The dominant note of the discussion that for years has been waged in scientific and medical circles as to the effect of alcohol on the human constitution has been, to the puzzled layman at any rate, the insistent, reiterated cry of the fundamental “mystery” of alcohol. Alcohol is poison! cries one school. It is not anything of the sort, being, as a matter of fact, a food! retorts the opposing school. Its use in health or its administration to patients sick of any ailment is hardly short of a crime, declares one leading physician. Tut! tut! alcohol in moderation does no harm, and it is invaluable in the treatment of many diseases! replies another. And so the arguments proceeded.
Summing up his views of the deliberations of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, recently held at Leicester, England, and which formed a storm center for the great alcohol debate, a noted chemist in London “Science,” said that we know how far the sun is, and can tell the weight of the earth, predict when the next comet may be expected, and give true answers to many other important questions, but we do not know “anything to speak of” on the subject of alcohol. As to the discussions that have waged at Leicester and elsewhere on the question of the medical use of alcohol, the general impression left on the world of laymen is that they all (the noted authorities) disagreed with one another more or less, and that nobody can declare with any scientific authority whether alcoholic liquor is good for us or bad for us.
We propose here to describe the work of one scientist who has made experiments which enable him to declare with authority that alcohol is injurious. This investigator is Charles E. Stewart, M. D., of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. He has closely studied the work of Sir Edward Wright, London, the discoverer of “Opsonins”; and his experiments were suggested by those of Wright. They led him to the discovery that alcohol has a harmful effect on the blood by lowering its supply of opsonins.
It has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of most students of Wright and Metchnikoff, and their allies, that the opsonins form one of the most valuable of the body’s defences against disease. And if Dr. Stewart has demonstrated that alcohol poisons the opsonins, it must be admitted that at last a positive and tangible proof has been brought forward of alcohol’s harmful qualities. What nourishes and strengthens the blood, helps the lifeforce within us; what weakens or poisons the blood, is an attack upon the very citadel of vitality. Alcohol, says Dr. Stewart, is such an enemy.
In such diseases as pneumonia and tuberculosis, the white cells, according to Wright, cannot effectually combat the germs unless there are plenty of opsonins present to aid them. Now, in treating pneumonia and tuberculosis, many practitioners encourage the use of alcohol. Dr. Stewart believed that alcohol was injurious. Having heard Sir W. Edward Wright’s lectures, he asked himself the question:
“Can the evil effects of alcohol be due to its lowering of the opsonic power of the blood?”
He instituted a series of experiments to determine, if possible, the facts in the case. He first of all administered to four persons who all their lives had been total abstainers, two ounces each of port wine. The normal opsonic power of each of these individuals had been determined as being 75 or above—that is to say, it was well above the point at which the opsonic power must be maintained in order that the white cell may do effective fighting. At the time when the subjects took the port wine, the first subject had a normal amount of opsonic power to resist the germ of tuberculosis which may be expressed by the term 1.13., and a normal power of resistance to the pus germ, which infects wounds, of 1.06. After drinking the wine, both those powers of resistance were lowered most perceptibly; the first to .85, and the second to .67. Similar results, in greater or less degree, followed in all other cases. The port wine decreased the power of the blood to make opsonic sauce for the white cells.
In a second series of experiments, two ounces of Scotch whisky were taken an hour apart; that is, the normal index was taken, and immediately afterwards an ounce of the Scotch whisky was taken, an hour later another ounce, and an hour after this the index was taken again. The results here were similar. For the germs of tuberculosis it was discovered that the opsonic power had dropped 10% and for the streptococci (or pus-forming) germs about 8%.
In another experiment where two ounces of sherry wine were used, the opsonic power for the germs of tuberculosis dropped 11% and for the streptococci 5%.
In another experiment where four ounces of champagne were taken, the opsonic power dropped 9% for the germs of tuberculosis and 19% for the streptococci germ. Many other experiments were performed, but they gave practically the same results. The opsonic power decreased in proportion to the amount of alcohol contained in the liquor.
