Recent researches on the action of alcohol in health and in sickness : a lecture / by G. Sims Woodhead.

  • Woodhead, G. Sims.
Date:
1903
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Recent researches on the action of alcohol in health and in sickness : a lecture / by G. Sims Woodhead. 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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    coiisidemble time on the living protoplasm of the nerve cell”; ami, again : “Alcohol, which was supposed to hi; the least deleterious of all the series, has a very definite and destructive elFect upon the neiwe cells,” Action of Alcohol on the Nerve Fibres. As T have j)ointed out el.sewhere,i there was at one time, before the minute structure of the brain had been carefully studied, and, con- sequently, before the evidences of di.seasc that are found in the nerve cells of the hi-ain had been recognised, a certain danger that the im- ])ortance of the alterations in the nerve fibres in cases of alcoliolism might he over e.stimated. The paralysis and other alcoholic nervous symptoms were, in most cases, ascribed almost entii'ely to changes in the peripheral nerves. Now, however, that marked pathological changes have been demonstrated in the nerve cells, there appears to be a danger that we may go to the opposite extreme, and discount the poisonous action of alcohol on these nerve fibres. Just as diptheria toxin acts both upon the nerve cells and the nerve fibres (Sidney Martin), ^ so alcohol exerts its poisonous action on both these sets of tissues. Any account of the pathological changes induced in the nerve fibres, would, I am afraid, be far too technical for any but a medical audience, but I may say that if you look upon the nerve as an electric wire or core with an outer or insulating covering you may follow my description. First of all, in these toxic conditions the outer covering breaks down ; then, after a time, the central core, corre.sponding to the wire—the axis cylinder, as it is called—becomes irregularly thickened and thinned, so that, instead of a solid rod of equal thickness, Ave have something almost like a string of beads. Wherever this irregular thickening is produced, the impulses are irregularly transmitted along the nei'ves, and the patient finds that his experience is no longer to be relied on ; he is thoroughly at faidt, he is unable to translate the sensations transmitted by these altered nerves, and he is unable to keep his various muscles under control simply because his experience no longer informs him what force he should send along a certain nerve in order to bring about the required stimulation of a muscle or group of muscles. In addition to these changes in the actual nerve fibres, there is, in alcoholic poisoning, an increase in the amount of fibrous tissue formed between them, just as there is around the small vessels of the liver and certain other organs. The Cumulative Action of Alcohol. It must be noted that the above changes in the nerve usually come on suddenly, and in many cases appear to result from the action of ' “The Pathology of Alcoholism,” Med. Tcmj). Her., 1903, vol. vi., p. 81. ^ StijjpL Loc. Govt. Bd. Hepl., London, 1902-3, p. 427, and “ (loulstonian Lectures on the Chemical Pathology of Diphtheria,” Brit. Med. Joum. London, 1892, vol. i., pp. 641, 696, 75.5.