CONGESTION OF THE LUNGS.

“The vessels of the lungs are easily relaxed by alcohol; and as they, of all parts, are most exposed to vicissitudes of heat and cold, they are readily congested when, paralyzed by the spirit, they are subjected to the effects of a sudden fall of atmospheric temperature.  Thus, the suddenly fatal congestions of lungs which so easily befall the confirmed alcoholic during the severe winter seasons.”

ORGANIC DETERIORATIONS OF THE HEART.

The heart is one of the greatest sufferers from alcohol.  Quoting again from Dr. Richardson: 

“The membranous structures which envelope and line the organ are changed in quality, are thickened, rendered cartilaginous and even calcareous or bony.  Then the valves, which are made up of folds of membrane, lose their suppleness, and what is called valvular disease is permanently established.  The coats of the great blood-vessel leading from the heart, the aorto, share, not unfrequently, in the same changes of structure, so that the vessel loses its elasticity and its power to feed the heart by the recoil from its distention, after the heart, by its stroke, has filled it with blood.

“Again, the muscular structure of the heart fails, owing to degenerative changes in its tissue.  The elements of the muscular fibre are replaced by fatty cells; or, if not so replaced, are themselves transferred into a modified muscular texture in which the power of contraction is greatly reduced.

“Those who suffer from these organic deteriorations of the central and governing organ of the circulation of the blood learn the fact so insidiously, it hardly breaks upon them until the mischief is far advanced.  They are, for years, conscious of a central failure of power from slight causes, such as overexertion, trouble, broken rest, or too long abstinence from food.  They feel what they call a ‘sinking,’ but they know that wine or some other stimulant will at once relieve the sensation.  Thus they seek to relieve it until at last they discover that the remedy fails.  The jaded, overworked, faithful heart will bear no more; it has run its course, and, the governor of the blood-streams broken, the current either overflows into the tissues, gradually damming up the courses, or under some slight shock or excess of motion, ceases wholly at the centre.”

EPILEPSY AND PARALYSIS.

Lastly, the brain and spinal cord, and all the nervous matter, become, under the influence of alcohol, subject alike to organic deterioration.  “The membranes enveloping the nervous substance undergo thickening; the blood-vessels are subjected to change of structure, by which their resistance and resiliency is impaired; and the true nervous matter is sometimes modified, by softening or shrinking of its texture, by degeneration of its cellular structure or by interposition of fatty particles.  These deteriorations of cerebral and spinal matter give rise to a series of derangements, which show themselves in the worst forms of nervous diseases—­epilepsy; paralysis, local or general; insanity.”