LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
 
 %p* - @opJjw# fo t 
 
 Shelf .RC-3 64 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
ffllGI^OBES AND QQeN, 
 
 v 
 
 i. H. Of^eUTT, JV1. D., PJH. D. 
 
 ^^m^a^ 3 
 
 • • « lllusfpaiea .... 
 
 c^^m^k^^ %^j I y^ ^ 
 
 For Sale by the Author, 
 
 Owatonna, Minn. 
 
 Paper, 25 cents. Cloth, 50 cents. 
 
 1894. 
 

 Copyright, 1894, by 
 I. H. ORCUTT. 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed by 
 
 "The Eagle," 
 
 Delano, - Minn. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The purpose of this little book is to present in a plain 
 and practical manner, some of the most interesting and 
 valuable scientific knowledge of this decade, and to 
 give to the public the results of a number of important 
 experiments that have never before appeared in print. 
 An effort has been made to reach the present limits of 
 knowledge, and to give only such scientific truths as are 
 capable of demonstration. A few of the facts presented 
 and some of the conclusions reached may seem incred- 
 ible to many whose opportunities for study and experi- 
 ment have been somewhat limited. Great care has been 
 taken to avoid exaggeration and misleading statements. 
 
 It is presumed that the reader has at least a limited 
 knowledge of physiology, so that he may in some degree 
 realize the all important fact that there is no earthly 
 treasure so valuable as a sound mind in a sound body. 
 Wide spread increase of the use of alcohol and tobacco, 
 and the consequent alarming increase of certain diseases, 
 of crime, pauperism, idiocy, insanity, and suicide, make 
 it certain that something ought to be done in order to 
 check the onward march of these foes to the race, and 
 thus avert an impending crisis. All intelligent persons, 
 especially the young, should know the scientific facts 
 which have to do with the health, progress, and welfare 
 of present as well as future generations. 
 
 Nearly two years of time, and many hundreds of dollars, 
 would not have been spent in the production of so small 
 a book, had it not been firmly believed that a clear un- 
 derstanding of truth is both the foundation and corner 
 
stone of refrom and of correct personal living. If this 
 brief treatise be generously accorded a place in this 
 foundational work, leading some into well-defined paths 
 of right-thinking and correct living, the author will be 
 content. 
 
 Grateful acknowledgement is made for the kind aid re- 
 ceived from many sources. Rev. S. A. McKay, A. M., 
 read the manuscript and proof, making many valuable 
 suggestions. The writer's friend and co-worker for over 
 seven years in the Agricultural College of South Dakota, 
 Robt. F. Kerr, A. M., has copied the manuscript and 
 otherwise assisted in getting it ready for the press. 
 Earl Douglass, John Fansett, H. F. Craig, and many 
 other former pupils have assisted in performing 45 
 series of experiments, each of which usually occupied one 
 half day. Still others have rendered a like assistance. 
 
 Nearly all the illustrations are either sphygmographic 
 traces or pen drawings by the author. A few of the 
 latter are intended to assist in teaching truth, not being 
 exact reproductions of microscopic views. 
 
 July 16, 1894. i. H. 0. 
 
 >\ 
 
Miei^OBES A^D JVIEJM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MICROBES. 
 
 During the past few years a new and very 
 valuable science has come into being and is 
 receiving an increasing amount of attention. 
 Originating mainly in France, it has gradu- 
 ally extended over the whole civilized world. 
 This new science is known as Bacteriology, 
 and is now generally taught in universities, 
 progressive colleges, and medical schools. It 
 treats of the lower forms of life of which we 
 have knowledge, especially of disease germs, 
 and those germs which cause fermenta aon 
 and all forms of decomposition. The word 
 bacteria being somewhat restricted in its 
 meaning, is, in popular writing, being gener- 
 ally displaced by a better term, that of 
 microbe. This latter term is applied to all 
 minute living beings. Some microbes are 
 known to be plants and others animals, but 
 in the majority of cases scientists are in doubt 
 as to their proper classification. Whether 
 
8 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 they be plants or animals is of little conse- 
 quence, provided we are able to learn some- 
 thing of their life history. It is certain that, 
 with few exceptions, they subsist like animals, 
 in that they do not create complex organic 
 substances out of inorganic matter, but live 
 by destroying what has already been formed 
 directly by plants, or indirectly by animals. 
 Their life work is, therefore, as truly destruc- 
 tive as that of the higher animals, who them- 
 selves live upon the 
 stored-up energy of low- 
 er forms . In the process 
 oxygen is consumed and 
 carbonic acid gas is 
 thrown off, along with 
 other waste products, 
 just the same as with 
 Fig. i-Microbes of malaria man and other animals. 
 highly magnified. Microbes which cause 
 disease are as truly parasites as are ticks and 
 tapeworms. When a person has malarial 
 fever he is as certainly being destroyed by 
 animals as if attacked by fleas, wolves or 
 lions. A wound may be changed into a dan- 
 gerous ulcer by microbes as well as by mag- 
 gots. 
 
 We may well believe that there is very much 
 going on about us, and within us, which we do 
 not perceive with our unaided senses. Until 
 
MICROBES. 9 
 
 recent years it was believed by many that the 
 lower forms of animal life, such as fleas, flies, 
 bugs, worms, and even mice and rats, were 
 brought into being by the decomposition of 
 organic matter. The celebrated YonHelmont, 
 -who lived early in the seventeenth century, 
 says: — "It is true that a ferment is sometimes 
 so bold and enterprising as to form a living 
 being. In this way lice, maggots, and bugs, 
 our associates in mise^, have their birth 
 either within our bodies or in our excrement. 
 You need only close up a vessel full of wheat 
 with a dirty shirt and you will see rats engen- 
 dered in it, the strange product of the smell 
 of wheat and the animal ferment attached to 
 the dirty shirt/ ' These purely fanciful notions 
 have not been able to stand the light of mod- 
 ern research, especially when the microscope 
 is used which so largely increases our powers 
 of vision. 
 
 All living things are reproduced by their 
 kind. This is as true of microbes as it is of 
 men. Disease germs have parents as truly as 
 any of the more familiar animals. Such germs 
 would not inhabit our bodies if their parents 
 had not injured some one else and prospered. 
 We furnish them shelter, warmth, and food 
 till each one becomes the progenitor of a host, 
 then send them out, by the aid of air, water, 
 food, and clothing, to find lodgment in the 
 
10 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 bodies of our friends and neighbors, where 
 their life history is repeated. There are 
 thousands of species of microbes and they are 
 of different sizes, shapes, colors, and "disposi- 
 tions, "just as we find differences among the 
 higher forms of plants and animals. In fact, 
 so far as numbers are concerned, the invisible 
 world has its millions where the visible world 
 has its thousands. 
 
 Each microbe is a single cell of a substance 
 called protoplasm. This substance appears 
 very much like a small particle of the white 
 of an ^gg* There are, however, a few colored 
 species of these minute creatures. Blood spots 
 on vegetable food, "blood water," "blood 
 rain," "red snow," "blue milk," and "blue 
 pus," are simply changes in the original, 
 caused by the presence of colored microbes. 
 
 The microbe which causes la-grippe is said 
 to be only one sixty-thousandth of an inch in 
 diameter, requiring 216,000,000,000,000 to 
 make a cubic inch, or thousands of millions 
 to make a thimbleful. The average size of 
 microbes is about one three-thousandth of an 
 inch in length,requiring about 30,000,000,000 
 to make a cubic inch. It seems perfectly 
 proper to say that they are inconceivably 
 small. 
 
 These invisible creatures are found every- 
 where, swarming in the food we eat, and in 
 
MICROBES. 11 
 
 the water we drink, in the air we breathe, and 
 in the ground upon which we walk. It is es- 
 timated that each person takes into his lungs, 
 in the air that he breathes, an average of 
 300,000 microbes per day. Rain water at 
 Paris contained 64,000 in each quart, while 
 the water from the river showed 4,500,000 
 in each quart before it reached the city, and 
 12,000,000 after it had passed through it. It 
 is stated on good authority, that there are 
 about 4,000,000 of these low forms of life in 
 each tumblerful of Lake Michigan water 
 which is furnished to Chicago through the 
 waterworks. As large as these numbers may 
 seem, impure milk often shows a much greater 
 proportion in a similar quantity. Since heat 
 is very destructive to all kinds of microscopic 
 life it is evident that it is a safe plan always 
 to boil suspected milk and ordinary drinking 
 water before using either. 
 
 These low forms of life come into being 
 either by budding, or by fission. In the for- 
 mer case a bud may be seen growing out of 
 the side of a mature microbe. It takes food 
 independently and grows until it becomes as 
 large as the parent and then it sends out 
 buds producing another generation. In 
 the case of fission the microbe is seen to con- 
 tract in the middle like a figure 8 until it di- 
 vides into two parts, each of which grows 
 
12 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 till it is as large as the parent, when the pro- 
 cess is repeated so long as the conditions for 
 growth are favorable. In unfavorable con- 
 ditions the cell, which is the complete microbe, 
 contracts into a small 
 germ, spore, or seed with 
 a covering, and this en- 
 ables, it to resist most de- 
 structive agencies to a 
 remarkable degree. Some 
 survive long periods of 
 boiling or roasting while 
 
 Fig. 2— Reproduction by ° . 
 
 budding and fission. others are not killed in a 
 loaf of bread which has been fairly well baked. 
 Disease germs may remain in clothes, old 
 rags, or wall paper, for years and still cause 
 disease when they find lodgement in bodies 
 not able to resist their encroachments. As 
 the sediment from an overflowed stream, or 
 the bed of a marsh or lake, becomes dried, 
 spores are produced by the drying of the mi- 
 crobes and are caught up and carried by the 
 air as fine dust. It takes a powerful micro- 
 scope to detect the presence of these spores, 
 so minute are they. Natural growth of trees, 
 or rows of cultivated trees between a house 
 and land subject to overflow, form a valu- 
 able protection,for thereasonthat they arrest 
 the flight of nearly all these dangerous spores. 
 
 It is very important that every responsible 
 
MICROBES. 13 
 
 person should have some knowledge of mi- 
 crobes and their influence for good or ill. 
 With even a limited knowledge of the habits 
 of disease germs much sickness could be avoid- 
 ed and many premature deaths. Every one 
 ought to know that such diseases as barbers' 
 itch, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, small-pox, 
 yellow fever, diphtheria, hydrophobia, con- 
 sumption, cholera, leprosy, measles, mumps, 
 and many others, are caused by microbes and 
 are easily communicable to other people. 
 Many of the diseases of domestic animals, 
 such as lumpy -jaw of cattle and glanders of 
 horses, are caused by germs and may be com- 
 municated to man. The affected parts of all 
 such diseased animals should be burned, not 
 buried. It should also be well known that 
 microbes are sometimes found in the saliva 
 of healthy persons which, if introduced into 
 the blood of another person will multiply rap- 
 idly and cause death. It is no safer to be bit- 
 ten by a man than by a dog. 
 
 It is estimated that a person,sick with con- 
 sumption, will expectorate 40,000,000 disease 
 germs per day. This many live active mi- 
 crobes, deposited every day of his existence 
 upon the streets, sidewalks, lawns, and floors, 
 and liable to be conveyed by hands, clothing, 
 and air into our foods, drink and lungs, is a 
 subject which is not pleasant to contemplate. 
 
14 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 Fig. 3 — Microbes of con- 
 sumption highly mag- 
 nified. 
 
 Is it any wonder that a 
 seventh of all deaths 
 among adults in America 
 is due to some form of 
 this disease? Everything 
 coming' from a person 
 affected by a germ dis- 
 ease should be immedi- 
 ately disinfected or 
 burned. 
 
 The spores of disease germs may remain 
 quiescent for years and then revive and de- 
 velop rapidly when placed under favorable 
 conditions. This will account for most of the 
 isolated cases of scarlet fever and other di- 
 seases, which appear from time to time. Old 
 rags or clothing, which have been infected, 
 new clothing from "sweat shops" where filth 
 and contagion are common, may be the 
 means of conveying such 
 disease if brought into 
 contact with susceptible 
 persons. Typhoid fever 
 germs, diphtheria germs, 
 and other varieties, are 
 very often thrown out in 
 slops to be washed into 
 our drinking water, or 
 dried and blown about by 
 the wind, thereby spreading possible disease 
 
 Pig. 4. — Microbes of ty- 
 phoid fever highly mag- 
 nified. 
 
MICROBES. 15 
 
 and death through out a whole neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 It has been discovered that oysters take up 
 disease germs, especially the bacilli of typhoid 
 fever, from the mud and ooze in which they 
 live, and thus communicate them to man, if 
 eaten raw. In the canning of fruits, meats, 
 and other foods, the process kills and excludes 
 all microbes. This is the secret of the pre- 
 servative power of the whole operation. The 
 process was learned by the accidental discov- 
 ery of some canned figs in the ruins of Pom- 
 peii. The fruit was still well preserved 
 although nearly two thousand years had 
 elapsed since the cans were sealed. Microbes 
 cannot live without moisture, therefore noth- 
 ing rots which is kept dry. The value of an 
 ointment or a surgical dressing is in propor- 
 tion to its ability to keep out or destroy the 
 microbes which are being constantly deposi- 
 ted in an open wound by the air. 
 
 Every person has more or less natural re- 
 sistance against the invasion of disease germs, 
 some being able to resist even the germs of 
 small-pox so completely that they never con- 
 tract the disease, however often they may be 
 exposed to it. Perfectly healthy people who 
 live strictly according to well known laws of 
 health are seldom destroyed by disease germs. 
 Anything which lessens the vitality of the 
 
16 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 body lessens the vital resistance to these de- 
 stroying forces. Bad air, "worry, overwork, 
 lack of work, filth, improper food, over-eat- 
 ing, tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, opium, 
 chloral, cocaine, or excesses of any kind, tend 
 to weaken the vital powers and that increases 
 our chances of being injured or destroyed by 
 the dangerous germs which are continually 
 entering our bodies by means of air, food or 
 drink. Anything which lessens vitality 
 
 INCREASES THE DEATH RATE FROM GERM DI- 
 SEASES. 
 
 When an active microbe or a spore 
 finds a favorable location for growth and de- 
 velopment, it at once begins to produce buds, 
 or to divide, and the little beings commence 
 to increase at an incredible rate. It is believed 
 that some disease germs are able to double in 
 number every twenty minutes. Such being 
 the case, one microbe would become two in 
 twenty minutes; four in forty; and eight in 
 sixty, and so on, reaching the incomprehen- 
 sible number of 4,722,365,482,669,645,- 
 213,696, in twenty-four hours, provided that 
 all conditions were favorable. If it be possi- 
 ble for one microbe to have so many descend- 
 ants, as expressed in the above calculation, in 
 twenty-four hours, another similar period 
 would show a correspondingly large increase, 
 always providing that they retain their vital- 
 
MICROBES. 17 
 
 ity and have a sufficient food supply. At the 
 end of the second day, the number of microbes 
 would have to be expressed by the product of 
 the large number given above multiplied by 
 itself. Worlds would not hold all of them- 
 These figures are simply incomprehensible, but 
 this very fact may help us to understand 
 why people sometimes die so suddenly after 
 being attacked by cholera, cholera morbus, 
 and other germ diseases. We can also com. 
 prehend the reason why fresh meat or dead 
 bodies tend to decompose so rapidly under 
 certain conditions, especially those favorable 
 to the development of microbes. 
 
 These low forms of life are the great disor- 
 ganizes of nature, decomposing everything, 
 whether plant or animal, which has been 
 alive. They decompose the building and the 
 builder. They reduce all complex substances 
 which have been produced directly or indirect- 
 ly from the mineral kingdom, back to their 
 original condition. This statement includes 
 those food substances which have be^i only 
 partially changed or decomposed while pass- 
 ing through the bodies of animals and ani- 
 mal-like plants. Plants are not nourished by 
 manure and other organic compounds until 
 they are reduced to their mineral components 
 by the microbes. Take all the germs from a 
 field and ordinary crops will not grow. They 
 
18 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 are the important links in "being's endless 
 chain' ' formed and unformed, where, in the 
 economy of nature, not an atom of matter is 
 created or destroyed. 
 
 Many of the facts already given have been 
 discovered by cultivating the microbes, or 
 breeding, feeding, and caring for 
 them, as we care for other 
 "stock.' ' A "culture," the name 
 given to each separate experi- 
 ment, is made by placing a few 
 microbes in a substance which 
 they can use as food. Here they 
 multiply until the food is ex- 
 hausted or until the substance 
 becomes so foul, from the waste 
 matter thrown off by the active 
 microbes, that they are poisoned. 
 A culture may be made in a test- 
 tube, a barrel or a large vat. 
 
