of a healthy liver is from four to nine pounds. Moreover, this man's liver did not do its proper normal work, for he died of deficiency of bile. Dr. Francis says that the "livers of those who abuse their constitutions with alcohol are usually very small and hard, and of a pale straw color, and that this condition follows that of the enlarged liver. The former is filled with hard knots or tubercles, and making what the English gin-drinkers call the 'hob-nailed liver.'" Of course the liver can not do its duty in cleansing the blood in either case, and hence the alcohol-drinker is a ready victim to any disease that is abroad. In cholera seasons, the drinkers become the first victims. Dr. A. M. Adams, of Glasgow, says: "I have found the use of alcoholic drinks to be the most powerful predisposing cause of cholera with which I am acquainted; were I one of the authorities, and had the power, I would placard every spirit-shop in town with large bills containing the words, 'CHOLERA SOLD HERE.'" One of the reasons for this good doctor's opinion was, that while his cholera patients who were "temperate" died in the proportion of nineteen per cent., those who were intemperate died in the enormous proportion of ninety-one per cent. Mr. E. C. Delavan, of Albany, N. Y., a business man and a close observer of facts, says that in 1832, when the cholera broke out in Albany, he was engaged with others in erecting a large block of buildings, and had about 100 men employed thereon. They were just about to leave, when he persuaded them to remain and abstain from strong drink. They did so, and not one of them died, nor was the work intermitted one day. In another part of the city he had about fifty men engaged in digging clay. He bound them by the same bargain, and they too escaped. But another gang of thirty, in the same clay-bank, were furnished with strong drink, and ten of them died with whisky-cholera. One of Mr. Delavan's partners was so impressed with these facts, that he set inquiries on foot which gathered up the fcllowing statistics for Albany: Whole number of deaths (of persons over 16)... 336 Free and moderate drinkers. Strictly temperate..... Members of Temperance Societies.... 140 136 S 2 3 336 336 Population 20,000. Members of Temperance Societies 5,000. In New Castle (Great Britain), during one cholera season there was in the lower part of the town on Christmas day a terrible drunken scene among both men and women. Some were brawling and fighting; others were staggering drunk, all seeming to have lost shame and caring for nothing. Within two days of that time no less than ninety-eight of these persons were smitten by the pestilence, the most of whom died in a few hours. One of the worst streets was nearly swept of drunkards from one end to the other. What made matters worse was, that strong drink of some kind was usually considered a specific against the disease. We might crowd many pages with similar statements. It is believed that yellow fever might often come under the same category, that at least the first victims are usually 1881.] DISEASES FROM INTEMPERANCE. drinkers. We have the testimony of a physician in the Boston Medical Journal, that it was so in New Orleans upon one occasion, that 5,000 foreigners, who were mostly drinkers, died before the disease touched a single citizen or sober man. This testimony is from the early days of the Temperance Reformation. Why do we not have such statements now? Now and then we find them, as in the case of sun-stroke in St. Louis in 1879, when it was stated that all the cases of sun-stroke in that sudden heated term were drinking men. Too often such facts are suppressed. Our physicians, if not intentional abettors of the rum-sellers, are yet too often dependent on the deceitful "medicine," and too determined to uphold it to bring out such facts as they might about it. We must get rid of the idea that it is an excellent medicine before we can fight it very heartily. We will not dwell on such cases as these. People generally have little idea that bad blood has much to do with such diseases. They seem to think that their germs fly in the air, and are as likely to alight upon and make victims of the good and the abstinent as the vile and the tippler. Our principal object here is to find how alcohol poisons the blood, and in how many ways this poisoning shows itself. It is not an uncommon idea that alcoholic drinks produce a few definite diseases, such as gout and delirium tremens, not even reckoning intoxication, which is the first and most serious form of alcoholic disease. One physician of some note, gravely told me not long since that alcoholic drinks produced one disease only, and that was alcoholism, and when I said that alcohol caused apoplexy and delirium tremens, etc., he replied, "so do other things." The difficulty, it will be seen at once, is that alcohol is considered a specific cause of some one or more diseases, and producing them always and only. This coexists with the idea that it will cure some diseases and prevent others-consumption, for example. 43 testimony of Dr. B. W. Richardson, one of the best possible authorities, who tells us that there is an "alcoholic consumption," with well-marked peculiarities coming to those who have no hereditary phthisical predisposition. "They are often men of excellent build of body and of active mind and habits. Neither are they in the ordinary sense drunkards; they may never have been intoxicated in the whole course of their lives; but they partake freely of any and every alcoholic drink that comes in their way, and they bear alcohol with a tolerance that is remarkable to observers. More than half of those whom I have seen stricken down with alcoholic phthisis, have said that they never before had a day's illness; but, questioned closely, it was found that none of them had actually been quite well. As a rule, men of this class are thoughtless of their own health and prospects. Their faces are the best part of them; some of them have fallen back on beer, and others have quite given up drinking, do not care for it-of course they are the last ones to think that the drink has hurt them; but their case is the most hopeless of all, for there is absolutely no cure whatever for alcoholic consumption." But Dr. Richardson goes further than this: he says that "drinking people are more