Over five thousand of the most
prominent physicians in this country had so stated it, and the proportion
was equally great in all the enlightened countries of Europe. The most
pronounced in this way, perhaps, have been the great leaders in medical
science in Austria, Germany and France. Some of the points made
against the use of alcohol were that it interferes with digestion by rendering
insoluble the active principle of the gastric juice, and especially by
preventing the solution of body-building foods. The natural action of
various organs of the body is more or less arrested by alcohol, thus reducing
the temperature. This from Dr. Edmunds already quoted: "The
blood carries certain earthy matters in it in a soluble state, these earthy
matters being necessary for the nutrition of the bones and other parts of
the body. You all know that when wine is fermented and turned from
a weak sweet wine into a strong alcoholic wine, you get what is called
a 'crust' formed on the inside of the bottle. What is that crust? That
crust consists of saline or earthy matters which were soluble in the
saccharine grape juice, but which are insoluble in the alcoholic fluids.
We find in drunkards that the blood vessels get into the same state as
the wine bottles from the deposit of earthy matter which has no business
to be deposited, and forms the 'beeswing' or crust in the blood vessels
of the drunkard, in his eye and in all of the tissues of the body.
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