 Suppose an experimenter wish- 
 es to study the cattle disease 
 known as anthrax, or splenic fe 
 ver. He finds a few microbes tin 
 der his microscope which he be 
 lieves to have come from an animal dead with 
 that disease. A culture is made by putting 
 the microbes into a test-tube partially filled 
 with some food substance. Here they multi 
 ply. Some of these young disease germs are 
 
 Fig. 5.— Cul- 
 ture o f A n 
 thrax germs 
 in gelatine. 
 
MICROBES. 19 
 
 injected into another ani- 
 mal which subsequently 
 dies with anthrax. A little 
 blood from the last vic- 
 tim is used in making an- 
 other anthrax culture. A 
 part of this culture is used 
 in inoculating another 
 
 Fig. 6. — Microbes of An- . i i • i 1 -i i 
 
 thrax, greatly enlarged animal which alSO devel- 
 
 ops into a fatal case of anthrax. These ex- 
 periments are repeated till there can be no 
 doubt regarding the cause of the disease. In 
 a similar way disease germs are being discov- 
 ered and studied. 
 
 Microbes devour their food as truly as do 
 beasts of prey, whether that food be an ap- 
 ple, a dead cat, or some of the tissues of alive 
 man. 
 
 They also throw off waste products as ex- 
 crementitious matter, the same as all the 
 higher forms of life. This refuse is poisonous 
 to animals, in the same way that the excre- 
 ment of one animal is poisonous to other ani- 
 mals. These poisons are found in all decom- 
 posing substances, such as tainted meat or 
 fish, rotting fruit or vegetables, rancid butter, 
 or old cheese. 
 
 Panum first showed that a poisonous pro- 
 duct, resembling snake venom and such vege- 
 table alkaloids as morphine and strychnine, is 
 
20 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 developed from the putrid fermentation or de- 
 composition of meat and similar substances. 
 This product is called septine. It is the ex- 
 crementitious matter thrown off by active 
 microbes, and is so poisonous that in some 
 cases one-fifth of a grain will kill a dog. 
 
 E.L. Trouessart, inhis" Microbes, Ferments 
 and Moulds, " says: — " Panum's researches 
 have been recently resumed by Selmiand Gau- 
 tier who have extracted from corpses and pu- 
 trefying organic matter a certain number of 
 poisonous substances greatly resembling veg- 
 etable alkaloids, and termed by them pto- 
 maines. The action of ptomaines may be 
 compared to that of strychnine. Injected in- 
 to the blood, even after the removal of every 
 living microbe, the ptomaines produce fever, 
 rigors, vomiting, diarrhoea, spasms, torpor, 
 collapse, and finally death. It is probable 
 that in some cases of poisoning by tainted 
 meat or fish their poisonous properties are 
 due to the presence of ptomaines. 
 
 But in all cases these ptomaines are shown 
 to be the product of putrid fermentation, 
 which is always effected in dead bodies by 
 special microbes. Here the ptomaines are due 
 to the work of the microbes of putrefaction, 
 and are made by them, just as alcohol and 
 the carbonic acid of alcoholic fermentation 
 are made by yeast, at the expense of the su- 
 
MICROBES. 21 
 
 gared liquid in which they live and multiply. 
 
 Direct experiments show that when septine, 
 from which every microbe has been removed, 
 is injected into the human subject, it produces 
 feverish disturbances, but only causes death 
 when introduced in considerable quantities.' ' 
 
 In germ diseases, the poisonous substances 
 which are thrown off by the microbes seem 
 to do much more harm than the pests them- 
 selves. If a culture be made of chicken 
 cholera germs and the resultant mass be then 
 filtered through porcelain so as to separate 
 the germs from their excrement (ptomaine 
 or septine) and some of the poison be injected 
 into a healthy fowl, it will become intoxi- 
 cated and remain so for a few hours. If the 
 amount be increased it will die from excessive 
 intoxication. If on the other hand, the germs 
 alone are injected into the system of a vigor- 
 ous fowl, they will multiply and the bird will 
 die with the cholera, or in other words, is 
 poisoned to death by the waste products 
 thrown off by the germs which rapidly de- 
 velop within its body. In such diseases as 
 cholera, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, the 
 subjects are both poisoned and devoured by 
 the microbes which cause the disease. This 
 fact accounts for the many sudden deaths 
 from such diseases. It explains the sick head- 
 ache and certain other symptoms in consti- 
 
22 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 pation, for it is known that in the develop- 
 ment of large members of microbes the 
 ptomaines are absorbed into the system from 
 the intestines. 
 
 Each species of microbe selects a very few 
 substances which it always uses as its par- 
 ticular foods and it will not thrive upon 
 other forms- more than animals will upon 
 food not adapted to them. These voracious 
 little creatures eat about five thousand times 
 more food in proportion to their size than 
 does the average man. 
 
 In all the lower forms of life, just as in the 
 higher forms, each species has its "personal 
 odor," arising from the waste products which 
 are thrown off in various ways. These odors 
 are so characteristic that is not difficult to 
 distinguish, by the sense of smell, whether we 
 are in the presence of decomposing fruits, 
 vegetables, or meats. In fact, most people 
 are able to name the particular varieties of 
 fruit or vegetable that are in process of de- 
 cay. The microbes which cause the excessive 
 sweating and offensive odor of the feet of 
 some people, or the red sweat in the armpits, 
 give off their characteristic vile odors when 
 cultivated in a test-tube. If a person has a 
 marked odor it is either caused by the pres- 
 sence of microbes or is the result of uncleanli- 
 ness. Microbes and all other creatures which 
 
MICROBES. £3 
 
 live upon animal food, usually have a much 
 stronger "personal odor" than those which 
 live upon vegetable diet. 
 
 The decomposition of all vegetable and 
 animal substances is called fermentation — a 
 much broader meaning of the term than is 
 generally supposed. "Microbes are ferments; 
 they excrete the products of ferment ation." 
 The two words are similar expressions, and 
 mean that the substance under process of 
 decay or change is being eaten by microbes 
 and that the new product is the waste which 
 has been excreted or thrown off during the 
 transforming process. These waste products 
 may be inorganic compounds, such as car- 
 bonic acid gas or ammonia, or they may be 
 organic compounds more or less like those 
 found in the excreta of all the higher forms of 
 life. If we make aculture from grape juice or 
 apple juice, which contain large quantities of 
 water, or one from grain soaked in water, 
 the microbes (yeast) will eat the crushed 
 fruit, or soaked grain and throw off two 
 principal kinds of excrement — alcohol and 
 carbonic acid gas. The gas will escape into 
 the air, thereby causing the frothing or foam- 
 ing of the mass, while the alcohol, which has 
 an affinity or liking for water, will remain in 
 solution. 
 
 Whenever fruit or grain is prepared for the 
 
24 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 reception of the microbes a culture is made, 
 whether the preparation be in a test-tube, 
 cider-barrel, wine-cask, or beer-vat. In either 
 case the food is as certainly intended for con- 
 sumption as it would be if given to any other 
 kind of ' 'stock. " If the fermentation be com- 
 plete the food value of the article will entirely 
 disappear. The liquid will contain some 
 coloring matter and a greater or less per cent 
 of excrement, commonly called alcohol. This 
 latter is in no sense a food, but a product 
 which is poisonous to all animals. 
 
 The flavors and odors of wines and other 
 liquors depend largely upon the "personal 
 odor" of the species of microbe which causes 
 the fermentation. If a bushel of corn be fed 
 to pigs and another to hens, the fact is well 
 known, that distinct * 'personal odors" will 
 be imparted to the waste products in either 
 case, the food consumed being exactly alike. 
 It is no less true in the case of the lower 
 forms of life. The odor and flavor of tobacco 
 depend largely upon the particular species of 
 microbe which develops in it during the 
 sweating process. 
 
 It has recently been discovered that the 
 flavors and odors of the liquors and tobaccos 
 of certain localities, which command such 
 high prices, can be produced anywhere by 
 using the right kind of microbe. Port wine 
 
MICROBES. 25 
 
 or Havana tobacco can be had by importing 
 and propagating the kinds of microbes whose 
 excrement has the desired "personal odor," 
 instead of importing the articles themselves. 
 
 In closing this chapter it seems best to 
 recapitulate briefly in order to fix in mind a 
 fcw of the important points which it would 
 be well to remember. Microbes are the 
 smallest living creatures of which man has 
 any knowledge. They live under the same 
 laws — eating, growing, and multiplying — as 
 do all the higher forms of life. Scientists class 
 some microbes with plants and others, such 
 as those which cause fever and ague, with 
 animals. 
 
 Microbes live like animals by taking food 
 into their bodies. This food is disorganized 
 or transformed and waste products are 
 thrown off which are poisonous to animals. 
 Every thing which has had life is eaten and 
 thus destroyed by them. The waste pro- 
 ducts or excrementitious matter thrown off 
 by microbes are called ptomaines or sep tines 
 — those from the decomposition of animal 
 matter seeming to be more poisonous to man 
 than those from the decomposition of veget- 
 able matter. Not all microbes cause disease 
 and not all "diseases are caused by microbes. 
 
 Ordinary fermentation is the destruction of 
 grains and fruits by microbes. A beer- vat or 
 
26 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 a wine-vat is as truly a culture as is the test- 
 tube of the experimenter, in which he feeds 
 and breeds cholera germs or other microbes. 
 In the case of the beer-vat culture the mi- 
 crobes are bred for the excrement, while the 
 test-tube culture is made for the purpose of 
 studying the microbes. 
 
 Alcohol is a ptomaine or septine and, when 
 taken pure (absolute alcohol), is as deadly as 
 the ptomaines of chicken cholera or putrid 
 meats, although a larger quantity is needed 
 to produce the same effects. 
 
 The different flavors and odors of liquors 
 are imparted to them by the microbes that 
 caused the decomposition of the fruit or 
 grain. When fermentation is complete the 
 grain or fruit has been entirely consumed by 
 the germs, only colored water and excrement 
 (alcohol) remaining. 
 
 A barrel of beer does not contain as much 
 nourishment as a loaf of bread, but contains 
 enough ptomaine (absolute alcohol) to kill, 
 within ten minutes, thirty-five men who are 
 not accustomed to its effects. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BLOOD AND MICROBES. 
 
 The blood is the most important and most 
 abundant fluid of the body. "The life of the 
 flesh is the blood. " About one-ninth of the 
 entire weight of the body, or from twelve to 
 eighteen pounds, is ' 'running flesh. " The 
 blood is a liquid flesh containing only five 
 per cent more water than is found in muscle. 
 It is at once the provider and purifier of the 
 whole body, receiving the digested part of 
 the food, carrying it to every tissue, and re- 
 moving the worn-out particles of matter. It 
 contains the material out of which new 
 tissues are made, and old ones are repaired. 
 Blood appears red because it is packed full of 
 little coin -shaped discs called red corpuscles. 
 These are about one three-thousand-two 
 hundredth of an inch in diameter and one 
 fourteen-thousandth of an inch thick, requir- 
 ing nearly one hundred and fifty billions to 
 make a cubic inch. Each drop of blood con- 
 
28 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 tains about 200,000,000 of these red cor- 
 puscles. 
 
 It is stated there are one hundred and 
 seventy-three cubic inches of corpuscles in the 
 blood of each healthy man. This estimate 
 gives to each individual something like 25,- 
 000,000,000,000 of these little " workers." 
 On an average, once in every two minutes, 
 "from the cradle to the grave," each one goes 
 to the lungs and secures a load of oxygen, 
 which it gives up to some of the hungry 
 tissues while it is on its rapid flight through 
 the body. Any thing which interferes with 
 their appointed work, even for a moment, 
 jeopardizes the vitality and endangers the 
 life of the individual. » 
 
 For every three or four hundred red cor- 
 puscles, there is 
 found a white 
 corpuscle, ma- 
 king seventy- 
 five or eighty 
 billion in the 
 blood of each 
 person. The 
 white cor- 
 puscles, when 
 at rest, appear 
 
 Fig. 7.— Red and White Corpuscles to be tranS- 
 and Microbes of Swine Plague. .. 11 
 
 Highly magnified. parent balls m 
 
BLOOD AND MICROBES. 
 
 29 
 
 which are seen a number of drak specks. 
 The white corpuscles are larger than the red, 
 and possess the power of spontaneous move- 
 ment, contracting and expanding, throwing 
 out finger-like projections from different parts 
 of their surfaces and as quickly withdrawing 
 them. These movements are very similar to 
 those of the minute animal, the amoeba. 
 They do not move so rapidly through the 
 small blood-vessels as do the red corpuscles. 
 They have power to change their shape and 
 to pass out, something 
 like a worm, through the 
 blood-vessels, and, after 
 creeping about awhile 
 through the tissues, to go 
 back again, by a new 
 road, into the blood. 
 They appear in large Fig.s.-Amoeba. various 
 numbers in wounds, ab- fo ™Ltiy a tm1aSeT. a1 ' 
 scesses, and ulcers where they are called "pus" 
 or "matter/ ' In certain diseases they seem 
 to be very much more numerous than when 
 the patient is in good health. For many 
 years scientists have been advancing various 
 theories in regard to the special office of the 
 white corpuscles. These theories have been 
 both wise and otherwise. After years of the 
 most painstaking investigation and research, 
 with the most approved instruments and ap- 
 
30 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 pliances, one of the greatest of the many 
 wonderful discoveries of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury has recently been made— the white 
 
 CORPUSCLES EAT MICROBES. 
 
 We now see why they do not move so rap- 
 idly through the blood-vessels as do the red 
 corpuscles, whose office is 
 to make all possible haste 
 to reach the lungs in or- 
 der to secure a load of 
 life-giving oxygen for the 
 use of the famishing tis- 
 sues. We are also able to 
 understand why these 
 white corpuscles are so 
 numerous in certain di- 
 seases. The defensive army has been increas- 
 ed to help repel the invading forces of the en- 
 emy which threaten to overpower the whole 
 nation — king, soldiers, and all, if the invaders 
 are not all destroyed. The white corpuscles 
 appear in wounds and ulcers to eat, and thus 
 to destroy, the microbes which are being con- 
 stantly deposited by the air, If these invad- 
 ing and greedy microbes are not destroyed, 
 they eat the exposed flesh and throw ofl 
 waste material which is absorbed by the 
 bloodvessels and blood-poisoning is the result. 
 When a wound is kept free from microbes the 
 white corpuscles (pus) do not appear. It is a 
 
 Fig. 9 — "White corpuscles 
 
 eating microbes. 
 
 (Showing amoeba-like 
 
 movements.) 
 
BLOOD AND MICROBES. 
 
 31 
 
 grave mistake to believe that a running sore 
 purifies the system. It does no more in that 
 direction than does a battle to purify an army. 
 A thimbleful of pus contains more than a bil- 
 lion of these valiant "soldiers" — a number 
 greater than the combined armies of the 
 world. 
 
 Microbes feeding upon dead matter do not 
 have to contend with these living forces, call- 
 ed vital resistance. When 
 a living being is attack- 
 ed by these dangerous 
 hordes, there ensues a 
 terrible struggle for su- 
 premacy and life is en- 
 dangered. The invasion 
 is resisted by the existing 
 corpuscles and by the new 
 ones, also, which are gen- 
 erated to assist in the deadly combat. In this 
 struggle many lives are lost on both sides. If 
 the microbes conquer, all is lost — the faithful 
 army and that for which they fought. Wheth- 
 er the white corpuscles are aided or hindered 
 by the afflicted individual or by his ph3 r sician, 
 they make a heroic fight to "save the union." 
 If they vanquish the enemy there may be 
 enough vitality left to rebuild the constitu- 
 tion. 
 It is very interesting to witness, under a 
 
 Fig. 10. — White corpus- 
 cles at rest, digesting 
 microbes. 
 
32 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 microscope, such a heroic struggle going on 
 in a drop of blood. Our faithful defenders, 
 the white corpuscles, are not only willing to 
 meet the living enemy in hand to hand con- 
 flict, but they willingly rush into the poison- 
 ous excretions of the microbes outside of the 
 blood-vessels (as in the case of an open wound 
 or on the membrane in diphtheria) and there 
 sell their lives as dearly as possible, by filling 
 their bodies, sometimes even to bursting, with 
 the rapidly increasing invaders. 
 
 The white corpuscles are the most numer- 
 ous and brave, the most simply clad and 
 armed, the most efficient and faithful, defend- 
 ing army the world ever knew. We survive 
 from day to day because of the eternal vigi- 
 lance of the white corpuscles, who stand ever 
 ready to fall upon and devour these enemies 
 of our peaceful and much loved anatomy. It 
 is only when the invaders are to a greater or 
 less extent successful, that we suffer sickness 
 or death from these daily inroads. 
 