liable to take cold than other people." This attacks a superstition wide-spread among the people, for there is no more common medical excuse for taking "a drink of something," than to keep the drinker from taking cold. We have not space here to explain the cause of this delusion (it would occupy an entire article profitably), but we have Dr. Richardson's authority for this, and we need ask no better. After describing the condition of a person who has taken a small quantity of some alcoholic drink, sufficient to excite him without actually causing intoxication, etc., etc., he says: "Should the person in this stage go out into the cold air, he easily takes cold, and in frosty weather readily contracts Against this fallacy, we may bring the congestion of the lungs, and that disease which is known as bronchitis. Nothing is more common in winter-time than the production of disease from this cause. When I say that in our country alone thousands of persons are affected in the manner described, during sudden changes of season from warm to cold, I do not at all overestimate the danger." Dr. Richardson is not alone in this result of experience and observation. Notwithstanding the popular notion above referred to, that the drinker is safe from consumption, we find older doctors giving very decided testimony in the same direction. Dr. Grindrod says in his excellent work, "Bacchus," written more than forty years ago: "Dr. M'Lean assures me he has attended at least fifty cases of fatal consumption of the lungs brought on by intemperance." Dr. Buchan says that "malt liquors occasion obstructions and inflammations of the lungs." Dr. Mackintosh, in his "Elements of Pathology," states that among the British soldiery during the war, pneumonia of a very fatal character frequently occurred from this cause, particularly when combined with cold. Sir James Clark observes: "We believe that the abuse of spirituous liquors among the lower classes in this country is productive of tuberculous diseases, to an extent far beyond what is usually imagined." more ardent spirits, possesses a healthy stomach." Dr. Saunders, in his "Treatise on Diseases of the Liver," asserts that the stomachs of those who have died under the habit of drinking, have, on dissection, generally been found in a flabby and inelastic state, capable of secreting only diseased fluids. If Dr. James Johnson says: "The beerbibber has little reason to exult over the dram-drinker. If he escapes dropsy of the abdomen he runs the risk of water on the chest, a much worse disease. he have immunity from disorder of the liver, he becomes predisposed to derangements of the heart; he becomes overloaded with fat and dies apoplectic, etc." These doctors do not hesitate to show a great number of diseases arising from the drink. They prove just what common-sense everywhere ought to show, that the bad blood caused by alcoholic drinks breaks out in one disease or another as circumstances may decide. That the bad blood is there is shown by the plainest indications. If these cases could be readily recognized as resulting from the use of alcoholic drinks, it would be an immensc gain to health and to temperance, and the real cause would be avoided more and more, as the truth gained the attention of the people. But we are sorry to To appreciate all this fully, we need say that when it comes to a case in hand but to reflect that everybody is more the doctors, instead of warning people liable to take cold when the blood is in as they ought of their danger, lend a bad condition, and this brings us back to hand to fatal deceit. Hear what Dr. the fact that ever stares us in the face- Homer O. Hitchcock says in his Report the blood of the alcohol-drinker is always of the Michigan State Board of Health, in bad condition. This is due to the for the year 1874: “In almost all cases state of the stomach as well as of the of death more or less caused by alcohol, liver. Dr. Sewall, who is famous for there is some disease or accident interlooking into the stomachs of drunkards, vening which is credited with being the says: "Alcohol is a poison forever at war real cause. In many other instances in with man's organism, and in all its forms which persons do actually die of delirium and degrees of strength, produces irrita- tremens or even from the immediate tion of the stomach, which is liable to effects of an overdose of alcohol, the result in inflammation, ulceration, etc. It physician will trump up some disease of may be asserted with confidence, that no a more respectable sound to give to the one who indulges habitually in alcoholic | family, and this respectable lie gets into drinks, whether in the form of wine or the vital statistics." 1881.] THE FUNCTION OF SLeep. Doubtless Dr. Hitchcock has abundant proof of what he says, for doctors are not over-fond of exposing their own craft. Drinking and tippling people and some others are prone to think and to say, "Only drunk! he'll soon be over it," and they talk of the effects of the liquor passing off, "He'll soon be all right again," and the way they talk about reformed men, or rather the way in which reformed men talk about themselves, and in which temperance people speak of them in reference to these things, show that there is no adequate popular idea of the permanent effects of alcoholic drinks. The truth is, it is a terrible blood poisoner and organic deranger. Dr. Richardson (whom we delight to quote because he is so well known and so definite in his statements) says he doubts 45 if any man who has once passed through the dead-drunk stage can be quite as sound as he was before; and he further says with regard to tippling people generally: "As a cause of disease, it (alcohol) gives origin to great populations of afflicted persons, many of whom suffer even to death without suspecting from what they suffer and unsuspected. Some of these live just short of natural old age; others to ripe middle age; others only to ripe adolescence." Of heredity he says nothing here. Others say more in that line; but that requires a paper by itself, as do also the effects upon the brain and the mental condition. Who can tell where the line for "natural old age" would be drawn if the race were not poisoned, fearfully poisoned by their immense use of alcoholic liquors! JULIA COLMAN. A THE FUNCTION OF SLEEP. N interesting volume on "Sleep and|isting and traceable with care to some Sleeplessness," published recently by special ganglion of the sympathetic sysJ. M. Granville, contains certain views tem (for example, uneasiness in the "pit worthy of consideration, and some useful of the stomach," or aching pain in the hints to those who do not sleep well. lower lumbar region of the spine) are disThe author says that sleep is performed turbed or disorderly sleepers. Sleep is a by the nervous system, either through a nerve state, whether the part sleeping be single center or by the several centers the brain or certain parts of the organ, connected with various parts or organs the muscular system or viscera. The of the body, from the supreme cerebral modifications which take place in the centers which control the immediate ap- vessel supplying the system or organ paratus of intentional thought to the that sleeps are the effects or conseganglia that regulate the work of the quences, instead of the causes of its conviscera. He believes the sympathetic dition. system plays a conspicuous part in the production of the phenomenon, and this is why the due performance of the function is so readily prevented as it is by disorderly action in almost any part of the body, even when there is no sensation of pain or of uneasiness at the seat of the disturbance. People who do not sleep well and regularly are peculiarly liable to functional disorders; and, conversely, those who are subject to the anomalous maladies and symptoms too often set down to fancy, but actually ex The author devotes a chapter to the subject of going to sleep, and the use of narcotics for the purpose of inducing it, observing that "the state they produce is not sleep, but a condition of narcotism that counterfeits sleep,” adding, “When a man says, 'I want a quiet night; I can not obtain it by going to sleep, or I am afraid to trust to the chances of natural rest, so I will poison myself a little, just enough to make me unconscious or slightly paralyze my nerve centers, not enough to kill.' If this fact should be kept clearly before the mind the reckless use of drugs which produce a state that mocks sleep, would be limited." The state of inaction which is brought about by natural sleep is very different from that which is produced by paralysis of any degree. "Habit greatly helps the performance of the initial act, and the cultivation of a habit of going to sleep in a particular way, at a particular time, will do more to procure regular and healthy sleep than any other artifice. The formation of the habit is, in fact, the creation or development of a special center, or combination, in the nervous system, which will henceforward produce sleep as a natural rhyth mical process. If this were more generally recognized, persons who suffer from sleeplessness of the sort which consists in simply being 'unable to go to sleep,' would set themselves resolutely to form such a habit. It is necessary that the training should be explicit, and include attention to details. It is not very important what a person does with the intention of going to sleep, but he should do precisely the same thing, in the same way, at the same time and under as nearly as possible the same conditions, night after night for a considerable period, say three or four weeks at least. The result, as the editor himself knows from experience, will amply reward the effort." NOTES IN SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. Revival of Sodom and GomorRAH. It is reported, says a writer in the Scientific American, that French capitalists have secured a grant for a railway line from Jaffa to the interior of Palestine, which will open up the Jordan valley and the whole region north of the Suez Canal. In certain contingencies this road might become of great military usefulness, but it appears further that the productive resources of the country are considerable, and what is more surprising, that the Dead Sea itself can be turned to commercial account. Chief of these at present are the stores of natural combustibles for which that region is noted. Hitherto the main obstacle to the development of steam traffic in the Levant has been the total absence of combustible material. Not only Egypt, but the shores of Syria and the Red Sea, are completely stripped of wood, and the coal imported from the West commands a price ranging from $10 to $24 a ton. Now the masses of asphalt continually thrown up by the Dead Sea attest the presence of vast subterranean layers of fossil vegetable matter, and these signs were not long overlooked by the enterprising men attracted to Suez by the opening of the canal and the movement of commerce in that direction. Recently numerous soundings have been made between Jaffa and the Dead Sea, which, so far, have not disclosed any deposits of coal proper, but, on the other hand, have laid bare inexhaustible beds of lignite. Of itself this store of lignite is likely to prove an inestimable gain to the industries and commerce of the Levant; but we should add that the juxtaposition of asphalt in great quantities furnishes the elements of a mixture of lignite and asphaltum in the form of bricks, which is equal in heating capacity to the richest bituminous coal, while its cost on the ground is only $2.50 a ton. It is known | that similar bricks, made up of coal dust and bituminous débris from gas works, are much sought after by French railways, since, besides their heating power, they greatly facilitate stowage, owing to their regular shape. Of course, the bitumen of lower Palestine has been known from immemoral times, and was used to impart solidity to the structures of unbaked clay in Assyria and Egypt; but it may be said that the discovery of the subterranean combustible has lifted once for all the curse which has so long rested upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and will transform the wasted shores of the Dead Sea into a focus of industry and a magazine of wealth. Analysis of Barley, Rice, and MAIZE. The following comparative analysis of the three grains are by Pillitz : MAIZE. Air Dried dried. 257° F. 13'89 88,0 62'69 72'2 0'33 4'36 BARLEY. RICE. Air Dried at dried. 257° F. Air Dried at dried. 257° F. 54'07 13.83 €2.65 1923 3*08 Moisture. Starch Insoluble ash.... 1'07 96.1 Soluble in water. minoids. Soluble ash, Extractive matter. - 00,001 |