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Abstract
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The investigation I am about to describe to-night has been directed more particularly to the acquisition of knowledge concerning the conditions affecting the development of symptoms which form the picture of acute alcoholic intoxication. The results obtained formed the answer to specific problems of alcoholic intoxication requiring elucidation by the Central Control Board. It is clear that in such an inquiry the actions of alcohol on the central nervous system demand most attention. This does not mean that the toxic effects of alcohol on other systems in the body--as, for instance, the alimentary canal, liver, and circulatory system--are not important, but rather that these latter assume greater comparative importance in investigations concerning the more chronic actions of alcohol. While it is true also that, even in the case of acute actions, the effects of small doses of alcohol present a large field of investigation, it was desirable in the experiments to be described to produce the fully developed symptoms of intoxication in most of the experi ments. Many of the facts observed can, no doubt, be extended to the more mild symptoms resulting from small doses of alcohol.
In beginning an investigation of this type, the obvious and most direct method to employ would be to determine the effects of alcohol on the nervous system by measuring these actions and relating them to the amount of alcohol in the nervous system. Unfortunately this mode of attack is impossible, for any surgical interference with the nervous tissues would immediately make the experiment so artificial as to prevent its application to questions of alcoholic intoxication as usually understood. It appeared possible, however, that information of a fundamental nature might be obtained by determining the conditions which affected the entrance of alcohol into the blood, after being taken into the stomach. It is probable that the distribution of alcohol in the nervous system is directly related to the amount in the blood, and, if this is so, obviously some advance can be made in correlating intoxication and alcohol in nervous tissues. I wish, however, to make it clear that, although there is undeniably a general relation between blood and nerve alcoholic distribution, it has never been proved that the same relation always holds under all conditions. It is well to recognize the possible frailty of the methods employed at the outset.
Another great difficulty in working on a subject of this nature is that, whereas it is possible to determine exactly how much alcohol a man has drunk and to state exactly how much he has in unit volume of blood at any moment, it is not possible to say how many units of intoxication he exhibits. If we only had some means of describing the man A as ten units drunk and the man B fifty units drunk, a more satisfactory state would exist. As matters stand, it appears more probable that alcoholic intoxication will disappear altogether before we develop the standards and units of drunkenness. One other difficulty about intoxication is the impossibility of considering the condition only from a static point of view. One man might at a specific moment be more obviously intoxicated than a second man, yet half an hour later may be more sober than the latter--that is to say, he may make a more rapid recovery. We must, therefore, in all cases consider the time factor and its relation to intensity of intoxication.
After having emphasized some of the difficulties and limitations...
Available: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/c7hwbb24
Language: en |