 Much may be done both to help or hinder 
 the work of these loyal friends in their daily 
 warfare for our well-being. Like nearly all 
 living beings they need a constant supply of 
 proper food, pure water, and fresh air. ^ If 
 these necessary things are withheld, or im- 
 proper and harmful things are provided, ^ to 
 that extent will the white corpuscles be im- 
 peded in their work. 
 
BLOOD AND MICROBES. 33 
 
 The physical system, of every human being, 
 is a government inhabited by an innumerable 
 host of citizen soldiers, each individual of 
 whom has inherited a marvelous degree of 
 loyalty as well as skill and bravery. These 
 warriors are seldom overcome, when the gen- 
 eral government is in good order and gives 
 them a fair chance. 
 
 The3 T ,indeed,war a good warfare, and, if suf- 
 fering and death go forth at noonday, it is al- 
 ways because of a misgovernment of the sys- 
 tem for which every warrior corpuscle is 
 ready to sacrifice his life. Sometimes the un- 
 wise commander compels his army to camp 
 where it is constantly flooded with such 
 quantities of sewerage, (beer and cider), that 
 the warriors are soaked and surrounded with 
 poison, to such an extent that they are scarce- 
 ly able to distinguish between friend and foe, 
 much less to contend successfully with the 
 enemy. Thousands of observations and many 
 experiments on the lower animals, prove, by 
 analogy, that a person is much more liable to 
 suffer from germ diseases when not properly 
 fed than when he is. "The pestilence follows 
 the famine and death follows close upon the 
 track of a glutton.' ' 
 
 Debility from lack of proper exercise, or ex- 
 haustion from overwork, tend in the same 
 direction. Sleeping and working in poorly 
 
34 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 ventilated rooms are common ways of failing 
 to provide the warrior cells with the neces- 
 sary supply of fresh air. Thousands of cases 
 of consumption are traceable to this cause < 
 alone. Anything and everything which 
 
 LESSENS VITALITY INCREASES THE DEATH-RATE 
 FROM GERM DISEASES. 
 
 The warrior cells maybe overcome by a too 
 numerous or too poisonous an enemy, or they 
 maybe more or less exhausted by a long con- 
 flict with one kind of an enemy and be unable 
 to resist successfully a new one when intro- 
 duced. People in malarial districts are more 
 subject to the fatal ravages of cholera than 
 those from more healthful localities. It is al- 
 ways wise to keep an army in the best pos- 
 sible fighting trim when facing a deadly foe. 
 
 When a ship, laden with a share of all the 
 precious things of this world, is attacked by 
 a band of pirates, the captain knows full well 
 that the safety of his cargo, crew, and him- 
 self, depends upon the energy and strength of 
 his fighting men. We would not form a very 
 high opinion of his abilities if, under such cir- 
 cumstances, he were to fill the air which his 
 faithful men had to breathe with noxious 
 gases and the drinking water with stupefying 
 and deadly poisons. The tobacco and alco- 
 hol user may be able to get a few grains of 
 comfort out of the above figure ! 
 
BLOOD AND MICROBES. 35 
 
 If a large number of a certain kind of mi- 
 crobes be placed tinder the skin of a guinea 
 pig an abcess will be formed in about twenty- 
 four hours. A careful microscopic examina- 
 tion will reveal the fact that the contents of 
 the abcess is largely composed of white cor- 
 puscles which are well filled with microbes, 
 and that the microbes have not been allowed 
 to spread over the entire body, thereby de- 
 stroying the life of the animal. But if the 
 guinea pig be stupefied with chloral, alcohol, 
 or some other narcotic poison, after the mi- 
 crobes have been placed under the skin, the 
 result will be quite different. In the latter 
 case the white corpuscles will be made unfit 
 for active service, the microbes will increase, 
 and death will be the result. 
 
 If two small pieces of sponge be filled with 
 disease germs and each one be placed under 
 the skin of a healthy guinea pig and one ani- 
 mal be kept in a stupefied condition with chlo- 
 ral, alcohol, or something similar, this will be 
 the result. The stupefied animal will soon 
 die, and every part of its body will be filled 
 ..with myriads of microbes, while the piece of 
 sponge will be nearly as clear as when placed 
 under the skin. The other animal will not 
 show signs of sickness but the piece of sponge 
 will be filled and covered with "matter," 
 which the microscope will show to be an in- 
 
36 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 numerable host of white corpuscles, more or 
 less filled with microbes. 
 
 Recent investigators have discovered an- 
 other startling fact regarding the white cor- 
 puscles. Alcohol, and other narcotic poisons, 
 not only stupefy the corpuscles and render 
 them unfit for service, but act in such a man- 
 ner on the nerves and blood-vessels as to pre- 
 vent their searching the tissues in pursuit of 
 the lurking enemy. That is, the alcohol acts 
 as a key to lock the fort while the invading 
 army destroys the surrounding country. 
 
 It is also the office of the white corpuscles 
 to eat, and thus destroy, particles of waste 
 matter which may be 
 found in the blood, such 
 as parts of the red cor- 
 puscles which have gone 
 to pieces. When a tad- 
 pole is changing into a 
 frog, the white corpuscles 
 accumulate in the tail, 
 and after- 
 wards build themselves into the new struct- 
 ure of the frog. This gives us something of 
 an idea of the importance of the work they 
 are commissioned to carry forward within 
 our own bodies. 
 
 It is estimated that during a prolonged de- 
 bauch the alcohol destroys at least 100,000,- 
 
 Figll. — White corpuscles 
 
 eating fragments ofbro- consume it 
 ken-down tissues. 
 
BLOOD AND MICROBES. 37 
 
 000,000 of the red corpuscles, the fragments 
 of which must be picked up and devoured by 
 the white corpuscles. 
 
 Over twenty years ago the celebrated Rus- 
 sian experimenter, J. Dogiel, said that alcohol 
 rapidly causes the amoeba-like movements of 
 the white corpuscles to cease, and that at a 
 certain concentration it dissolves both the 
 red and white corpuscles. Thus alcohol not 
 onl\ r makes the white corpuscles unfit for effi- 
 cient work, by depriving them of a proper 
 amount of oxygen, food, and water, and mak- 
 ing them stupid, but very greatly increases 
 the amount of work to be done by them. 
 
 The foregoing statements make it very 
 plain that the white corpuscles are a very im- 
 portant factor in our earthly existence, and 
 that the use of alcohol (and tobacco) must 
 greatly increase the amount of sickness and 
 death from germ diseases. 
 
 In epidemics of germ diseases, such as 
 cholera and yellow fever, the average death 
 rate is about ten times greater among the 
 habitual users of alcohol than among total 
 abstainers. The use of alcohol and tobacco 
 adds each year several hundreds of thousands 
 to the total of the world's mortality. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 Each person has from twelve to eighteen 
 
38 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 pints of blood, which is the provider and puri- 
 fier of the whole body. In this amount there 
 are about 25,000,000,000,000 of red, and 
 80,000,000,000 of white corpuscles. The 
 red corpuscles are coin-shaped and carry 
 oxygen from the lungs to all parts of the 
 body, where it unites with the prepared food, 
 supplying heat and vitality. 
 
 The white corpuscles ^re somewhat larger 
 than the red, can assume a great variety of 
 forms, and move about independently like 
 some of the one-celled animals. Their life 
 work is to destroy the disease germs and 
 other microbes which are constantly being 
 introduced into our bodies. 
 
 Anything which interferes with the vitality 
 and activity of either the red or white cor- 
 puscles increases sickness and the death-rate. 
 Alcohol and other narcotic poisons make the 
 white corpuscles less active, thus allowing 
 the disease germs to increase, adding greatly 
 to the sum of the world's mortality. 
 
CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 
 
 The lowest forms of plants and animals, 
 such as microbes, are composed of a sub- 
 stance called protoplasm. Life is always 
 associated with protoplasm, which is some- 
 times spoken of as the ' 'fundamental basis of 
 life." Each speck of protoplasm, as in the 
 case of microbes, can feel, move, grow (by 
 taking food), and reproduce its kind. Each 
 individual speck is called a cell, which means 
 a portion of matter, not an inclosed hollow 
 space as one of the air-cells of the lungs. 
 Every living being begins its existence as a 
 single cell — the lower forms never getting be- 
 yond that state. In the higher forms of life, 
 such as man, tlfe body is composed of an in-" 
 numerable host of cells, more or less modified 
 for special purposes. Whatever the cell is 
 ordered to do, whether it be in the process of 
 
40 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 OCCOCOOCJCOO 
 
 anooooouooo 
 
 feeling, seeing, hearing, secreting, excreting, 
 or anything else, it does that one thing over 
 and over again until it becomes an expert or 
 specialist. 
 
 Habit is only a manifestation of the degree 
 to which the cells of our bodies have been 
 trained in certain directions. 
 
 All movements are produced by contraction 
 of protoplasm. A muscle is a mass of this 
 substance set apart for a special 
 use. Each muscle is made up of 
 a very large number of minute 
 fibers, and each of these of nu- 
 merous cells of modified proto- 
 plasm, placed in a row. In ap- 
 pearance, a single fibre very much 
 resembles a string of beads. If 
 there are twenty thousand cells 
 in a fiber and each cell contracts 
 one- twenty -thousandth of an 
 inch, the fiber will be shortened 
 fibte 2i sh^winj one inch. All muscular move- 
 GreatiV"enrged Xtxent is produced by the contrac- 
 tion of modified cells of protoplasm. 
 
 But the muscle-cells will not contract unless 
 stimulated to do so by the nervous system, 
 numerous small fibers of which extend into 
 every muscle. The muscles are servants and 
 are ordered to move by the brain or some 
 other nerve center. 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 41 
 
 The order is sent from the brain along the 
 minute nerve fibers, very much as a telegram 
 is sent from place to place along the wires. 
 Anything which lessens the power of 
 the brain to send its stimulating influ- 
 ences to the muscle cells, or lessens the 
 ability of the cells to respond readily, 
 will lessen the strength of the muscle. 
 That is, anything which makes protoplasm 
 less sensitive or less active will weaken the 
 nervous system and lessen muscular power. 
 
 During the past twenty-five years, there 
 have been thousands of carefully conducted 
 experiments proving, beyond a doubt, that 
 small quantities of alcohol lessen the move- 
 ments of protoplasm, while larger quantities 
 destroy these movements. While this under- 
 lying fact is universally admitted, yet there 
 are very many who still believe that alcohol 
 stimulates the muscles to greater activity. 
 This belief is still held, despite the well-known 
 fact that muscles move only as they are acted 
 upon by the nerves, and that alcohol lessens 
 nerve activit3 r . Before chloroform came into 
 use alcohol was given the patient in order to 
 deaden the nervous system and thus lessen 
 the pain in surgical operations. 
 
 It is now often held in the mouth to relieve 
 the toothache. Alcohol may produce such 
 an inflammation in the stomach that drops 
 
42 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 of blood ooze on the lining membrane, and 
 yet no pain be felt. When people are under 
 the influence of alcohol they do not suffer as 
 much from the extremes of heat or cold as do 
 others. Many freeze to death without know- 
 ing that they are cold. Hundreds of facts, like 
 the foregoing, confirm the value of the scien- 
 tific experiments, and prove conclusively that 
 alcohol does lessen the activity of the nervous 
 system. 
 
 Very many experiments, carefully conducted 
 "with the most approved and precise instru- 
 ments, prove that alcohol weakens every 
 muscle in the body. Those who are training 
 for such physical contests as prize-fighting, 
 rowing, and ball-playing, are strictly forbid- 
 den the use of alcohol. Thousands of trials 
 have fully proved that men can do more work 
 and endure more heat, cold, fatigue, or other 
 hardships, without the use of alcohol than 
 with it. A person may become a dangerous 
 raving maniac by intoxication, but he will not 
 acquire any degree of new strength. 
 
 He is not stimulated, — he has simply de- 
 ranged the nerve centers of his brain. Any 
 healthy temperate person who doubts these 
 statements can verify them by making the 
 acquaintance of lifting scales and a bottle of 
 whiskey. Common observation will prove 
 that the statement of scientific facts already 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 43 
 
 made is true, viz. — that alcohol lessens that 
 property of protoplasm known as sensation, 
 thereby retarding the action of the nervous 
 system and the muscle cells, and results in 
 weakening muscular power. No educated 
 person, after having had his attention called 
 to the matter, will, for a moment, doubt the 
 truth of these conclusions. 
 
 The next step in this research is not so 
 easily taken. If alcohol weakens muscu- 
 lar action IT MUST WEAKEN THE HEART'S 
 ACTION, BECAUSE THE HEART IS A MUSCLE. 
 
 Before the days of careful scientific investi- 
 gation with accurate instruments, it was 
 universally believed that alcohol was a stim- 
 ulant. Even in recent years it is generally 
 accepted as a settled fact and has been incor- 
 porated into nearly all medical and scientific 
 literature. Accurate knowledge of the physi- 
 ological effects of alcohol has, until of late, 
 been neglected in the general forward move- 
 ment in medical science from a lack of careful 
 scientific experiment and investigation. 
 
 The writer began a series of experiments 
 along this line in 1874, while an assistant of 
 Dr. C. A. Kelsey, and has probably performed 
 more experiments, in order to ascertain the 
 effects of alcohol upon the healthy human 
 heart, than has any other person. During 
 these twen tj years of observation andexperi- 
 
44 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 ment, not a single instance has been found 
 where alcohol has proved itself to be a stimu- 
 lant to the heart, in regard to either the 
 strength or frequency of its contraction. 
 
 The force of the heart's contraction is 
 studied by using a very delicately constructed 
 instrument called the sphygmograph, or pulse- 
 writer. A part of this instrument consists of 
 a small pad, which is pressed gently upon the 
 pulse artery by means of a spring. As the 
 pad rises and falls, with each beat of the pulse, 
 the motion is communicated to a small cross- 
 bar, which is oscillated by a standard at- 
 tached to the top of the pad. To the cross- 
 bar is attached a long marker. 
 
 Every movement of the pulse is thus cor- 
 rectly reproduced, in a magnified form, by the 
 end of the marker. 
 
 The frontispiece shows how the records are 
 made. That part of the instrument which 
 has been partially described is represented in 
 the lower right hand corner of the engraving. 
 It is attached to the wrist of the person who 
 is being experimented upon. The marker ex- 
 tends to a cylinder, covered with paper, which 
 has been blackened by burning camphor. 
 The cylinder is slowly revolved by turning a 
 crank, which makes twenty-seven revolutions 
 while the cylinder makes one. The exact 
 form of the pulse is thus outlined in the soot 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 45 
 
 on the cylinder, the height of th? elevations 
 indicating the comparative strength of the 
 heart's contractions. When the sooty paper 
 has been covered with traces, it is very care- 
 fully removed from the c\dinder and dipped 
 in a saturated solution of white shellac in 
 alcohol, making a permanent record. Sections 
 of a few of the many papers thus prepared 
 are given. These experiments were performed 
 upon healthy and strictly temperate people, 
 and give a fair idea of the average results of 
 all. The traces were taken every fifteen 
 minutes, while the person was seated and 
 quiet in every respect. All necessary pre- 
 cautions were taken regarding mental con- 
 ditions and all outside influences. 
 
 Pure alcohol (95% by volume) was used in 
 all the experiments, for it is almost impossible 
 to procure any other kind of unadulterated 
 liquor. All pure liquors are practically noth- 
 ing more or less than alcohol and water mix- 
 ed in different proportions. 
 
 The traces given below were selected, from 
 the large number taken, to give a fair aver- 
 age of results in relation to age, sex, weight, 
 variations in natural pulse rate, amount of 
 alcohol given, manner of giving it, and the 
 time after meals when the observations were 
 taken. 
 
 Fig. 13 represents the pulse of B. H. B.,age 
 
46 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 Fig. 13. 
 
 Fig. 14. 
 
 60, weight 150. Experiment began about 
 one and a half hours after breakfast, a trace 
 being taken every fifteen minutes. Immedi- 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 47 
 
 Fig. 15. 
 
 Fig 16. 
 
 ately after taking each of the first ten traces, 
 a half drachm of alcohol (equal to ateaspoon- 
 iul of whiskey) was given — five drachms in 
 
48 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 
 Fig. 17. Fig. 18. 
 
 all. The pulse was carefully counted each 
 time a trace was taken. The pulse rates 
 were: 62, 61, 64, 63, 64, 62, 63, 62, 63, 64, 
 62, 62, 62, 64, 64, 64. 
 
