Effects of alcohol on the human system / by N.H. Louwyck.

  • Louwyck, N. H.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Effects of alcohol on the human system / by N.H. Louwyck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/20 (page 4)
    The report of the Committee, presented to Parliament, by command of His Majesty, states that :—The abuse of alcoholic stimulants is a most potent and deadly agent of physical deterioration. Alcoholic persons are specially liable to tuberculosis and all inflammatory disorders. Kvidence was placed before the Committee that in ab¬ stinence is to be sought the source of muscular vigour and activity. Certain Insurance Tables show that of 61,215 men, between the ages of 25 and 65, 1,000 die in one year, but in abstainers only 500 die in the same period. The lunacy figures show a large and increasing number of admissions of both sexes, which are due to drink. The following facts recognised by the medical profession are published in order to carry out the re¬ commendation of the Committee, and to bring home to men and women the fatal effects of alcohol on physical efficiency :— 1. Alcoholism is a chronic poisoning resulting from the habitual use of alcohol (whether as spirits, wine, or beer), which may never go as far as drunkenness. 2. It is a mistake to say that those doing hard work require stimulants. As in fact, no one requires alcohol as either food or tonic. 3. Alcohol is in no sense a food, and cannot repair the tissues. It is really a narcotic, dulling the nerves like laudanum or opium, but is more dangerous than either in that often its first effect is to weaken a man’s self control, whilst his passions are excited, hence the num¬ ber of crimes which occur under its influence. 4. Spirits as usually taken rapidly produce alcoholism, but milder alcoholic drinks, as beer, or even cider, drunk repeatedly every day, produce after a time alcoholic poisoning with equal certaint}^ 5. The habit of drinking leads to disgust for work, the ruin of families, the neglect of social duties, misery, theft, and crime. It leads also to the hospital, for alcohol produces the most varied and the most fatal diseases, including paralysis, insanity, diseases of the stomach and liver,