Dr. Stewart carried on his experiments in the laboratory of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, with the assistance of Dr. A. W. Nelson. He reported his results to the American Society for the Study of Alcohol and Drug Neuroses:
“I realize that there are a great number of factors which influence the opsonic power of the blood, and that there is considerable variation in even what may be considered normal cases, but, notwithstanding these variations, there is a sufficient uniformity to enable us to make some very valuable deductions. I feel justified in concluding that alcohol has a marked influence in reducing the vital forces of the body, thereby greatly interfering with the natural power of the body to remedy ailments. Since Wright has shown that out of all comparison the most valuable asset in medicine lies in raising the anti-bacterial power of the blood, the adminstration of alcohol, which according to these experiments, is pro-bacterial, and as such a strong liability instead of an asset, should be eliminated from our therapeutics, at least so far as internal administration in infectious diseases is concerned.
“While only a comparatively few experiments have been made, the results obtained have been uniform, and justify, I believe, the preliminary report of it given to the medical profession and the public with the hope that it may encourage others to pursue the work further in this direction.
“Heretofore, when any statement was made to the effect that alcohol caused this or the other disease, or ailment, or harmful effect of any sort on the human constitution, the reply could be and was made that the case could not be proven; that there were always circumstances which might be construed as showing that other factors besides alcohol influenced the situation. Now, however, I believe that we have opened up a line of investigation which will place the proofs against alcohol on a solid scientific basis by demonstrating its injurious effect on the blood, which is the life.”
In the same laboratory where Dr. Stewart placed his case against alcohol, experiments are being made which show in the same direct way that such drinks as tea and coffee also lower the opsonic power of the blood. Into the United States alone are imported more than one billion pounds, or five hundred thousand tons of tea and coffee each year. It is estimated that tea and coffee contain from three to six per cent. of poison. Therefore, more than fifteen thousand tons of poison, “so deadly that twenty grains might produce fatal results if administered to a full-grown man in a single dose”—in all more than ten billion deadly doses of poison, or, “fully six times as much as would be required to kill every man, woman and child on the face of the earth,” are brought into this country every year, as component parts of substances which are commonly regarded as pleasant foodstuffs.
This is the case stated against coffee and tea in its broadest and most emphatic form. The opponents of the use of tea drinking term both tea and coffee “drugs.” What is commonly thought to be the pleasantest property of both tea and coffee, namely, their ability to banish one’s sense of fatigue, is regarded by the critics of the tea and coffee drinking habits as perhaps the most sufficient evidence of their poisonous character.
“No one would doubt for a moment,” says one such critic, “the poisonous nature of a drug capable of producing irresistible drowsiness in a person who is not weary, as morphine would, for instance. Vice versa, the power of a drug to produce wakefulness in a person strongly inclined to sleep as the result of fatigue is equal evidence of its poisonous character. The sallow complexion common among women of the higher classes who have reached middle life, the almost universal nervousness among American women, and many common digestive disorders, and the increasing prevalence of nervous or sick headaches, afford to the experienced physician ample evidence of the toxic or poisonous character of tea and coffee.”
Tea and coffee contain (in addition to caffeine) tannic acid, and various other volatile poisons, each of which produces characteristic harmful effects. The volatile oils give rise to nervous excitability, and after a time provoke serious nervous disorders. Caffeine is a narcotic, which has been shown to diminish the activity of the peptic glands—and thus seriously to interfere with the normal operation of the organs of digestion. The eminent physiologist, Wolfe, showed by experiments that three grains of caffeine—an amount that might easily be imbibed in an ordinary cup of tea or coffee—very substantially impairs the quality of the gastric juices, lessening their total acidity. Roberts’ experiments showed that tea and coffee interfere with the action of the saliva upon the starch of the food, and at times may even wholly destroy its effect.