 Fig 14 represents the pulse of Miss D. B., 
 age 21, weight 100. Experiment began oi^e 
 and three-fourths hours after dinner. Traces 
 taken every fifteen minutes. One drachm of 
 alcohol was given after taking the first and 
 third traces, two drachms in all. The rates 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 49 
 
 82 
 
 81 
 
 81 
 
 82 
 
 78 
 78 
 
 74 
 72 
 
 74 
 76 
 
 180 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 76 
 
 r 
 
 78 
 
 cl 74 
 
 & 75 
 
 75 
 
 Pig. 19. 
 
 Fig. 20. 
 
 of the pulse when the traces were taken were: 
 74, 67, 70, 71, 70, 69, 68, 67, 68, 72, 68, 66, 
 67, 66, 66, 70. 
 
 Fig. 15 represents the pulse of G. E. R., age 
 23, weight 180. Experiment began one-half 
 hour after dinner. A trace was taken each 
 fifteen minutes. After each of the first eight 
 traces was taken, one-half drachm of alcohol 
 was given, four drachms in all. Pulse rates 
 
50 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 Fig. 21. 
 
 Eig. 22. 
 
 were: 71, 71, 71, 72, 70, 72, 65, 62, 63, 60, 
 61, 62, 60, 57, 60, 58, 58, 58. 
 
 Fig. 16 also represents the pulse of G. E. R. 
 Experiment began one and one-half hours 
 after dinner. Traces taken fifteen minutes 
 apart. After each of the first four traces was 
 taken two drachms of alcohol were given — 
 eight drachms in all, Pulse rates were: 66, 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 51 
 
 63, 62, 62, 64, 62, 62, 58, 65, 65, 60, 61, 60, 
 
 58, 5?, 56. 
 
 Fig. 17 represents the pulse of J. M. A., age 
 27, weight 120. Experiment began one and 
 one-half hours after supper. Fifteen minutes 
 between traces. Gave two drachms alcohol 
 after the first, third, and sixth traces were 
 taken — six drachms in all. The pulse rates 
 were: 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 92, 92, 91, 87, 86. 
 
 Fig. 18 represents the pulse of H. E., age 
 18, weight 140. Experiment began two and 
 one-half hours after dinner. A trace taken 
 each quarter of an hour. Gave four drachms 
 of alcohol after each of the first four traces 
 was taken — sixteen drachms, or two ounces, 
 in all. The pulse rates were: 94, 95, 94, 90, 
 90, 90, 89, 89, 85, 86, 87, 86. 
 
 Fig. 19 represents the pulse of H. F. C. age 
 26, weight 155. He was in the habit of 
 smoking three or four cigars each day. A 
 strong cup of coffee w^as taken with dinner at 
 12 o'clock. Between 1 and 1:30, smoked a 
 cigar. Experiment began at 3. Fifteen 
 minutes between traces. Took two drachms 
 of alcohol after each of first four traces, eight 
 drachms in all. The pulse rates were: 84, 82, 
 81, 81, 82, 78, 78, 74, 72, 74, 76. 
 
 In this case the heart w^as much weakened 
 by the tobacco habit. At first the alcohol 
 partially revived the "tobacco heart,' ' then 
 
52 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 added its own paralyzing effects to that of 
 the tobacco, making the man almost pulse- 
 less, although he felt better and stronger. 
 
 Fig. 20 represents the pulse of the same per- 
 son, six days later. During the six days he 
 abstained from the use of tobacco and tea 
 and coffee. The experiment began two and 
 one-half hours after dinner. One-half drachm 
 of alcohol was taken after each of the first 
 eight traces was made — four drachms in all. 
 The pulse rates were: 80, 76, 76, 79, 78, 77, 
 77, 74, 75, 75, 75. 
 
 This set of traces and Figs. 13, 15, and 16, 
 show something regarding the length of time 
 required for the heart to begin to rally from 
 the depressing effects of alcohol, when taken 
 in small doses by healthy temperate people. 
 
 Fig. 21 represents the pulse of I. H., age 46, 
 weight 135, under the influence of chloro- 
 form. The traces were taken every two min- 
 utes. He began inhaling the chloroform af- 
 ter the first trace was taken, continuing for 
 twenty-three minutes. At no time was there 
 total unconsciousness. The pulse rates were: 
 70, 71, 69, 70, 72, 72, 72, 68, 69, 70, 70, 67, 
 66, 64. Is chloroform a more powerful heart 
 depressant than alcohol ? 
 
 Fig. 22 represents the natural pulse of I. H. 
 O . The experiment began immediately after a 
 
ERRATA 
 The sentence on this page, commencing in the 16th line from 
 from the top, should read: 
 
 Twenty series of records (taken in order 
 without omission) from these experiments 
 give an average fall of six beats per minute 
 in two and a half hours, beginning one and a 
 half hours after meals. 
 
CONQUEROR OP HEARTS AND HANDS. 53 
 
 light dinner, at which neither meat, tea, coffee, 
 nor condiments were taken. Traces taken fif- 
 teen minutes apart. The pulse rates were: 71, 
 75, 74, 74, 71, 76, 75, 76, 73, 72, 73, 73, 69, 72, 
 72. This set of traces is about an average of 
 many series of experiments made to ascer- 
 tain the natural rise and fall in the force of 
 the pulse. The depressions in the force of the 
 pulse, (which indicates the strength of the 
 heart), as shown by the preceding sets of 
 traces, are not due to natural causes. 
 
 The experiments given demonstrate that 
 alcohol is not a stimulant, at least so far as 
 the force of the heart is concerned. The rates 
 of the pulse given seem also to be affected by 
 the alcohol. Twenty series of records (taken 
 order without omission) from these experi- 
 ments give an average fall of six beats per 
 minute in two and a half hours after meals. 
 The average amount of alcohol given in each 
 experiment was about five drachms. Twenty 
 series of records of the natural pulse, for the 
 same length of time and the same interval 
 aicer meals, give an average fall of 3.65 beats 
 per minute, or less than two-thirds as much 
 decrease in the rate as when under the in- 
 fluence of small doses of alcohol. 
 
 For many years the world has generally 
 accepted as final the results of a carefully 
 conducted experiment by Drs. Parkes and 
 
54 MICROBES AND MEN.. 
 
 Wollowiz, of England, to ascertain the effects 
 of alcohol upon the rate of the heart's action. 
 This very important experiment was made 
 upon a healthy man, 28 years old, weighing 
 136 lbs. His diet was the same in kind and 
 amount during the experiment, meat being 
 prohibited. 
 
 He was a habitual user of tea, coffee, and 
 tobacco, besides being a persistent moderate 
 beer drinker. His system was so accustomed 
 to the influence of these narcotics, that eight 
 ounces of pure alcohol given in one day, dur- 
 in the progress of the experiment, did not 
 produce "narcotic symptoms." During the 
 experiment the habitual use of alcoholic li- 
 quors was prohibited, but tea and coffee were 
 allowed, also a daily allowance of one-half 
 ounce of tobacco. 
 
 The pulse was counted eight times each day, 
 208 records in all. For a period of eight days 
 no alcohol was given; in the next six days 
 there was a daily allowance of from one to 
 eight ounces of pure alcohol; during the 
 next six days no alcohol was given; then for 
 three days about three ounces of pure alcohol, 
 in the form of brandy, were consumed each 
 day; after which came a like period of no al- 
 cohol. The conclusions were, in part, that 
 two ounces of pure alcohol (equal to a gill of 
 brandy or whiskey) increased the heart's ac- 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 55 
 
 tion 8,172 beats per day, while eight ounces 
 increased its action 25,000 beats. When the 
 facts regarding the habitual and continued 
 use of narcotics are taken into consideration, 
 the absurdity of accepting the results of this 
 experiment, as final, is apparent. Now, since 
 much that has been believed, said, and writ- 
 ten, for over twenty years, regarding the ac- 
 tion of alcohol on the heart, has been based 
 upon the published results of this experi- 
 ment, the writer maybe pardoned for present- 
 ing the results of his most extended series of 
 experiments designed to verify the "celebra- 
 ted Parke's experiment. ,, 
 
 A perfectly healthy man was selected, age 
 46, height 5 ft. 9 in., weight 135 lbs., who 
 had never used narcotics (or "stimulants") 
 of any kind. He was a retired physician, of 
 good physique, nervous temperament, but 
 with digestive powers somewhat below the 
 average. All necessary precautions were 
 taken regarding diet, amount of fluids used, 
 temperature of room and of food and drink, 
 position of body, exercise, and state of mind. 
 The pulse was carefully counted every fifteen 
 minutes from rising to retiring, or sixty times 
 each day, 1440 records in all. The diet con- 
 sisted of bread and butter, oatmeal, corn- 
 meal, granola, limited quantities of potato 
 and fruit, and one pint of milk per day. 
 
56 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 When alcohol was used between meals, it was 
 well diluted with water ; when taken with 
 meals it was put into one-third of a pint of 
 milk, all other fluids being prohibited, as well 
 as meats and condiments. Each meal occu- 
 pied the time between two counts. The 
 records began each day at 7:30 a.m., three 
 being made before breakfast, eighteen be- 
 tween breakfast and dinner, twenty-two be- 
 tween dinner and supper, and seventeen 
 between supper and the time of retiring, 
 10:15 p.m. The experiment extended over 
 twenty-four days, divided into eight periods 
 of three days each. During the first period, 
 no alcohol was given. One ounce of pure al- 
 cohol (95% by volume) was given the first 
 day of the second period, two ounces the sec- 
 ond day, and three ounces on the third. The 
 third, fifth, and seventh periods were like the 
 first, and the fourth, sixth, and eighth were 
 like the second. The 720 records made dur- 
 ing the twelve no-alcohol days gave an aver- 
 age of 66.48 heart beats per minute. The 
 same number made during the twelve alcohol 
 days gave an average of 65.52 heart beats 
 per minute, that is, the heart beats at the 
 rate of 1382.4 times per day /ess than natural 
 when an average of two ounces of pure al- 
 cohol was given daily. The alcohol was giv- 
 en between 8 a. m, and 6.15 p.m., in doses 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 57 
 
 varying from one-half drachm to an ounce, 
 two thirds of the time it being givenin three 
 equal doses with meals. It should be remem- 
 bered that brandy, whiskey, gin, and rum, are 
 about one-half, wines about one-fifth, cider 
 about one-fourteenth, and beer about one- 
 twentieth, alcohol, this being the active prin- 
 cipal in all these fluids. 
 
 When three ounces of alcohol were given, in 
 drachm doses every fifteen minutes, there were 
 marked ' 'narcotic symptoms V In fact , there 
 was an advanced stage of intoxication which 
 caused the man to stagger about the room, 
 and made it difficult for him to feed himself. 
 The intoxication was w-ell marked when an 
 ounce had been taken in this manner; but 
 when the ounce was taken with a meal, there 
 was but slight intoxication, and that would 
 usually disappear in about thirty minutes. 
 About fifteen minutes after a meal, when one 
 ounce had been taken, the man would ap- 
 pear dizzy and bewildered, would stretch 
 out his arms and clinch his hands, much as a 
 person sometimes does when awaking from 
 the effects of chloroform. When three ounces 
 per day were given, there was a disturbance 
 of digestion, followed by tenderness in the 
 region of the stomach, indicating that the al- 
 cohol had produced more or less inflam- 
 mation. 
 
58 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 This irritation of the stomach, and the prob- 
 ably prolonged period of digestion, seemed to 
 be the principal causes which tended to in- 
 crease the heart's action when the larger 
 doses were given. That is, alcohol does not 
 increase the daily average of the pulse rate 
 until enough is taken to produce local inflam- 
 mation and a general disturbance of the sys- 
 tem. The average of the eight days, when 
 the allowance averaged one and one-half 
 ounces per day, was 64.87 beats per minute 
 or 2318.4 fewer beats per day than the nor- 
 mal rate. The average of the four days, when 
 three ounces were given daily, was 66.83 
 beats per minute or 504 more than the nor- 
 mal daily rate. This higher rate is not due 
 to stimulation, but to the fact that the pulse 
 rate did not fall as low before dinner, supper, 
 and bed time, as it did when the smaller doses 
 were given. If we compare the 'one ounce 
 days' with the ' three ounce days' in the chart 
 of pulse rates, we are led to inquire whether 
 the difference is not due to an irritated 
 stomach and a retarded digestion. 
 
 It would have been very interesting and 
 profitable to have given this rare and valu- 
 able subject, for such an experiment, larger 
 doses, but it was not considered entirely safe 
 to do so. It is not safe for adults who are 
 not habitual users of narcotics, (including tea 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 59 
 
 and coffee), to take eight ounces of alcohol in 
 one day. If that quantity should be taken at 
 one dose, fatal results would often quickly 
 follow. 
 
 The results of the above experiment agree 
 with the records of many similar ones taken 
 for the same purpose. The only conclusions 
 that can be drawn from twenty years of ex- 
 periment and observation are, that alcoholic 
 liquors of all kinds and in all sized doses, usu- 
 ally depress the action of the heart both in 
 force and in rate. There is no period of stim- 
 ulation or excitement. 
 
 The depression in force usually begins in 
 about twenty minutes and lasts two or more 
 hours, while the rate is usually but slightly 
 affected. Much material is at hand from 
 which these conclusions are drawn. Those 
 who have never conducted such a series oi 
 experiments are scarcely able to comprehend 
 the amount of expense, time, patience, and 
 care necessary, in order to get sufficient data 
 for anything like correct conclusions. The 
 chart of pulse rates will be found very in- 
 teresting and valuable. Each square repre- 
 sents fifteen minutes, horizontally, and an 
 increase or decrease of one pulse beat per 
 minute, vertically. The continuous irregular 
 lines represent the average of twelve no-alco- 
 hol days, each beginning with sixty-two 
 
60 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
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CONQUEROR OP HEARTS AND HANDS. 61 
 
 The first dotted line (at the top) represents 
 the average of twelve alcohol days when an 
 average of two ounces per day was given. 
 No. 2, the average of eight days for an aver- 
 age of one and one-half ounces; No, 3, four 
 da\^s, for one ounce; No. 4, four days, for 
 two ounces; and No. 5, four days, for the 
 three ounces per day. 
 
 The thoughtful and observing person will 
 find much of value and interest in the pulse 
 chart. The inquisitive one will soon discover 
 that it was necessary to make over eight 
 hundred points when i 'laying off " the chart, 
 and that the straight-edge occupied over six 
 hundred positions in the drawing of it. The 
 economical person will observe that it repre- 
 sents over one hundred dollars in time and 
 money; and the curious will be delighted to 
 know that there is nothing else on earth just 
 like it. 
 
 The reader will bear in mind that all these 
 experiments were made for the purpose of as- 
 certaining the effect of alcohol on the healthy 
 human heart. The writer is not aware of 
 any carefully and wisely conducted experi- 
 ment that has ever been made, that does not, 
 in the main, agree with the result just record- 
 ed. H. N. Martin, A. M., M. D., D. Sc, pro- 
 fessor in Johns Hopkins University, and one 
 of the noted experimenters in America, has 
 
62 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 done much praiseworthy experimenting in or- 
 der to determine the effect of alcohol on the 
 action of a dog's heart when separated from 
 all parts of the body except the lungs. In 
 these careful tests, the heart was first fur- 
 nished with pure blood, then with blood con- 
 taining a certain per cent of alcohol, after- 
 wards with pure blood again. If the heart 
 in any case did not revive when furnished 
 with pure blood, after it had been depressed 
 by alcohol, that experiment was rejected, 
 fearing that the depression was due to failing 
 vitality. But when the heart revived under 
 the influence of pure blood, it was considered 
 certain that the depression was caused by the 
 alcohol. Dr. Martin states the results of his 
 noted experiments, as follows: — "Blood con- 
 taining one-eighth per cent of alcohol has no 
 immediate perceptible action on the isolated 
 heart. Blood containing one-fourth per cent, 
 by volume, almost invariably remarkably 
 diminishes, within a minute, the work done 
 by the heart. Blood containing one-half per 
 cent, that is, five parts in a thousand, always 
 diminishes and may even bring the amount 
 pumped out of the left ventricle to so small a 
 quantity that it is not sufficient to supply 
 coronary arteries/ ' 
 
 An ordinary drink of whiskey or brandy 
 will give more than the one-fourth per cent, 
 
CONQUEROR OF HEARTS AND HANDS. 63 
 
 or one part in four hundred of pure alcohol 
 in the blood of an average man, which "al- 
 most invariably remarkably diminished with- 
 in a minute the work done by the heart." 
 
 These experiments, and hundreds of others, 
 bearing directly or indirectly upon the same 
 subject, which have been made upon the 
 lower animals, by some of the best scientists 
 in the world, all proclaim that alcohol lessens 
 the sensibility and motive power of proto- 
 plasm and, therefore, not only lessens the 
 ability of the nervous system to send stimu- 
 lating influences to the muscles, but lessens 
 the ability of the muscles to respond to the 
 influences sent to them. Alcohol is not a 
 stimulant. Thousands of fatal cases of 
 stimulation (?) annually attest to the truth- 
 fulness of this statement. Alcohol, as found 
 in all kinds of alcoholic liquors, is the'great 
 conqueror not only of hearts and hands, but 
 of bodies and souls. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FIRST GRIST MILLS RUN BY WATER. 
 
