The agency of alcohol, as illustrated by accurate dissections : being an account of Professor Sewall's drawings of the stomach, exhibiting its state in health, and under the various stages of alcoholic excitement and disease.

  • Sewall, Thomas.
Date:
[©1843?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The agency of alcohol, as illustrated by accurate dissections : being an account of Professor Sewall's drawings of the stomach, exhibiting its state in health, and under the various stages of alcoholic excitement and disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Plate 2. TliR moderate (Iriuket's atouiacb. rinte 2. Fig. 2., the free-moderate drinker's stomach. What gtneratea the drunkard's appetite ? Plate 3. Drunkard's stomach. Rule for rclormed drunkards. Restornfivennd ropniring power. In the J2nd] Platic, wo have exhibited the internal surface of the stomach; of the temporato drinker, the man who takes his glass of mint eling in the' morning, or his toddy on going to bed; or of him who takes his two or three fflasses of Madeira at his dinner. And hero the work of destruction begins. That beautiful net work of blood-vessels which was invisible in the healthy stomach, being excited by the stinmlus of alcohol, becomes dilated and distended with blood, visible and distinct. This effect is produced upon the well-known: law of the animal economy, that an irritant applied to a sensitive texture of the hodi/, induces an increased Jioic of Uood to the part. The mucous or inner coati of the stomach is a sensitive membrane, and is subject to this law. A practical] illustration of this principle is shown by reference to the human eye. If a few drops of alcohol or any other irritating substance, be brought in contact with. the delicate coats of the eye, the network of fine vessels which were before? invisible, becomes distended with blood and are easily seen. If this operation; be repeated daily, as the temperate drinker takes his alcohol, the vessels becomes habitually increased in size and distended with blood. Besides this injected 1 and dilated state of the vessels of the stomach, the mucous coat of the organ^. always becomes thickened and softened; and these changes occur in the? I^so called] temperate drinker as well as in the confirmed drunkard. It is hy this temperate drinlcing that the appetite of the inebriate is first' acquired; for by nature man has no taste or desire for alcohol; it is as unnaturali and averse to his constitution as to that of the horse or the ox; nor is there any.- apology for its use by man,'that does not equally apply to the brute. Plate [^3] represents the stomach of the confirnied drunkard; the man who;i has become habitually accustomed to the use of alcoholic drinks. And here we? find the blood-vessels of the inner coat, which in the temperate [^rather,, moderate] drinker were only slightly enlarged^ so fully developed as to render: the most minute branches visible to the eye, like the rum blossoms on the drun- kard's face; and this enlargement does not depend upon the perpetual presencec of alcohol, as in the temperate [^moderate] drinker, but it has become so? permanent and fixed that they retain their unnatural size even after death;: unless indeed the inebriate has for some time previous to this event abandoned] the use of alcohol, and given nature time to restore them to their natural size The mucous coat becomes thickened and softened, which often results in ulcera- tion. It sometimes happens, after this state has continued for some time, that all the coats of the stomach become implicated, and are found in a very , thickened and indurated condition; and thus the way is prepared for scirrhus,^j cancer, and other organic affections. In this state, the inebriate is never easy or satisfied, unless his stomach is excited by the presence of this or some other narcotic poison. Whenever these are withheld, he is afflicted with loss ot ' appetite, nausea, gnawing pain, and a sinking sensation at the stomach, lassitude, debility, and temporary disturbance of all the functions of the body. It is under these circumstances, and in this condition of the stomach, that the I drunkard finds it so difficult to resist the cravings of his appetite, and to reform .' his habits. Difficult but not impossible. Thousands thus far sunk to ruin have ' reformed, and thousands arc now undergoing the experiment. But it is only by total abstinence that reformation can be accomplished. No one may hope { to reform by degrees, or to be cured by substituting one form of alcohol far that of another. So long as he indulges in the smallest degree, so long will his i propensity to drink be perpetuated, and his stomach exhibit traces of disease. AVhat takes place in the stomach of the reformed drunkard, the individual; who abandons the use of all intoxicating drinks? The stomach by that cvtraor- dinary poicor of self-resloration icith which it is endowed, gradually resumes ilf natural appearance. Its engorged blood-vessels become reduced to theii original size, and its n.atural color and healthy sensibility return. A few wcckf or months, according to the observation I have made, will accomplish this renovation ; after which tlio individual has no longer any snffcring or desire iov alcohol. This process is greatly facilitated and rendered more easy to thci