Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why. Allen Martha Meir

      “In a feverish condition, from whatever cause, obstructed perspiration, excitement by alcoholic liquors, overloading the stomach with food, fear, anger or whatever depresses or disturbs the nervous system, the lining of the stomach becomes somewhat red and dry, at other times pale and moist, and loses its smooth and healthy appearance, the secretions become vitiated, greatly diminished or entirely suppressed.”

      “Alcohol, even in a diluted form, has the peculiar power of interfering with the ordinary process of digestion.

      “As long as alcohol remains in the stomach in any degree of concentration, the process of digestion is arrested, and is not continued until enough gastric juice is thrown out to overcome its effects.” —Tracy’s Physiology, page 90.

      “A vast number of persons suffer from alcoholic dyspepsia without knowing its cause; people who were never drunk in their lives and consider themselves very temperate. Abstinence from alcohol, the cause of the trouble, is the true remedy.”

      “The common idea that alcohol acts as an aid to digestion is without foundation. Experiments on the artificial digestion of food, in which the natural process is closely imitated, show that the presence of alcohol in the solvents employed interferes with and weakens the efficacy of the solvents. It is also one of the most definite of facts that persons who indulge even in what is called the moderate use of alcohol suffer often from dyspepsia from this cause alone. In fact, it leads to the symptoms which, under the varied names of biliousness, nervousness, lassitude and indigestion, are so well and extensively known.

      “From the paralysis of the minute blood-vessels which is induced by alcohol, there occurs, when alcohol is introduced into the stomach, injection of the vessels and redness of the mucous lining of the stomach. This is attended by the subjective feeling of a warmth or glow within the body, and according to some, with an increased secretion of the gastric fluids. It is urged by the advocates of alcohol that this action of alcohol on the stomach is a reason for its employment as an aid to digestion, especially when the digestive powers are feeble. At best this argument suggests only an artificial aid, which it cannot be sound practice to make permanent in place of the natural process of digestion. In truth, the artificial stimulation, if it be resorted to even moderately, is in time deleterious. It excites a morbid habitual craving, and in the end leads to weakened contractile power of the vessels of the stomach, to consequent deficiency of control of those vessels over the current of blood, to organic impairment of function, and to confirmed indigestion. Lastly, it is a matter of experience with me, that in nine cases out of ten, the sense of the necessity, on which so much is urged, is removed in the readiest manner, by the simple plan of total abstinence, without any other remedy or method.”

      “Especially in the matter of support, it is essential to our inquiry to examine fully into alcoholic influence on the change by which food introduced into the stomach becomes capable of passing into the circulation and constituent elements of the living frame. It may be best to suppose a case for illustration. Here, then, is a child of, say, six or seven years of age. This child is of the slenderer sex and has been brought into a state of extreme weakness as the consequence of fever. The fury of the disease is expended, but it has, as nearly as may be, extinguished life. The medical man’s one hope for saving this child is now concentrated in what he fancies to be ‘support.’ Beef-tea, arrowroot and port wine are prescribed. Let it be kept in mind that the pure wine of the grape is discarded in favor of alcoholic wine. Our question is, What effect will the alcohol in this wine have on that process by which the food is to prove really nourishing, and so to be that support which is the only hope for this child? Will it help her? or will it so hinder the necessary change in the food as to kill her, unless she has sufficient strength left to get above its influence? These are surely important questions. Neither of them can be set at rest by the fact that she recovers; for she may have strength enough, as many have had, to survive even a serious error in her treatment.

      “What light, then, does true science throw on these important questions? All who know anything on the subject are aware that alcohol, instead of dissolving food, or aiding in its dissolution, is one of the most powerful agents in preventing that dissolution. On what principle, then, is it possible that its being mixed with the materials of food, in this case, can aid in their dissolution, so that they may more easily be changed into the fresh blood required to sustain and recover life in this child?”

      “Here, then, is indisputable evidence that alcohol effectually prevents that process which is known as digestion, and which is essential to food’s being of any use to support life in man. On what principle can the physician explain his introduction of it into the stomach of a child whose thread of life is attenuated to the slenderest hair?

      “We urge the chemical truth that the alcohol, given to promote support, is of such a nature as to prevent that which would nourish, from effecting the end so much to be desired, and for which true food is adapted.”