 Man is said to be a stomach with such ap- 
 pliances as feet, hands, and head, to keep it 
 supplied with material to be ground. This 
 process of reducing food to a condition fitted 
 to make bone, muscle, and brain, is carried 
 on largely by water. In fact every move- 
 ment of our bodies, even to the assistance in 
 the production of thought, is possible only by 
 the aid of water. If our brains and other 
 organs did not contain a large amount of 
 water, they would be of no more use than 
 ordinary leather. Water is the only fluid that 
 can dissolve the various articles of food 
 which are taken into our stomachs. The 
 blood is fluid and is rendered capable of con- 
 veying the digested food to every tissue and 
 cell of the body, because it contains a large 
 proportion of water. It is water which takes 
 up the waste products from the wear and 
 tear of the tissues, and conveys them out of 
 
THE FIRST GRIST MILL RUN BY WATER. 65 
 
 the body by a most complicated and wonder- 
 ful sewerage system. Water gives form, size, 
 flexibility, and capacity for motion, to the 
 different parts and organs of our bodies. The 
 chewing and swallowing of solid food is made 
 possible because of its being mixed with the 
 saliva, which is 99 per cent water. The sali- 
 va moistens, and partially digests, the food. 
 When the food reaches the stomach it is mixed 
 with large quantities of gastric juice, 97 per 
 cent of which is 'water. The other three fluids, 
 poured into the digestive organs beyond the 
 stomach, are from 87 to 90 per cent water. 
 The food, thus prepared by these very watery 
 fluids to become a part of the living tissues, 
 is taken up and carried to every hungry cell 
 in the body by the blood, which is, itself, 79 
 per cent water. The muscles, w T hich contract 
 with so much power, are 74 per cent water, 
 and the brain — the organ of the mind — con- 
 tains no less than 79 or 80 per cent of this 
 all-important and ever-present fluid. A con- 
 stant supply of water is so necessary that 
 great suffering results if it be withheld for even 
 a few hours, and death would follow in less 
 than a week. Insane persons who have taken 
 nothing but water have been known to sur- 
 vive for two months. Most articles of food, 
 as prepared for the table, are more than half 
 water. 
 
66 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 On an average, it is necessary to add, each 
 day, about one pint of water to the amount 
 taken as food, in order to supply the de- 
 mands of the system. Thirst, in the healthy 
 person, is the crying out of the cells of the 
 body for the water needed for carrying on 
 the proper work of the various tissues. No 
 other fluid will in any manner , or to any de- 
 gree, supply this imperative demand. 
 
 When a drink, which contains a fluid that 
 has such an affinity for water, that this fluid 
 will rob the cells of water already contained, 
 is introduced into the system, thirst is in- 
 creased, because water has been drawn from 
 the tissues instead of being supplied to them 
 as demanded. A person who may be thirsty 
 from excessive perspiration, caused by a hot 
 bath, does not have the thirst relieved by in- 
 creasing the amount of water in the bath- 
 tub. Neither is a cell or tissue, which has 
 been robbed of a part of its water by a chem- 
 ical agent, satisfied by any amount of water 
 that may be hurried past, on its way out of 
 the system, by the shortest possible route. 
 
 Alcohol has such an affinity for water that 
 it seizes upon it whenever it can be found. 
 If a piece of lean meat be put into alcohol it 
 will become quite hard and shrunken by hav- 
 ing water extracted. Mix the white of an 
 egg with brandy and it will be "cooked," be- 
 
THE FIRST GRIST MILL RUN BY WATER. 67 
 
 cause the alcohol has taken so much of the 
 water from it. Soft-bodied animals, when 
 preserved in alcohol, are so dried and 
 shrunken as to be useless for illustrations in 
 teaching natural histor\\ Alcohol that has 
 already been mixed with large quantities of 
 water, retains its ability to take more water 
 from every^ possible source. 
 
 All kinds of alcoholic liquors are simply 
 water mixed with a certain per cent of alco- 
 hol. Ten pints of beer are equal to one pint 
 of whiskey or brandy put into nine pints of 
 water, or one half pint of alcohol put into 
 nine and one half pints of water. The man 
 who pays one dollar per day for twenty-one 
 half-pint drinks of beer usually objects to 
 being called a " water drinker," although he 
 has consumed nearly ten pints of that fluid, 
 for which he has paid eighty cents. But even 
 in such a case this large amount of water will 
 not prevent the half pint of alcohol from so 
 injuring the tissues, that there will be suffer- 
 ing from thirst as soon as the system is 
 sufficiently recovered from the narcotic effects 
 of the alcohol. The habitual use of beer, 
 cider, or stronger liquors, increases thirst, 
 and this can only be relieved by keeping the 
 tissues so stupefied with alcohol that they 
 are not able to cry out against the injuries 
 already inflicted. When the thirst increases 
 
68 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 faster than the alcohol can be supplied to 
 quiet the demands of the tissues, it becomes 
 all-absorbing and is called dipsomania, or 
 drink madness. 
 
 When alcohol (in any alcoholic liquor) is 
 swallowed, two principal effects on the mouth 
 and throat are quite noticeable. More or 
 less water is taken from the tissues, giving a 
 sensation of thirst, and this is intensified as 
 soon as the second or deadening effect has 
 ceased. This stupefying effect causes the lit- 
 tle muscles, which surround the minute blood- 
 vessels, and regulate the supply of blood to 
 any given part, to relax their hold on the ves- 
 sels, and this allows an increased flow of 
 blood to the mucous membrane. The unusual 
 amount of warm blood around the nerves of 
 feeling in the mucous membrane gives a sen- 
 sation of increased warmth. This sensation, 
 and the increased redness, are known as the 
 irritating effects of alcohol. 
 
 When alcohol reaches the stomach, where it 
 must remain for some time in contact with 
 the tissues, the effects are more marked. If 
 the alcohol is well diluted, as in beer, the red- 
 ness or blush from taking the first dose will 
 soon pass away. If its use is continued the 
 redness becomes permanent, for the little mus- 
 cles lose their power over the blood-vessels. 
 The continued congestion and irritated condi- 
 
THE FIRST GRIST MILL RUN BY WATER. 69 
 
 tion causes the lining membrane to thicken at 
 first and then to slough off in patches, there- 
 by producing ulcers. When average quanti- 
 ties of beer and cider are the only liquors 
 used, the stomach is not apt to ulcerate, but 
 is usually more or less enlarged. No person 
 can habitually use average quantities of any- 
 kind of alcoholic liquor and have a perfectly 
 healthy stomach. 
 
 Every tissue, and every fluid of the whole 
 body, is able to carry on the work necessary 
 to make life and health possible, only when it 
 contains a certain amount of water. So is it 
 with other useful articles. Dried ink is as 
 useless as is ink that has been flooded with 
 water. When a person drinks alcoholic 
 liquors, the alcohol extracts water from the 
 various tissues and renders them more or less 
 useless, until they have time to repair the in- 
 jury, or to form the habit of doing the best 
 they can under the abnormal circumstances. 
 While the alcohol is working ruin by lessen- 
 ing the activit}^ of the nerves and muscles 
 and extracting water from the tissues and 
 cells, the water, taken along with it, or to re- 
 lieve the thirst caused by it, is making the 
 fluids of the body more or less useless by 
 diluting tliem. This is especially true so far 
 as the digestive fluids of the mouth and 
 stomach are concerned. The irritating effects 
 
70 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 of alcohol cause an increased flow of these 
 fluids, but of an inferior quality, and then the 
 irritant proceeds to separate the active part, 
 or ferment, from the water in these aids to 
 digestion, rendering them entirely useless. 
 From this, it is plain that digestion cannot 
 be carried on in the stomach while any con- 
 siderable quantity of alcohol is present. Be- 
 fore the digestive process can proceed, the 
 diluted and useless fluids, including the alco- 
 hol, must be removed and new fluids secreted 
 and poured into the stomach. When a 
 moderate quantity of alcohol is taken several 
 times each hour after a meal, the food will 
 not even begin to digest. In such cases, the 
 food, together with quantities of ropy 
 mucous, is sometimes vomited up ten or even 
 twenty hours after the meal. If the quantity 
 of alcohol drank is large, as in a drunken 
 debauch, the digestion is not only stopped, 
 but the stomach refuses to remove the alco- 
 hol, as fast as it is received ; so alcohol may 
 be ejected, with the undigested food, after the 
 individual has lain in a drunken stupor for 
 ten or more hours. 
 
 The large quantities of mucous poured into 
 the stomach, under such circumstances, seems 
 to be a wise provision of nature to dilute and 
 surround the poison and keep it away from 
 the delicate tissues, where it might excite 
 
THE FIRST GRIST MILL RUN BY WATER. 71 
 
 fatal inflammation. It also serves to prevent 
 the poison from too rapidly escaping into the 
 blood, where it would certainly produce fatal 
 results. 
 
 Alcoholic liquors of every kind and name 
 can never, under any possible condition, be 
 of use to a healthy stomach or to its healthy 
 owner. In the very rare cases where alco- 
 holic liquors can be prescribed with benefit to 
 a diseased stomach, or to its diseased owner, 
 other more useful and less injurious remedies 
 can be prescribed with more benefit. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SUGAR FACTORY. 
 
 It is necessary that a large part of our 
 bread, and of nearly all other vegetable foods 
 (the starchy portions), shall be changed into 
 sugar in the process of digestion. All the sugar 
 that has been made from the starch in the 
 food, together with all other foods and fluids, 
 (except fats), are caught up by the minute 
 blood vessels of the stomach and intestines, 
 carried to the portal vein, and hurried on to 
 the liver. 
 
 The liver is the largest and most important 
 gland in the body. It is divided into about 
 2,000,000 sections or "rooms" (lobules). In 
 each "room" there are about 125,000 skilled 
 workers — cells of modified protoplasm — who 
 toil day and night that the population of the 
 entire system may be supplied with properly 
 prepared food. When the portal vein enters 
 the liver it divides and subdivides until the 
 veins are only ^2ooth of an inch in diameter. 
 
THE SUGAR FACTORY. 73 
 
 These little veins run over and around the 
 "rooms, "or lobules,in every direction,branch- 
 ing off, finally, into capillary blood-vessels, 
 which are only %oooth of an inch in diameter. 
 Large numbers of these capillaries pass into 
 each "room" and thus bring the blood, con- 
 taining the food and drink just received from 
 the stomach and intestines, into close con- 
 tact with each of the 250,000,000,000 work- 
 ers, or liver-cells. Each "room" is supplied 
 with sewer pipes, serving as outlets into the 
 hepatic duct. This duct conveys the large 
 quantities of material, which have been ex- 
 tracted from the blood, while passing through 
 the liver, into a convenient reservoir called 
 the gall-bladder. 
 
 The three principal functions of the liver 
 are, (a) to refine or remanufacture the sugar 
 received from the organs of digestion; (b) to 
 produce large quantities of another kind of 
 sugar; and (c) to manufacture or excrete the 
 bile. Upon the proper performance of these 
 functions of this organ, depend the hap- 
 piness, health, and life of the individ- 
 ual. The food must be properly prepared 
 by the liver, else it will not nourish the tis- 
 sues — leaving the individual to die of slow 
 starvation, regardless of the amount or kind of 
 food taken. When the blood contains too 
 much bile, we have that peculiar and danger- 
 
74 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 ous disea.se called j aundice. While it is necess- 
 ary to keep the blood free from bile, yet the 
 bile is a necesssary factor in completing the 
 process of digestion, being poured into the 
 intestines from the gall-bladder, just below 
 the stomach. If all this work is carried on 
 by the great " sugar factory/ ' and if health 
 and life depend upon the amount and quality 
 of work done, it seems wise and proper that 
 we should manifest an intelligent interest in 
 the welfare of the two hundred and fifty bil- 
 lions of little toilers who strive so faithfully, 
 day and night, to do so much and to do it 
 so well. 
 
 We have learned that alcohol destroys the 
 gastric juice of the stomach, and may, in time, 
 destroy the stomach itself, thus interfering 
 very much with the preparation of the food, 
 which is on its way to become a part of the 
 body. Under no circumstances do the di- 
 gestive fluids change the alcohol, for it is not 
 capable of being digested. It is taken up by 
 the blood-vessels in an unchanged state, and 
 carried to the liver with the selected food and 
 water. When it reaches the liver its effects 
 are very much like those produced when it 
 first comes into contact with the tissues of 
 the mouth — it lessens the activity of the pro- 
 toplasm in its whole structure. This results 
 in an enlargement of the liver,caused by hold- 
 
THE SUGAR FACTORY. 75 
 
 ing a larger amount of blood in the vessels, 
 and saturating the tissues around them with 
 the water which escapes from the vessels. 
 The stupefying of the liver cells, and the 
 change in the condition of the whole organ, 
 interferes with its important work in prepar- 
 ing the food for the nourishment of all the 
 tissues of the body, and in taking the bile out 
 of the blood for its necessary office in the pro- 
 cess of digestion. Of course this defective 
 work leads to a derangement of the whole 
 system, as is manifest in a disturbance of 
 digestion, a coated tongue, foul breath, head- 
 ache, dizziness, languor, "the blues,' ' and 
 general unpleasant sensations of both body 
 and mind. 
 
 All consciousness of the general distur- 
 bance and ruin, which have been wrought by 
 this evil spirit, may be temporarily banished, 
 if enough more of the same article be taken to 
 quiet the brain and nerves. This leads the 
 victim to believe that he is better, and, by de- 
 grees, he becomes a confirmed drunkard. 
 
 The late Dr. Palmer, of the University of 
 Michigan, when speaking of the chronic 
 effects of alcohol on the liver, says: "Much 
 more serious effects are, in some cases, pro- 
 duced by alcoholics, and beer is more apt to 
 act in the way about to be mentioned than 
 whiskey. An accumulation of fat is often 
 
76 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 produced in the liver, causing its greater and 
 more permanent enlargement, and impairing 
 more permanently its action. When this is 
 the case stopping the use of the drink does 
 not produce the same rapid improvement as 
 in the cases before mentioned. But where 
 the fat is deposited between the proper liver 
 cells or structures, without taking the place 
 of them, abstaining from drinking may, in 
 time, be followed by much improvement. 
 
 There is another fatty change, much worse 
 than t his, where particles of fat take the place of 
 the structure. This is called fatty degeneration, 
 and when it occurs other organs are likely to 
 be affected in a similar way; and this disease 
 before a great while ends in death. 
 
 When any portion of the liver is changed 
 into fat, that part cannot do its work, and 
 as the change goes on, action will cease, and 
 death must follow. # # # 
 
 I will here only say that there is a disease 
 of the liver called Cirrhosis, from its yellow 
 color, and hob-nail liver, from there being up- 
 on its surface rounded projections, looking 
 like the large nails on the soles of an English 
 laborer's shoes; and this disease is also called 
 gin-liver, from its always being produced by 
 drinking strong liquor. The liver, though 
 swollen at first, becomes shriveled and much 
 smaller later, and all through it are small 
 
THE SUGAR FACTORY. 77 
 
 masses, causing the inside to look like a cake 
 of beeswax in which, when it was melted,yel- 
 low peas had been mixed. 
 
 In this condition the blood cannot properly 
 circulate through it, it cannot perform its 
 proper functions, dropsy follows ; and when 
 the disease is established, death always oc- 
 curs in a few months, or at the longest in a 
 very few years. As with certain alcoholic 
 diseases of the stomach, particularly cirrhosis 
 and contraction of its walls, even the aban- 
 donment of the alcohol comes too late. 
 
 This Cirrhosis, as well as other structural 
 alcoholic diseases, is more likely to occur from 
 steady drinking, though it be not carried to 
 the extent of positive drunkenness, than from 
 occasional debauches, however excessive, and 
 however morally and socially degrading and 
 disastrous. These structural changes of the 
 liver, from the effects of alcohol, though 
 sufficiently common to be very familiar to 
 physicians, are not nearly so frequent as the 
 derangements of action of this important 
 organ from the same cause, without distin- 
 guishable changes of its structure." 
 
