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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 45

Diseases of the Body from Alcohol

page 52

Diseases of the Body from Alcohol.

It will easily be understood from the preceding lessons that alcohol is a cause of many diseases amongst those members of the human family who insist on drinking it, instead of trusting entirely to water as the natural beverage.

Alcohol produces many diseases; and it constantly happens that persons die of diseases which have their origin solely in the drinking of alcohol, while the cause itself is never for a moment suspected. A man may be considered by his friends and neighbours, as well as by himself, to be a sober and a temperate man. He may say quite truthfully that he never was tipsy in the whole course of his life; and yet it is quite possible that such a man may die of disease caused by the alcohol he has taken, and by no other cause whatever. This is one of the most dreadful evils of alcohol, that it kills insidiously, as if it were doing no harm, or as if it were doing good, while it is destroying life.

Another great evil of it is, that it assails so many different parts of the body. It hardly seems credible, at first sight, that the same agent can give rise to the many different kinds of diseases it does give rise to. In fact, the universally of its action has blinded even learned men as to its potency for destruction.

Step by step, however, we have now discovered that its modes of action are all very simple, and are all the same in character; and that the differences that have been and are seen in different persons under its influence are due mainly to the organs or organ which first give way under it. Thus, if the stomach gives way first, we say that the person has indigestion or dyspepsia, or failure of the stomach; if the brain gives way first, we say the person has paralysis, apoplexy, or brain disease; if the liver gives way first, we say the man has liver disease, and so on.

Besides the diseases of the organs named there are others that are favoured by alcohol which are extremely painful to bear. Gout is one of these diseases, rheumatism is another.

I must name one other disease specially, because it is so common, I refer to derangement of the stomach or indigestion.

All persons who indulge much in any form of alcoholic drink, are troubled with indigestion, When they wake in the morning they find their mouth dry, their tongue loaded, and their apetite bad. In course of time they become confirmed "dyspeptics," and as many of them find a temporary relief from the distress at the stomach and the deficient appetite from which they suffer by taking more stimulant, they increase the quantity taken and so make matters much worse. They now become actually ill from weakness of stomach and imperfect feeding; their breath becomes offensive, and soon the mind is depressed and languid. Such persons, in very many instances, fall lower and lower into the vice of drinking heavily. They feel as if they could not live without their fatal master. They tell you it is both food and drink, and in this delusion they persist until they are made the victims of deadly disease from its use,