The effective of alcohol upon the human brain : a lecture / by Victor Horsley.

  • Horsley, Victor.
Date:
1900
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The effective of alcohol upon the human brain : a lecture / by Victor Horsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Alcohol the Unsuspected Cause of Certain Forms of Paralysis. Thus, while there are forms of paralysis which are now well recognised by the medical profession to be the direct effect of alcohol poisoning, the individuals affected are never considered by their friends to be drunk, nor are they ever in the popular sense intoxicated, i.n., rendered partly unconscious, and thus the origin of the disease is not ascribed to its true cause. Turning now from these deep-seated and chronic alcoholic affections to the consideration of the more immediate effects of the drug, it may possibly be unknown to some of those present that all drugs have a selective action, that is, that they act on the various parts of our structure by means of a chemical affinity, and it follows therefore that as these parts differ from one another so also do the effects produced upon them. In fact, as Professor Ehrlich has pointed out, the action of any drug is merely a question of chemical affinity, under which some organs or even parts of organs are affected and others are spared. The Action of Alcohol on the Peripheral Nerves. This is particularly observable in the case of alcohol, which acts especially on the peripheral nerves, i.e., on the nerves running in the limbs and the extremities, and thus it is that when alcohol is taken in quantities not sufficient to produce drunkenness, but enough to justify the term “soaking,” we see that these nerves in the extremities become paralysed. It is to be noted that though this condition must have been observed for thousands of years, it is only within the last forty that its signification has been understood. We must now familiarise ourselves with the various elements of the nervous system which investigation has shown to be the commonest points of attack. The contents of the skull consist of a large brain or cerebrum and a small brain or cerebellum, both of these being connected by nerve fibres in the spinal cord with the nerves in the limbs, with the sensory nerve endings in the skin, and with the muscles. The relations of all these parts is strikingly exhibited in one of Professor Fraser’s photographs (fig. 1) of the head and neck in which the outer part of the skull and the soft parts have been removed, shewing the large and the small brain with the spinal cord leading downwards from thence. From the spinal cord nerves may be seen running out into the neck and thence into the upper limb. The next photograph is a representation of a plaster cast (fig. 2) of a dissection by Professor Cunningham, in which is shown very clearly the convoluted surface of the large brain. \ our attention must first be directed to the fact that the two principal grooves, the fissure of