 Dr. Hope, in his "Morbid Anatomy," speak- 
 ing of a cab-driver's liver, said: — "The tuber- 
 cles first appeared as individual grains, or 
 points of disease, then they coalesced and 
 finally formed large compact masses. The 
 
78 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 liver is enormous — five times its natural size, 
 crammed with thousands of tubera, varying 
 from this size to that of an egg. 11 
 
 Dr. Richardson says: (' Diseases of Modern 
 Life' p. 256-7-8), "The liver of the confirmed 
 alcoholic is probably never free from the in- 
 fluence of the poison ; it is too often saturated 
 with it. * * The organ at first becomes 
 enlarged from the distention of its vessels, 
 the surcharge of fluid matter, and the thicken- 
 ing of tissue. After a time there follows con- 
 traction of membrance, and slow shrinking 
 of the whole mass of the organ in its cellular 
 parts. Then the shrunken, hardened, rough- 
 ened mass is said to be "hob-nailed. " * * 
 The body of him in whom it is developed is 
 usually dropsical in its lower parts, owing to 
 the obstruction offered to the returning blood 
 by the veins, and death is certain. 
 
 * * Again, under an increase of fatty sub- 
 stance, the structure of the liver may he 
 charged with fatty cells, and undergo what 
 is technically designated fatty degeneration. 
 I touch with the lightest hand upon these 
 deteriorations, and I omit many others. My 
 object is gained if I but impress the mind of 
 the reader with the serious nature of the 
 changes that, in this one organ, alone, follow 
 an excessive use of alcohol." 
 
 The writer has seen a drunkard's liver 
 
THE SUGAR FACTORY. 79 
 
 -which had the general appearance of a mass 
 of decomposing cheese, and when a single cut 
 was made through it, there were revealed 
 hundreds of "pockets" from the size of a pin 
 head to that of a walnut, all filled with a 
 soft purulent matter. These chronic diseases 
 of the liver are nearly, or quite, painless, pro- 
 gress slowly, and give very little or no warn- 
 ing of their presence till long after all hope of 
 recovery is past, even when the cause which 
 produced them is discontinued. Too often it 
 is a fatal error for a person to believe that 
 he is not being injured by alcohol, simply be- 
 cause he does not suffer pain. 
 
 It is not possible for any person to use 
 any kind of alcoholic liquors habitually 
 and possess a perfectly healthy liver. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE HEATING PLANT. 
 
 The wind pipe passes from the throat down 
 into the chest, where it divides into the two 
 large bronchial tubes, one for 
 each lung. These bronchial 
 tubes divide and subdivide until 
 they are too small to be seen 
 without the aid of a microscope. 
 At the end of the minute bron- 
 chial tubes are the air-eel Is, which 
 are about Viooth of an inch in di- 
 ameter. The air-cells are not 
 Fig. 24.— Minute like the blood, muscle, nerve, or 
 
 bronchial tubes ' . 
 
 terminating in other body cells, or themicrobes, 
 
 air-cells. Great- - . 
 
 ly enlarged. which are one-celled plants or 
 animals, for these are always little masses of 
 protoplasm, more or less modified, and with 
 or without a surrounding membrane; while 
 the air-cells are hollow spaces surrounded by 
 membranes which are only 1 /24ooth of an inch 
 thick. However thin the membrane may ap- 
 
THE HEATING PEANNT. 81 
 
 pear to be, still it is more than five times 
 thicker than a red corpuscle of the blood. 
 Orton's Zoology states that there are in the 
 lungs of each person 600,000,000 air-cells, 
 and that the surrounding membranes of all 
 these, if spread out, would cover 132 square 
 feet, equal to eight or nine times the surface 
 of the whole body. 
 
 The blood-vessels which enter the lungs 
 from the heart, divide and subdivide until 
 they become capillaries %oooth of an inch in 
 diameter, with walls of almost inconceivable 
 thinness. These minute blood-vessels pass 
 over and between the air-cells in every 
 direction, thus spreading out the blood in 
 exceedingly thin layers almost in direct con- 
 tact with the inhaled air which lies on the 
 other side of the 132 square feet of membrane. 
 Through this membrane passes the poisonous 
 carbonic acid gas of the blood to be carried 
 out of the lungs by the expired air. At the 
 same time the oxygen of the air is passing in- 
 ward through the same membrane to reach 
 the red corpuscles, these having a great 
 affinity for oxygen. Drowning results from 
 the preventing of the interchange of these 
 gases for a very few- moments. 
 
 The air-cells are supplied with fresh air by 
 the process of breathing. This is accomplished 
 in the successive expansion and contraction 
 
82 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 of the chest by the activity of a large number 
 of muscles. We have already learned that al- 
 cohol lessens muscular power, therefore its use 
 must lessen the amount of pure air supplied , by 
 interfering with the act of breathing, making it 
 less powerful and less frequent. A part of the 
 alcohol taken into the system is thrown out by 
 the lungs, — as shown by chemical tests and by 
 the odor of alcohol in the breath,— thus making 
 the smaller amount of inhaled air doubly im- 
 pure while in the lungs. Also, the alcohol in the 
 blood so changes it that it is unable to throw 
 out, as it ought, the waste and poisonous mat- 
 ter. The amount of carbonic acid gas thrown 
 out of the system through the lungs is said to 
 be reduced one half in some cases. 
 
 The red coloring matter of the corpuscles has 
 such an affinity for oxygen that it takes it from 
 the air in the lungs, through the membranes of 
 the air-cells. It is then distributed over the en- 
 tire body, uniting in the meantime with the pre- 
 pared food in the blood . The uniting of the oxy- 
 gen with the food elements forms a true com- 
 bustion, or burning, thus supplying the body 
 with heat and vitality, making life and activity 
 possible. Anything which interferes with the 
 supply of air to the lungs or with the work of 
 the red coloring matter of the 25, 000,000, 000,- 
 000 red corpuscles in securing their quota of ox- 
 ygen, interferes with the very fountains of life. 
 
THE HEATING PLANT. 83 
 
 Alcohol has such an affinity for the red 
 coloring matter that it destroys very many 
 of the corpuscles, when large quantities of it 
 are introduced into the blood, and all are 
 more or less injured. When small quantities 
 are taken, the damage is proportionally less. 
 When the amount of alcohol found in a full 
 drink of beer, or a half drink of whiskey, gets 
 into the blood, it lessens the quantity of oxy- 
 gen consumed to such an extent that care- 
 fully conducted experiments will readily 
 demonstrate and measure the difference. As 
 the heat of the body is maintained by the 
 union of oxygen with the digested food, it 
 followS'that anything which interferes with 
 perfect digestion tends to lower the heat of 
 the body. This is especially true regarding 
 that special process and final digestive act, 
 performed by the liver, which prepares the 
 food to be burned by the oxygen. When we 
 consider how alcohol acts upon the stomach, 
 liver, lungs, and especially upon the red 
 corpuscles, we can readily believe what the 
 thermometer always tells us in such cases, al- 
 though the external appearances seem to dis- 
 prove it, viz.: alcohol lowers the temperature 
 of the body. 
 
 When moderate doses of alcohol are taken, 
 there is a partial paralysis of the muscles 
 which control the supply of blood to the skin. 
 
84 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 This results in an increased flow of blood to 
 the surface of the body, giving the appearance 
 of an increased temperature, and greater 
 activity in the circulation. 
 
 The nerves of sensation, which report to the 
 brain the changes in the temperature, are lo- 
 cated near the surface of the skin and are ac- 
 customed to a certain degree of heat. When 
 the hot blood rushes to the surface, the nerves 
 report an increase of temperature, just as the 
 nerves of the face do when a person blushes, 
 although the general heat of the body may 
 have been lowered. 
 
 When alcohol circulates in the blood, it not 
 only injures the corpuscles, and every other 
 part of the blood, but it also injures the deli- 
 cate membranes of the air-cells as it passes 
 over and through them. The skin is for the 
 protection of the surface of the body, and is 
 very tough and strong to resist all the wear 
 and tear of a life time; but when alcohol is 
 applied to it for the first time it produces con- 
 jestion. 
 
 If applied to the same place for a number of 
 times, the skin will become thickened and oth- 
 erwise injured. When alcohol is constantly 
 attacking the membranes of the air-cells, and 
 other tissues which are not exposed and are 
 so very delicate,it is reasonable to believe that 
 
THE HEATING PLANT. 85 
 
 injury is done in every case, and that these in- 
 juries must, in time, prove fatal. 
 
 The large quantity of water taken with 
 alcohol, or to quench the thirst caused by 
 it, also works untold mischief in the blood, 
 lungs, and other organs. The internal reve- 
 nue statistics for the year 1893 show that 
 the people of the United States consume an- 
 nually over 100,000,000 gallons of spirits 
 (whiskey, brandy, etc.) and over 1,000,000,- 
 000 gallons of beer, besides all the untold 
 millions of gallons of wine and cider. The 
 amount of pure alcohol in the beer and spir- 
 its consumed is about equal, 50,000,000 
 gallons in each, or 100,000,000 gallons 
 of pure alcohol in both. If the amount 
 of water added to the spirits by the retailer 
 before it is sold, and by the consumer before 
 and after drinking it, is equal to three times 
 the bulk of the raw spirits, and if the untold 
 quantities of artificial liquors, domestic beer, 
 wine, and cider, and the product (with the 
 water consumed with it) of thousands of 
 illicit distilleries, equal the amount of pure 
 alcohol in the beer and spirits, (and these are 
 reasonable estimates,) then each of the four- 
 teen million drinkers of all classes consumes, 
 on the average, one hundred gallons of worse 
 tlmn useless water each year, to say nothing 
 regarding the more than seven gallons 
 
86 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 of pure alcohol which goes with it. If 
 all the pure alcohol consumed were taken 
 in the form of beer, it would give an 
 average of 140 gallons of water per 
 annum for each of the 14,000,000 drinkers. 
 But, as nearly all the liquors are consumed by 
 6,000,000 habitual drinkers, the above aver- 
 ages must be at least doubled when applied 
 to them. Many drinkers use five hundred 
 gallons of beer per year, or twenty-five gallons 
 of alcohol diluted with four hundred and 
 seventy-five gallons of water. The average 
 time required, in which to remove the surplus 
 water so introduced into the blood with the 
 alcohol, is fully one hour. During this hour, 
 it passes through the lungs, and other parts 
 of the body, thirty times, and through the 
 heart sixty times. The average work of a 
 healthy heart, during each minute, is to cir- 
 culate about nine pints of blood over the en- 
 tire body, using up enough muscular energy 
 to raise over 300 pounds one foot high. 
 
 The beer drinker, who consumes six quarts 
 per day, burdens his heart, already weakened 
 by the alcohol, with the extra work of circu- 
 lating over eleven pints of surplus water, 
 while it is being removed from the blood. 
 This extra task is equivalent to raising over 
 12,000 pounds — more than six tons — one foot 
 high each dav of his life* 
 
THE HEATING PLANT. 87 
 
 The first effect of this extra work is to in- 
 crease the size and strength of the heart to 
 meet the extra demands, just as extra work 
 increases the size and strength of the black- 
 smith's right arm. But there is a limit to 
 the development of the heart and every other 
 muscle. When this limit is reached, the work 
 must be lessened or weakness, followed b}^ ex- 
 haustion, will follow. A heart may beover- 
 worked as well as an arm. When the extra 
 burdens are imposed, after the heart 
 has reached "the limit of proper devel- 
 opement, it continues to increase in size, 
 not by the growth of the muscles, but by the 
 increase in the size of the cavities, thinning 
 and weakening the muscular walls. The 
 change in the size and power of the heart, to- 
 gether with the diseased condition of the 
 muscular fibres, is liable to terminate the in- 
 dividual's life at any moment, although he 
 may be the ' 'picture of health" so far as ex- 
 ternal appearances are concerned. The ex- 
 cess of water taken with alcoholic liquors 
 interferes with digestion ; with the work of 
 the liver ; with that of the blood in supplying 
 the tissues with proper nourishment; with 
 the escape of carbonic acid gas and the tak- 
 ing in of the oxygen ; and with every other 
 function. Besides these interferences, the 
 getting rid of it imposes great burdens upon 
 the kidneys and other organs. 
 
88 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 Anything which interferes with the growth 
 of a child, with his usefulness during adult 
 life, or with his burial after death, interferes 
 with the best interests of society. Each cell 
 of which the human body is composed, bears 
 a similar relation to the whole number, as 
 does each individual to society at large. The 
 life history of each individual, in either case, is 
 a matter of interest to all. But when the life 
 history of a whole group is interfered with, by 
 a common enemy, there comes an intense 
 struggle for existence. Every cell of the body 
 has its periods of growth, usefulness, decay, 
 and death, and the consequent necessity of 
 removal from its fellows. Anything which 
 hastens the removal of the worn-out cells, and 
 the growth of new ones to take their places, 
 is of benefit to the living organism. 
 
 The more rapidly the cells are renewed, 
 (within the limits prescribed by nature) the 
 more vitality is manifested by the individual. 
 Exercise not only aids in the removal of the 
 worn-out cells and in the production of new 
 ones, but it strengthens every organ and thus 
 enables it to do more and better work: the 
 stomach digests better; the liver does its work 
 more perfectly; the heart sends the blood 
 coursing through the arteries faster; the lungs 
 take in more air; the blood is furnished with 
 plenty of oxygen; the brain is stimulated; se- 
 
THE HEATING PLANT. 89 
 
 cretion and excretion are more active; the 
 white corpuscles destroy more disease germs; 
 and the general welfare and happiness of the 
 individual is thereby greatly increased. 
 
 When an arm is paralyzed and remains per- 
 fectly inactive, in the course of time, more or 
 less of the muscle and nerve cells will be re- 
 placed by a fatty substance. 
 
 This substance is sometimes called "grave 
 fat," becauseit appears so much like "adipo- 
 cere" (wax fat), into which bodies that have 
 been buried in marshes often change. Now, 
 alcohol, by interfering with so many functions 
 of the body, gradually brings about a con- 
 dition similar to that which follows a lack of 
 exercise. All the benefits, attributed to the 
 proper amount of exercise, will be found want- 
 ing, and this is true, more especially,in regard 
 to the proper removal of the worn-out and 
 poisonous matter. The habitual use of even 
 moderate quantities of alcohol will produce — 
 probably in every case — in a limited number 
 of years, more or less of "grave fat," or 
 that condition of the tissues termed fatty 
 degeneration. This has no reference to 
 the accumulation of fat under the skin 
 and elsewhere, but to a condition in which 
 the cells are replaced by inert fatty particles 
 instead of new and active body elements. 
 This changing of the natural cells into 
 
90 MRICOBES AND MEN. 
 
 worse than useless fat, occurs in the heart, 
 lungs, liver, kidneys, brain, muscles, and 
 perhaps every other organ in the body. 
 It is not uncommon for the muscles, and es- 
 pecially the liver, of the drunkard to be so 
 changed to fat that a bright knife blade will 
 be streaked with oil if passed through them. 
 This condition develops so slowly and pain- 
 lessly that it is not noticed until one or more 
 of the organs fail to do their work perfectly, 
 or until sudden death is caused by heart failure, 
 the breaking of a blood-vessel, or the failure 
 of some vital function. 
 
 Fatty degenerations of the difterent organs 
 receive different names, according as the 
 symptoms are more prominent, such as 
 cirrhosis of the liver or kidneys, Bright's dis- 
 ease, apoplexy, paralysis, softening of the 
 brain, or dropsy. 
 
 There are no known medicines which will 
 cure the fatty degeneration of any organ. 
 Thousands of deaths occur each year as the 
 result of this one change, which takes place 
 in the cell structure of the bodies of habitual 
 users of alcoholic liquors. Fatty degenera- 
 tion may be associated with general emacia- 
 tion, as in the case of a raw-boned spirit 
 drinker, or with the accumulation of great 
 quantities of fat, as in the abnormally large 
 abdomen of a beer drinker. In the latter 
 
THE HEATING PLANT. 91 
 
 case, the excessive quantities of water con- 
 sumed, and the alcohol, interfere so much with 
 so many vital functions that it causes the 
 over-fat condition so often observed. It is 
 believed that this unusual fat does not begin 
 to accumulate, until after fatty degeneration 
 has begun in the liver. 
 
 While the whole body is suffering from the 
 imperfect work done by the lungs, when un- 
 der the influence of alcohol, the tissues of the 
 lungs themselves are being more or less in- 
 jured, not only by the general derangement, 
 but also by the direct action of the alcohol. 
 
