Volume 1

Essay on the use of alcoholic liquors in health and disease / [John Chadwick].

  • Chadwick, John
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essay on the use of alcoholic liquors in health and disease / [John Chadwick]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    from the time of taking it; and when taken in smaller quantities for a length of time, it tends to shorten the duration of life, and may produce many different diseases which terminate in death. We believe that its mode of action, when it pro- duces immediate death, may be best understood by considering its effects on the lower animals, when those effects have been produced in them in the way of experiment. M. Fontana (see Duncan's Medical Commentaries for 1787, p. 114,) found,. from experiments made on guinea-pigs and other animals, by giving spirit of wine internally—by injecting it into the anus, into the cavity of the abdomen, and into the cellular membrane, that it killed them. He found that when injected into the veins of rabbits,—if rectified, it killed them in an instant,—if diluted with water, it produced heaviness and convulsions. He also tried several experiments on cold-blooded animals, particularly leeches, turtles, and frogs. Leeches immersed in alcohol, died in a very short time: when only one half of the leech, whether the head or tail half, was plunged into the fluid, that half alone died. On turtles he found it to “ act violently,” whether taken by the mouth, or injected into the rectum or cellular tissue. He found that frogs were speedily killed by spirit, when injected under the skin. Mr. Humboldt (Annals of Medicine, 1799, p.
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