HOW ALCOHOL AFFECTS THE BRAIN.
I once had the uncommon, though sad, chance of observing the same phenomenon within the brain structure of a person, who, in a paroxysm of alcoholic excitement, decapitated himself below the wheel of a railway carriage, and whose brain was instantaneously evolved from the skull by the crash. The brain itself, entire, was before me inside 3 minutes after the death. It exhaled the odor of spirit most distinctly, and its membranes and minute structures were vascular in the extreme. It looked as if it had been recently injected with vermilion. The white matter of the cerebrum, studded with red points, may scarcely be distinguished, when it was incised, by its natural whiteness; and the pia-mater, or internal vascular membrane covering the brain, resembled a fragile web of coagulated red blood, therefore tensely were its fine vessels engorged.
I should add that this condition extended through both the larger and the smaller brain, the cerebrum and cerebellum, however was not therefore marked in the medulla or commencing portion of the spinal cord.
The spinal wire and nerves.
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The action of alcohol continued beyond the primary stage, the perform of the spinal wire is influenced. Through this part of the nervous system we are accustomed, in health, to perform automatic acts of a mechanical kind, that proceed systematically even after we are thinking or speaking on other subjects. So a talented workman can continue his mechanical work perfectly, whereas his mind is bent on some other subject; and therefore we tend to all perform varied acts during a purely automatic manner, without calling in the aid of the upper centres, except one thing additional than normal happens to demand their service, upon that we think before we have a tendency to perform. Under alcohol, because the spinal centres become influenced, these pure automatic acts cease to be correctly carried on. {That the} hand may reach any object, or the foot be correctly planted, the upper intellectual centre should be invoked to make the proceeding secure. There follows quickly upon this a deficient power of co-ordination of muscular movement. The nervous control of certain of the muscles is lost, and therefore the nervous stimulus is more or less enfeebled. The muscles of the lower lip in the human subject sometimes fail 1st of all, then the muscles of the lower limbs, and it’s merit remark {that the} extensor muscles provide means prior the flexors. The muscles themselves, by now, are failing in power; they respond more feebly than is natural to the nervous stimulus; they, too, are returning under the depressing influence of the paralyzing agent, their structure is quickly deranged, and their contractile power reduced.
This modification of the animal functions beneath alcohol, marks the second degree of its action. In young subjects, there’s currently, usually, vomiting with faintness, followed by gradual relief from the burden of the poison.
Result on the brain centres.
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The alcoholic spirit carried nonetheless a further degree, the cerebral or brain centres become influenced; they are reduced in power, and the controlling influences of will and of judgment are lost. As these centres are unbalanced and thrown into chaos, the rational half of the nature of the person gives method before the emotional, passional or organic part. The explanation is currently off duty, or is fooling with duty, and every one the mere animal instincts and sentiments are laid atrociously bare. The coward shows up additional craven, the braggart additional boastful, the cruel a lot of merciless, the untruthful more false, the carnal additional degraded. ‘ In vino veritas ‘ expresses, even, indeed, to physiological accuracy, the true condition. The rationale, the emotions, the instincts, are all during a state of carnival, and in chaotic feebleness.
Finally, the action of the alcohol still extending, the superior brain centres are overpowered; the senses are beclouded, the voluntary muscular prostration is perfected, sensibility is lost, and the body lies a mere log, dead by all but one-fourth, on which alone its life hangs. The heart still remains true to its duty, and whereas it just lives it feeds the breathing power. And therefore the circulation and therefore the respiration, in the otherwise inert mass, keeps the mass inside the bare domain of life till the poison begins to expire and also the nervous centres to revive again. It is happy for the inebriate that, more often than not, the brain fails so long before the center that he has neither the power nor the sense to continue his process of destruction up to the act of death of his circulation. Thus he lives to die another day.
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