 The lo wering of the vitality, and the de- 
 ranged condition of the tissues, lead to many 
 fatal cases of congestion and inflammation, 
 and to very many cases of consumption. A 
 peculiarly fatal form of this disease, which 
 often attacks steady drinkers, has been known, 
 for thirty years , as " drunkard 's consumption .' ' 
 
 We have already learned that consumption 
 is a germ disease, and that anything which 
 lessens the vitality and activity of the white 
 corpuscles, increases the death-rate from germ 
 diseases. This is especially true in regard to 
 consumption. It is not possible for any one 
 habitually to use ordinary quantities of al- 
 cohol and have perfectly healthy lungs. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 Breathing is carried on by muscular con- 
 
92 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 tractions which arelessened,both in force and 
 frequency, by the action of alcohol. Alcohol 
 has an affinity for the coloring matter of the 
 trillions of red corpuscles which carry the life- 
 giving oxygen to all the tissues. This injures 
 or destroys the corpuscles and lessens the 
 amount of oxygen taken to the tissues, inter- 
 feres with the removal of waste and poison- 
 ous matters, lowers the temperature and 
 vitality, and counteracts the good effects of 
 exercise. While the alcohol is injuring the 
 blood, it is also doing harm to the delicate 
 membranes of the air-cells, causing much 
 sickness and many deaths. The large quan- 
 tities of water taken with the alcohol, or to 
 quench the thirst caused by it, thins the blood, 
 overworks the heart and interferes with the 
 work of every other organ and tissue. The 
 imperfect preparation of the food, and the 
 imperfect work done by the lungs and other 
 organs, while under the influence of alcohol, 
 lead to a painless but very fatal disease of 
 the liver, kidneys, brain, heart and other 
 organs known as fatty degeneration. It is 
 believed that fatty degeneration of the liver 
 precedes the excessive and unnatural accu- 
 mulation of fat, which is so frequently seen in 
 beer drinkers. 
 
 Alcohol does not change into heat or any 
 kind of force or energy, but acts directly up- 
 
THE HEATING PLANT. 93 
 
 on the blood, and upon other tissue cells, 
 thereby lessening heat production, and pro- 
 ducing tissue degeneration. When given to 
 the sick, it acts as an anesthetic, like chloro- 
 form or ether, serving to quiet the patients 
 restlessness, lessen his consciousness of pain, 
 and also favors the retention of both the 
 cause and product of the disease. While the 
 patient appears and feels more comfortable, 
 the diseased and overburdened system is 
 being compelled to remove an additional load. 
 All this adds greatly to the number of fatali- 
 ties. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS. 
 
 The whole nervous system is made up of 
 cells, which generate nerve force and receive 
 impressions, and of fibres, which convey these 
 forces and impressions 
 to different parts of the 
 body. The average size 
 of the cells is about 
 V^oooth of an inch in diam- 
 eter, while some of the 
 fibres are only ^isoooth of 
 an inch in diameter. Each 
 cell has one or more fi- 
 bres attached toit,toput 
 it into communication 
 with other parts of the 
 body , much as every "cell" 
 in a telegraph battery 
 has connection by wire 
 with others. The brain weighs about fifty 
 ounces. Its surface is covered to the depth of 
 
 Fig. 25. — Nerve-cells an 
 fibres. Highly magni 
 fied. 
 
HEADQUARTERS. 95 
 
 one fourtn of an inch with cells. An innumer- 
 able host of fibres pass from cell to cell, and to 
 every part of the body, and these make up 
 the white matter of this most wonderful of' 
 organs. In this outer layer of cells, is the seat 
 of the mind. This envelope is so folded that 
 it presents a surface of about four square 
 feet. That is, the average person has about 
 four square feet of mind, one fourth of an inch 
 in thickness! Of course some brains are 
 ' 'smaller' ' and "thinner" than that. It is es- 
 timated that this part of the brain is com- 
 posed of 500,000,000,000 cells. No wonder 
 that the mind, especially a small one, occas- 
 sionally wanders or gets lost. The whole 
 brain is soft and gelatinous, containing 79 or 
 80 per cent of water, or rather more of this 
 fluid than the blood. The work of this or- 
 gan is so great and so important, that nearly 
 one fifth of all the blood in the body is sent 
 to it. 
 
 It has charge of, and controls more or less, 
 every other organ and function of the body. 
 When an impression is made upon any part 
 of the body, as from poison in the stomach, 
 or by an injury to the skin, information is at 
 once sent to the brain, and it immediately 
 attempts to send back along the nerve fibers 
 the relief needed, and also to send a word of 
 warning to all other endangered parts. This 
 
96 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 perfect and constant intercommunication of 
 the brain, and smaller nerve centers, with 
 every organ and tissue of the body, is of abso- 
 lute importance. The health and safety of 
 every part, and the successful discharge of 
 every function, depend upon this perfect ad- 
 justment of duties. The action of the whole 
 nervous system depends upon that property 
 of protoplasm which is known as sensibility 
 or irritability — that which shows that it is 
 alive. Therefore, anything which lessens the 
 action or sensibility of the brain or nerves 
 tends to dry up the very fountains of life. 
 
 When a medicine is taken into the system, 
 its effects are measured by the manifestation 
 of increased or diminished sensibility of the 
 modified cells of protoplasm of the nervous 
 system and of other tissues. Medicines are 
 lifeless objects which never become a part of 
 the living body, but are always expelled as 
 intruders. The influence which the medicine 
 has upon the cells of the body, while it is in 
 contact with them, is known as its effects. It 
 is not an active agent, but it modifies the 
 activity of the tissues by its contact with 
 them. When a medicine changes, by chemi- 
 cal action, the composition of the tissues, its 
 effects are apt to be more marked and more 
 enduring. Such remedies as strychnine and 
 digitalis increase the activity of certain 
 
HEADQUARTERS. 97 
 
 tissues, while opium and aconite depress them, 
 without causing important changes to take 
 place in their structure. Medicines are given 
 (at least ought to be given) to correct some 
 departure from the natural activities of the 
 cells. The disturbance of the life work of 
 the cells — disease — may be produced by a 
 poison, w^hich changes their action or chemi- 
 cally changes their structure, or perhaps by 
 some interference with the nutrition and life 
 of the cells which is not yet explained. It is 
 not possible for an active medicine to pass 
 through the tissues of a healthy body with- 
 out doing harm. It cannot be of any benefit 
 to them. 
 
 After alcohol has been introduced into the 
 stomach, and has passed through the liver, 
 the right side of the heart, the lungs, and 
 then the left side of the heart, it goes to every 
 part of the body unchanged in its condition, 
 the same as other poisons. As one fifth of 
 the blood reaches the brain, so does one fifth 
 of the alcohol. Immediately upon its arrival 
 it not only begins its work of damaging this 
 important and delicate organ, but it also 
 commences the process of damning both soul 
 and body. The fact that alcohol has a 
 double action on the cells should not be lost 
 sight of for a moment. It lessens that funda- 
 mental property of protoplasm called sensa- 
 
98 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 tion, as does opium, aconite, and other nar- 
 cotic poisons, and also acts as a chemical 
 agent in extracting water from the cells, thus 
 changing their structure. When there is an 
 excited condition, alcohol has a beneficial ef- 
 fect by lessening the over active state of the 
 cells. But while it it is producing this desir- 
 able effect it is also doing untold harm in 
 changing the structure of the cells and tissues. 
 As there are many other medicines which are 
 more useful as narcotics, or quieting remedies, 
 and which do not have the active chemical 
 affinities so manifest in alcohol, it is very 
 evident that alcohol is never the most desira- 
 ble medicine to use under any circumstances. 
 It always does harm, for it is never desirable 
 to produce the chemical change referred to. 
 Whenever used as a medicine, the harm done 
 may so outweigh its good effects that the ex- 
 periment is of doubtful expediency, so long as 
 there are other more useful and less objection- 
 able remedies. 
 
 The above brief statements, together with 
 what has been said elsewhere, make it certain 
 that the following statements must be ad- 
 mitted as established and unchanging truths: 
 — Alcohol is never the most desirable medi- 
 cine. It is never harmless in health or 
 disease. It always produces disease. These 
 statements are especially true in regard to 
 
HEADQUARTERS. 99 
 
 the brain whose extremely delicate and sensi- 
 tive tissues take notice of everything. The 
 wonderful sensitiveness of the nervous system 
 is best illustrated by the following state- 
 ments, common in our text books on physics. 
 A ray of red light has 39,000 vibrations or 
 waves to the inch, and of violet, 57,500; the 
 other colors of the rainbow have wave 
 lengths intermediate between these, the aver- 
 age (green) having about 50,000 to the inch. 
 There are 63,360 inches in a mile, and light 
 travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per 
 second, so that during each second, while we 
 are looking at a green object, our eyes receive 
 50,000x63,360x186,000 waves of light. A 
 red object will give us a slightly less total 
 number of waves, and a violet one a some- 
 what great total. If the nerves of the eye 
 can distinguish between the slight variations 
 in the total number of waves of light, as be- 
 tween indigo and violet, when they are being 
 received at the rate of more than seven 
 hundred trillions per second ; if the ear can 
 distinguish 38,000 different sounds ; if, by the 
 sense of smell, a dog can track his master 
 through a city, even though the man has just 
 put on a pair of new boots ; and if the brain 
 itself is capable of memory, thought, and an 
 infinite amount of education, it seems quite 
 safe to conclude that the brain and nerves are 
 
100 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 injured every time they are under the influence 
 of such a narcotic poison, and active chemical 
 agent, as alcohol. 
 
 It is believed that the brain never fully re- 
 covers from the effects of a single intoxica- 
 tion. The harm produced by the habitual 
 use of alcohol is in direct proportion to the 
 length of tirhe it is used and the amount con- 
 sumed. But whatever be the amount, or 
 length of time, there is always some harm 
 done to the brain and body. 
 
 When a small amount of alcohol is taken 
 into the stomach, it usually produces an 
 agreeable sensation. The nerves of sensation 
 are more or less paralyzed, quieting the com- 
 plaints of the much abused organ, and the 
 nerves which control the blood supply in the 
 lining membrane are so paralyzed that the 
 amount supplied is temporarily increased. 
 The effect is much the same as that produced 
 at the beginning of a warm meal; the individ- 
 ual feels better natured and more at peace 
 with himself and all the world. The alcohol 
 soon leaves the stomach and in a few mo- 
 ments has reached the brain, where the 
 amount of blood is increased by reason of 
 the same paralyzing influences. The increase 
 in the amount of blood in the brain seems to 
 increase mental strength and activity. But 
 the appearances to others, and the sensations 
 
HEADQUARTERS. , 101 
 
 to the individual, are as deceptive as are the 
 appearances and sensations in regard to 
 muscular strength. All narcotic poisons 
 lead the individual, who is under their in- 
 fluence, to believe that the strength and 
 activity of both mind and muscle have been 
 increased. Dr. Lander Brunton says: — "The 
 influence of alcohol upon psychical processes 
 is curious, for while it renders them much 
 slower the individual under its influence be- 
 lieves them to be much quicker than usual. " 
 The physiological effects of alcohol seem to 
 be about the same npw as they were three 
 thousand years ago when Solomon wrote: 
 "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, 
 and whosoever is deceived thereby is not 
 wise." 
 
 Alcohol takes a part of the water from the 
 cells and fibres, making the brain slightly 
 more firm and compact, and a part of it 
 passes into the brain tissues to unite with the 
 water which remains there. This accounts 
 for the fact that the brain retains more alco- 
 hol than any other organ except the liver. 
 Of course these chemical effects are not so 
 great as are the narcotic or stupefying effects. 
 When larger quantities are used for a longer 
 time the changes in the structure are well 
 marked. The whole brain is somewhat 
 smaller and harder, there is more fluid in the 
 
102 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 ventricles, the membranes are thicker, and the 
 cells smaller. Fatty degeneration may cause 
 the rupture of a blood-vessel and sudden 
 death, or this disease may cause softening of 
 the brain and thus end the habitual drinker's 
 life. The action of the brain, and the remain- 
 der of the nervous system, is affected as well 
 as its structure, as is shown in a heavy lum- 
 bering gait, an unsteady hand, an irregular 
 action of the heart, and in the general im- 
 paired state of the senses of hearing, seeing, 
 smelling, tasting, and feeling. 
 
 The blood and brain contain almost the 
 same proportion of water and solid matter. 
 
 One circulates rapidly as fluid, while the 
 other retains as perfect a form as any of the 
 more solid tissues of the body. No one has 
 been able fully to comprehend the wonderful 
 composition and manifold offices of the blood. 
 What then shall be said of the efforts of the 
 mind to comprehend itself and that most 
 mysterious of all structures through which it 
 manifests itself? The brain is so exceedingly- 
 delicate and sensitive that the twenty-fifth 
 part of a grain of atrophine, or the fourth 
 part of a grain of morphine, will produce a 
 profound impression upon it, even when such 
 almost invisible quantities of these medicines 
 are mixed with the sixteen pints of rapidly 
 moving blood. These impressions, amount- 
 
HEADQUARTERS. 103 
 
 ing to unconsciousness in many cases, are 
 produced by the medicine, while in contact 
 with the protoplasm of which the brain cells 
 are composed. If the brain cells are so sensi- 
 tive that a quantity of vegetable matter not 
 half th^ size of a pin's head, and diluted by 
 so much blood, will so modify their action as 
 to amount to almost a temporary annihila- 
 tion of that manifestation called mind, what 
 then must be the effect of an introduction of 
 large quantities of a substance which not on- 
 ly interferes with the proper action of the 
 cells, upon whose activity the mind depends, 
 but also attacks their structure as a chemical 
 agent? The action of the whole nervous sys- 
 tem (whether natural or otherwise) is the 
 foundation element in health and disease. So 
 the action of the cells of the brain is the found- 
 ation of the health and disease of the mind. 
 Any substance which interferes with the ac- 
 tion of the brain must interfere with the 
 mind. This is doubly true of any substance 
 which combines the properties of a narcotic 
 poison and an active chemical agent, so that 
 both the action and the structure are modi- 
 fied by its use. Therefore, it is not possi- 
 ble FOR ANY PERSON ADDICTED TO THE USE 
 OF ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS TO HAVE A PERFCTLY 
 HEALTHY BRAIN AND A PERFECTLY SOUND 
 MIND. 
 
104 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 Some of the painfully frequent manifesta- 
 tions of deranged minds caused by the 
 habitual use of alcohol, are ill-temper, de- 
 spondency, loss of moral sense, brutality, 
 monomania, delirium tremens, insanity, and 
 idiocy. It is strange that anyone can be so 
 foolish as to believe that no permanent harm 
 can be done by a substance which has the 
 property of annihilating, so completely, the 
 powers of both the mind and body, as is seen 
 in a case of intoxication. If a medicine has 
 power to change the structure or action of 
 parts of the body in disease, beneficially, it 
 also has power to make changes in a healthy 
 body. If the healthy body is changed, either 
 in structure or action, to that extent, it is 
 changed from a healthy condition, and is there- 
 fore, diseased. All active medicines are not 
 only not harmless to the healthy, but are 
 active poisons. 
 
 The Creator has given to our organs and 
 tissues a wonderful amount of ability to ad- 
 just themselves to varying conditions and 
 circumstances, and to repair much of the 
 damage that may be done them in any way. 
 Those functions of our brains and bodies 
 which develop as a part of our existence, 
 such as digestion, secretion, and excretion, 
 are called natural. All these functions are 
 carried on by the combined activities of the 
 
HEADQUARTERS. 105 
 
 cells which compose the several tissues; all 
 mental activities by the cells of the brain ; 
 secretion and excretion by the epithelial cells 
 which cover the organs intended for these 
 purposes; all muse alar movements by the 
 contraction of the cells of the muscular fibres; 
 and so on throughout the whole body . When 
 the nervous system reports that all the cells 
 of the body have their wants supplied, and 
 that they are doing their work properly, 
 then there is perfect health, and life is a joyous 
 reality. When the nerves report that there is 
 injury, want, or unnatural action, in any part 
 of the body, then there is distress or disease. 
 Education of the mind and body is simply 
 the process of encouraging the cells to do a 
 thing so many times that it becomes a second 
 nature. That which is done so many times 
 that no further effort is required to keep it up, 
 is called a habit. Habit may refer to an ac- 
 tion of the mind, as thought or conduct; to 
 that of the muscles, as shown in unnatural 
 attitudes assumed in standing, or walking; 
 or to the work done by the cells and tissues 
 when disposing of unnecessary quantities of 
 food and drink, toiling under the influences of 
 poisons, or calling for accustomed quantities 
 of food and drink at regular intervals. 
 Habit, then, is an acquired or second nature, 
 and becomes more powerful than the first na- 
 
3 06 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 ture, which it has overcome and displaced. 
 Education, whether good or bad, and from 
 whatever source, is the forming of a habit of 
 doing, in a seemingly natural way, that whi9h 
 is not quite natural. Interfering with a habit 
 is going contrary to the acquired nature, and 
 it produces more or less inconvenience, even 
 positive suffering. If the cells have been do- 
 ing their work for a long time under the in- 
 fluence of a poison like opium, tobacco, or 
 alcohol, and then the influencing agent be 
 completely withheld, the cells will send up a 
 protest against the interference, often amount- 
 ing to unendurable agony. Until the cells 
 can adjust themselves to the changed condi- 
 tions, they are as uncomfortable as a wasp- 
 waisted lady of fashion would be, if she 
 should leave off her "stays." Habit, being 
 a quality, or condition, of our bodies, ac- 
 quired by use, then, under the law that all vi- 
 tal actions tend to repeat themselves, and to 
 be more easily performed the more they are 
 repeated, it is easy to understand how one 
 may grow until it is all-powerful in an indi- 
 vidual^ life. When a glass of any alcoholic 
 liquor is taken, it feeds and strengthens or\]y 
 one thing — a growing habit. It is one more 
 lesson in the education of a second nature 
 which may become stronger than the first na- 
 ture, and displace it. As the habit grows 
 
HEADQUARTERS. 107 
 
 stronger, the powers of the body and mind 
 grow weaker from the narcotic and chemical 
 effects of the poison. The desire to be a man 
 among men, the sense of duty to one's family 
 and country, the moral sense, abhorrence of 
 evil, love of home and family, fear of the 
 consequences of an evil life to both body and 
 soul, are all lowered, and finally paralyzed, by 
 the same agent which feeds and strengthens 
 the habit. Few take into account that, along 
 with the growing habit, there is a constant 
 failing of power to resist, and thus millions 
 have been wont to cry out for help when it 
 was too late. No young man should be so 
 fool-hardy as to believe himself wise in such 
 matters, and so much stronger in mind and 
 body than most of his fellow-men, that he 
 can do with safety that which experience 
 proves to be utterly ruinous to many, and 
 science proves to be injurious to all. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE COMING MAN. 
 
