Pathological changes in chronic alcoholism / by Lewis D. Mason.

  • Mason, Lewis D. (Lewis Duncan), 1843-1927.
Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathological changes in chronic alcoholism / by Lewis D. Mason. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Published in The Brooklyn. Medical journal, Jan., 1880. PATHOLOGICAL CHANGES IN CHRONIC ALCOHOLISM. BY LEWIS D. MASON, M.D., Consulting Physician to the Inebriate Asylum, Fort Hamilton, L. I. Read before the American Association for Study and Cure of Inebriety, at its regu- lar meeting, December 4th, if If we consider the serum of the blood in the habitual drunkard as an alcoholized fluid, and that alcohol existing in a certain percentage in the serum acts not only upon the serum of the blood but also upon its anatomical elements, we have a condition that modifies nutrition, producing metamorphosis and degeneration of tissue. If, in connec- tion with this, we add the fact that alcohol, per se, is an irritant, pro- ducing modification as well as degeneration of tissue independent of blood changes, we have an additional reason to regard alcohol as a disease producing agent. We have then to study the pathological effects produced by alcohol on the blood from two standpoints : First.—As to its effect on the blood itself. Secondly.—The direct effect of the alcohol in the alcoholized blood or serum upon the tissues of the body. It would be of interest to determine to what extent the serum of the blood can take up alcohol. That it does so, in common with the other fluids of the body, there can be no doubt. Blood taken from an habitual drunkard, and exposed to heat, will give off the fumes of alcohol. At autopsies on drunkards, the fluid in the ventricles of the brain has been ignited with a match. There is good reason to warrant the conclusion that not only the serum of the blood, but also the fluid of the ventricles and the cerebro- spinal fluid, in the case of habitual drunkards, contain alcohol to a greater or less extent, in some cases probably as much as is compatible with life. A series of chemical analyses, to determine the average per- centage of alcohol in the blood of habitual drunkards, would be of extreme interest. The blood in such a condition has not only its nutritive properties very much impaired and its oxygenation and circu- lation retarded, but as a builder up of tissue it must be very inferior to normal blood ; in fact, it is a disintegrator of tissue. The urine of the habitual drunkard contains a certain percentage of alcohol. The ap- plication of heat or the proper chemical tests for alcohol if applied, prove this. Indeed, if we test the urine of an abstainer within a reason- able time after he has taken alcohol, the chromic acid test will show the characteristic reaction. The effort to prove that the milk of nurs- ing mothers, using beer or other alcoholic beverages, did not contain alcohol, has resulted in failure. The toxic effect on the infant is shown