A Dissertation on Intemperance; To Which Was Awarded the Premium Offered by the Massachusetts Medical Society. - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829. Excerpt: ... is to be sure always a foul spirituous stench arising from the drunkard, and though it principally comes out of his mouth, still some of it may be exhaled from his skin. The nervous tissue, as we should naturally expect, does not escape the morbid alterations so generally diffusing themselves throughout our material organization. We cannot, to be sure, detect changes in the nervous, with the same facility as in most other vital structures; yet judging from the pathological influence exerted by ardent spirit upon its functions, we might rationally conclude that its material structure becomes more or less affected by it. In truth all our best skill in anatomy merely enables us to trace out the more prominent alterations in the living structures, while those which are more minute, yet still sufficient to derange or modify vital actions even to a very considerable extent, altogether escape us, hence the terms organic and functional diseases-; the former expressing sensible pathological changes, the latter those which the anatomist cannot detect. The term functional disease then must be regarded as serving only to express the imperfection of our senses, or our limited investigation into the minute anatomy of tissues. In the brain we not unfrequently detect an obvious pathological condition associated with intemperance, but not in its extended nervous chords, though their functions may be apparently very much disordered. The close connexion, however, existing between the brain, and the nerves which appertain to it, render it often difficult to separate their affections from each other. Sometimes a severe fit of intoxication will occasion phrenitis, and continued intemperance may cause chronic inflammation of the brain and its meninges. Other pathological condit...

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