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ALCOHOL AND THE HUMAN BRAIN.

BY

REV. JOSEPH COOK.

NEW YORK:

National Temperance Society and Publication House,
58 READE STREET.

1879.




ALCOHOL AND THE HUMAN BRAIN.

BY REV. JOSEPH COOK.


Cassio's language in Othello is to-day adopted by cool physiological
science: "O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal
away their brains! That we should, with joy, revel, pleasure and
applause, transform ourselves into beasts! To be now a sensible man, by
and by a fool, and presently a beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is
unbless'd, and the ingredient is the devil."--Shakespeare, _Othello_,
Act II., Scene iii.

Central in all the discussion of the influence of intoxicating drink
upon the human brain is the fact that albuminous substances are hardened
by alcohol. I take the white of an egg, and, as you see, turn it out in
a fluid condition into a goblet. The liquid is a viscous, glue-like
substance, largely composed of albumen. It is made up of pretty nearly
the same chemical ingredients that constitute a large part of the brain
and the nervous system, and of many other tissues of the body. Forty per
cent of the matter in the corpuscles of the blood is albumen. I am about
to drench this white of an egg with alcohol. I have never performed this
experiment before, and it may not succeed, but so certain am I that it
will, that I purpose