Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Alcohol and the human brain. 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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![ment before, and it may not succeed, but so certair* am I that it will, that I purpose never to put the bottle to my lips and introduce into my system a fiend to steal away my brain. Edmund Burke, when he heard William Pitt say in Parliament that England would stand till the day of judgment, rose and replied ; What I fear is the day of no judg- ment. When Booth was about to assassinate Lin- coln, his courage failed him, and he rushed away from the theater for an instant into the nearest res- taurant and called for brandy. Harden the brain by drenching it in alcohol and you harden the moral nature. If you will fasten your attention on the single fact, that alcohol hardens this albuminous sub- stance with which I place it in contact, you will have in that single strategic circumstance an ex- planation of most of its ravages upon the blood and nerves and brain. I beg you to notice that the white of an egg in the goblet does not become hardened by exposure to the air. I have allowed it to remain exposed for a time, in order that you may see that there is no legerdemain in this ex- periment. [Laughter.] I now pour alcohol upon this albuminous fluid, and if the result here is what it has been in other cases, I shall pretty soon be able to show you a very good example of what co- agulated albumen is in the nervous system and blood corpuscles. You will find this white of an egg gradually so hardened that you can take it out without a fork. I notice already that a mysterious change in it has begun. A strange thickening shoots through the fluid mass. This is your](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21028953_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
