On the use and abuse of alcoholic liquors, in health and disease / by William B. Carpenter. With a pref. by D. F. Condie.

  • Carpenter, William Benjamin, 1813-1885.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the use and abuse of alcoholic liquors, in health and disease / by William B. Carpenter. With a pref. by D. F. Condie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    single fresh case occurred among them. During the present epi- demic, the writer has learned from various sources that a considera- ble proportion of those, in whom the liability to the disease was not evidently produced by the condition of the locality in which they resided, might be considered as deriving a predisposition to it from habitual Intemperance; — many establishments having lost those men, and those only, who had been accustomed to free indulgence in the use of alcoholic liquors. The general connection between the intemperate habits of a population, and its high rate of mortality from various causes, will be shown hereafter; and a high rate of mortality is always indicative of a large amount of sickness, although the ratio between the two is by no means constant. 66. Gout and Rheumatism. — Among the general disorders of nutrition, to which the intemperate use of Alcoholic liquors certainly predisposes, although it may not of itself cause them, are Gout and Rheumatism. The former is most common among those who have been accustomed both to eat and to drink freely; and it is favoured by such a use of alcoholic liquors, as stimulates the stomach to digest more azotized' aliment than the system can appropriate. This may be regarded as the fundamental cause of the disease, when it occurs in its sthenic form. Of the ulterior stages of it, we yet know too little to enable us to trace with certainty the effect of alcohol upon each of them; but this much is pretty certain,—that an impaired condition of the nutritive operations will be favourable to the pro- duction of the materies morbi,2 whatever be its nature;—that this will be further promoted by any impediment to the due oxidation of the constituents of the blood, such as the admixture of Alcohol has been shown to occasion; and that the elimination of this morbid matter will be obstructed by that torpid condition of the Liver and Kidneys, to which these organs are especially liable in those who habitually over-excited them in earlier life f§ 58). In the produc- tion of Rheumatism, also, we may clearly trace the aggravating in- fluence of habitual excess in the use of alcoholic liquors, especially if the materies morbi2 be, as many suppose, Lactic Acid,3 or one of its compounds. For whilst the disordered condition of the assimila- tive and nutritive operations will give a special tendency to the pro- duction of this substance, the impediment to its oxygrnation4 pre- sented by the presence of alcohol in the blood will cause it to be retained and to accumulate there, instead of being burned off (which it ought to be, as fast as formed) and escaping from the lungs in the aoudition of carbonic acid and water.5 Here, again, the torpor of 1 Azotized — containing nitrogen, as animal flesh. 1 Materia morbi—the matter or material causing disease. * Lactic acid — an acid obtained from milk. • Oxygenation — being supplied with oxygen. 'This idea of the influence of alcohol hi conducing to the retention of