 Each individual, of all the higher species of 
 animals, begins its life history as a single 
 germ-cell which has been profoundly im- 
 pressed by a sperm-cell that has become a 
 part of it. The sum total of all future possi- 
 bilities is then wrapped up in this one ferti- 
 lized cell — this minute speck of protoplasm. 
 This cell is capable of taking food and pro- 
 ducing other cells, which can also take food 
 and produce still other cells, and so on till the 
 largest and most complicated being is built 
 up. The full grown animal then is the resul- 
 tant of two sets of forces, one being made up 
 of the influences of the life histories of all its 
 ancestors, and the other, of all the forces 
 which acted to modify the development of 
 the cell into the mature animal. Every stock- 
 breeder is guided by these universal laws of 
 nature. He knows full well that like pro- 
 duces like in more than one sense of the word. 
 
THE COMING MAN. 109 
 
 He also knows that such influences as tem- 
 perature, food, exercise, and fear, have much 
 to do with the development of the animal, 
 both before and after birth. 
 
 When an animal acquires vicious habits, it 
 is considered unfit for breeding purposes, be- 
 cause of the liability of transmitting the same 
 characteristics to its descendants. Varieties 
 of dogs have been trained to do a certain 
 thing till it has become a second nature, and 
 more or less of this acquired knowledge has 
 been transmitted to the next generation. 
 The pointer, setter, retriever, and watch- 
 dog, are examples of transmitted and fixed 
 specialities. The great difference between the 
 domestic animals, and the wild ones from 
 which they have descended, both as to 
 habits and in the structure of their bodies, 
 proves that training and other influences have 
 much to do in determining the life history of 
 individuals of succeeding generations. The 
 differences seen in human race characteristics 
 show how the body and mind may be modi- 
 fied by surroundings and habits, for, all man- 
 kind started from a common stock. The 
 difference then between the thoroughbred and 
 the scrub is one of inheriting the effects of 
 care, or of neglect. The k difference between the 
 instincts of a watch-dog and a greyhound is 
 one of inherited education. 
 
110 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 No stockman expects good results if he is 
 foolish enough to breed from sick, half-starved, 
 over- worked, or ill-formed animals, or from 
 good stock kept in unhealthful buildings or 
 fed upon unwholesome food. If one or both 
 of the cells, uniting to form the cell which is 
 the beginning of the animals life, are weak or 
 imperfect from any cause, or if the conditions 
 before or after birth are unfavorable to de- 
 velopment, then the individual will be more 
 or less defective in body and mind. Each 
 animal inherits much of what its parents in- 
 herited, some of what the parents acquired 
 themselves, more or less of the conditions of 
 both body and mind of the parents when the 
 life oY the first cell began, and the results of 
 the influences brought to bear upon the 
 mother's life before its birth. Every wise and 
 successful stock-breeder acts upon his knowl- 
 edge of these recognized and never-failing laws 
 of heredity only while endeavoring to im- 
 prove his herds. Of late, scientists and other 
 thoughtful people are beginning to recognize 
 the great importance of applying these well- 
 know laws of heredit}' to the improvement 
 of the human animal. The great mass of 
 humanity, however, have not even considered 
 such a thing. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that a person with- 
 out any inherited tendencies towards a disease, 
 
THE COMING MAN. Ill 
 
 may contract one, such as consumption, and 
 afterwards impart to his off-spring an en- 
 feebled constitution, with grave liabilities to- 
 ward the development of the same disease. 
 This is as true regarding those diseases and 
 diseased conditions which are developed by 
 the voluntary acts of the individual, as it is 
 of those which are inherent and unavoidable. 
 
 Much has already been said regarding the 
 disastrous effect of alcohol upon the tissues 
 and functions of the body and brain, but the 
 most awful of these frightful statements is 
 yet to be made. The evil effects produced by 
 the habitual use of alcohol are hereditary. 
 Whatever changes are made in the physical 
 features, or mental condition, will appear to a 
 greater or less degree in ones descendants for 
 one or more generations. In the case of the 
 alcohol user, the sins against the laws of 
 nature are often visited, in a most fearful 
 manner, upon his children to the third and 
 fourth generation. Such passions as anger, 
 fear, and jealousy, and the tendencies to 
 gluttony and drunkenness, are liable to be 
 transmitted to offspring by direct constitu- 
 tional inheritance, especially if both parents 
 are alike affected. 
 
 Alcohol not only changes men and women 
 of brilliant minds to demented beings, but 
 may so change the vital powers of an infant, 
 
112 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 before it sees the light of day, that its after 
 life will be a misery to itself and a mockery 
 to the state of civilization around it. That 
 form of drunkenness known as dipsomania, 
 which breaks out, from time to time, into un- 
 controllable paroxysms, is a prolific cause of 
 idiocy, suicidal mania, and insanity among 
 the children of those thus affected. It is be- 
 lieved that fully one half of the idiots and 
 imbeciles of large cities have had parents who 
 were notoriously drunken in their habits. 
 Dr. Howe, of Mass., cites the case of a 
 drunkard who was the parent of seven idiots. 
 Where the inheritence does not take the form 
 of some well defined disease, it often appears 
 in a defective physical development or a 
 mental weakness predisposed to intemperance 
 or to disease. Dr. Parker, of New York, says 
 that over ninety per cent of the children, born 
 in the slums of that city, die before the end of 
 their first year. This fearful mortality is 
 largely due to enfeebled constitutions in- 
 herited from drunken parents. 
 
 Scientists have just made a very interesting 
 and valuable discovery, which shows clearly 
 that impressions which are made upon the 
 cells of the parent's body, will modify the life- 
 history of the offspring. It has been proven 
 that the immunity against certain germ dis- 
 eases, which has been acquired by innocula- 
 
THE COMING MAX. 11 3 
 
 tion, is inherited by the offspring. This is 
 found to be true in the case of either parent. 
 These statements do not seem so surprising 
 when we remember that every cell of the 
 young animal does just the kind of work that 
 was done by the corresponding cell in the pa- 
 rent's body. 
 
 If the cells of the parent body acquire the 
 habit of secreting a substance which is so dis- 
 agreeable or poisonous to disease germs that 
 they will not multiply in it, why should not 
 the cell of the offspring do the same thing? 
 Past generations are largely responsible for 
 the criminals, cranks, lunatics, and imbeciles 
 of the present. Every child should inherit a 
 sound body and a sound mind. If it does 
 not, it has been robbed of that which is a 
 thousand-fold more valuable than millions of 
 money. The parent who squanders the fami- 
 ly inheritance, and leaves his child a pauper, 
 is called a scoundrel. But when he squanders 
 his powers of body and mind , and entails upon 
 his child a physical and mental bankruptcy, 
 the whole matter is very unkindly attributed 
 to the dispensations of a "kind (?) provi- 
 dence." 
 
 In Modern Medicine and Bacteriological 
 Review, for March, 1894, Dr. Kellogg says: — 
 4 'That these weaknesses and abnormalities of 
 body and mind are perpetuated by heredit} T , 
 
114 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 is no longer a question upon which there is 
 any difference of opinion. It is as clearly set- 
 tled that mental and moral characteristics 
 are inherited as that the color of the hair and 
 eyes, or other physical characteristics, are 
 thus derived. It is equally true, although the 
 fact is often forgotten, that the resemblance 
 of the internal structures of the child, to 
 those of his parents, is as close as the likeness 
 which can be traced in the external features. 
 Heredity is a force which operates in the most 
 thorough-going manner. Every human being 
 is the product of a principle which has been 
 taking careful notes of the lives and habits, 
 the neglects, the excesses, and the abuses, of 
 every crime against the body, through all the 
 generations from Adam down to the individ- 
 ual man in question/ ' 
 
 In The American Medical Temperance 
 Quarterly, for April, 1894, we find the follow- 
 ing taken from a lecture by Dr. T. D. Crothers: 
 — "A careful study of many cases by various 
 observers shows that heredity is the most 
 prominent cause and is present in over 80 
 per cent of all inebriates. Another active 
 factor, more apparent and controllable in the 
 problem of inebriety, is that of marriage. At 
 present the indiscriminate marriages are 
 largely influential in intensifying the alcoholic 
 stream. Criminals, paupers, inebriates, and 
 
THE COMING MAX. 115 
 
 others, notoriously far down on the road to 
 dissolution, are permitted to marry and raise 
 children freighted with a truly frightful legacy 
 of degeneration. It is this defective heredity, 
 increased and intensified by marriages with 
 equally bad stock, that is the great fountain- 
 spring from which inebriatcy comes. Alcohol, 
 of all other drugs, seems to intensify and pro- 
 voke disease and the most favorable con- 
 ditions for the destruction of cell and nerve 
 force.' ' 
 
 It is not expected that a defective machine 
 will d*o perfect work. Neither should a 
 defective organ or body be expected to 
 act perfectly. If the production of new 
 cells be the required work of an unhealthy 
 body, then it is reasonable to expect that 
 the cells will be more or less imper- 
 fect. But if these new cells are destined to 
 become the beginnings of new lives, it is 
 reasonable to believe that these new lives 
 will be more or less defective in their very be- 
 ginnings. If it be the work of an unhealthy 
 stomach and liver to prepare proper food for 
 the growing cells, it is also reasonable to be- 
 lieve that the cells will not be properly 
 nourished. 
 
 If the one cell which begins a new life be 
 formed of two cells, one or both of which 
 have been developed in unhealthy bodies, or, 
 
116 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 if all the nourishment which it receives while 
 producing other cells and arranging them 
 into nerves, muscles, bones, glands, and brain 
 of a being "made in the image of God," be 
 prepared by unhealthy organs, it is not un- 
 reasonable to conclude that many children 
 are born with defective bodies and unbalanced 
 minds, because of the unhealthy condition of 
 one or both of the parents. But, when we see 
 added to all this the potent influences of a 
 narcotic poison and active chemical agent, 
 deranging the whole body by interfering with 
 the work of every organ and injuring every 
 cell, we are certain that the habitual use of 
 alcohol, even in moderate quantities, is the 
 fruitful cause of much of the feebleness, de- 
 formity, disease, and death, among infants, 
 and of the evil tempers, bad tendencies, 
 stupidity, epilepsy, hysteria, insanity, and 
 idiocy, of older children. When the influence 
 of the evil spirit (the devil in solution) which 
 causes such diseases and tendencies to be in- 
 herited, is added to those already in force in 
 each generation, the successive generations 
 will have to suffer, more and more, the conse- 
 quences of such acts which, if not checked ere 
 long, will result in the extinction of the whole 
 family. 
 
 If the laws of heredity are so unfailing that 
 a part of a dog's education appears as a part 
 
THE COMING MAN. 117 
 
 of the instinct of the next generation, no 
 doubt that the change in the structure and 
 functions of the organs, the profound im- 
 pressions upon every cell of the body pro- 
 duced by alcohol, have much to do in shaping 
 the future destiny of the coming man (or 
 woman) both in time and eternity. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 jug-or-not's younger brother. 
 
 Physicians, botanists, and chemists unitein 
 pronouncing tobacco the most deadly poison 
 known, with the exception of prussic acid. 
 Its poisonous properties are due to a heavy, 
 oily substance, called nicotine. This sub- 
 stance is so active that it produces uncon- 
 sciousness in thirty seconds, and a total ex- 
 tinction of life within three minutes. Less 
 than a drop will kill a dog in ten minutes. 
 Small birds are quickly killed by inhaling its- 
 fumes. These statements can be verified by 
 anyone who desires to experiment with this 
 dangerous poison. 
 
 The proportion of nicotine in tobacco var- 
 ies from two to eight per cent, the average 
 being about five per cent, or 384 drops in 
 each pound. This amount is sufficient to 
 destroy 200 men or 400 dogs. 
 
 At least 500,000,000 pounds of tobacco are 
 consumed each year in this country, or an 
 
JUG-OR-NOTS YOUNGER BROTHER. 119 
 
 average of about 36 pounds for each family. 
 Now, if each of the 14,000,000 families of this 
 country were to keep 3,595 boarders, and 
 7,200 dogs, the families, their boarders and 
 their dogs could all be destroyed, in ten min- 
 utes, by the nicotine which could be extracted 
 from the amount of tobacco annually con- 
 sumed. In other words, the raw nicotine in a 
 year's supply of tobacco is sufficient to des- 
 troy 50,000,000,000 people and 100,000,- 
 000,000 dogs, provided both kinds of ani- 
 mals were not accustomed to its effects. The 
 people of the United States consume about 
 one-ninth of what is produced in the whole 
 world, (4,500,000,000 pounds annually.) 
 There is nicotine enough in these four and one- 
 half billion pounds of average tobacco to de- 
 populate 60 worlds. The nicotine in one 
 week's supply of tobacco would kill, in six 
 minutes, every man, woman, and child on the 
 face of the earth, provided none of them were 
 accustomed to its effects. A single cigar con- 
 tains enough of the poison to kill two men. 
 Tobacco smoke is so poisonous that it will 
 kill an infant almost instantly. When a small 
 piece of tobacco leaf is laid upon the tongue 
 of an adult, or a small amount of smoke is 
 inhaled, alarming symptoms of acute poison- 
 ing appear in less than twenty minutes. The 
 skin becomes cold and clammy, the pulse 
 
1 20 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 quick and feeble, there is a death-like pallor, 
 dizziness, faintness, nausea, vomiting, and 
 sometimes convulsions ensue which terminate 
 in death. When the body is examined after 
 death, a remarkable pallor of the tissues is 
 found. The lungs appear greyish and are so 
 dense that they sink in water instead of float- 
 ing as usual. The heart and brain are en- 
 gorged with a very dark blood. The stomach 
 presents some slight traces of inflammation, 
 some effusions of blood, and occasional spots 
 which appear like bruises. Children are much 
 more susceptible to the poisonous effects of 
 tobacco than are adults. Carelessness and 
 the desire to form the tobacco habit, result in 
 hundreds of fatal cases of acute nicotine pois- 
 oning, annually. 
 
 The human system possesses the wonderful 
 faculty of accommodating itself to circum- 
 stances. This makes it possible for the 
 cautious beginner gradually to increase the 
 quantity used until an enormous amount can 
 be used daily without immediately fatal 
 effects. When the system becomes accustomed 
 to its use, the injurious effects are not so ap- 
 parent; many being able to resist its bad 
 effects for a long period, a very few living to 
 extreme old age. But the great majority of 
 people are not able to use tobacco in any 
 form without noticeable injurious effects. It 
 
JUG-OR-NOTS YOUNGER BROTHER. 121 
 
 is believed that not less than twenty-five 
 thousand lives are lost, each year, in the 
 United States, from the effects of using this 
 most poisonous substance. It undermines 
 the constitution, weakens the heart, lessens 
 the sensibility of the nervous system, inter- 
 feres with digestion, deranges the blood, and 
 wastes the vital energies. The mischief 
 which has been wrought often goes unnoticed 
 until some extra strain is brought upon the 
 system, such as some great mental or physi- 
 cal exertion, an attack of pneumonia, fever, 
 or some other severe disease. Then the con- 
 stitution breaks down like a worm-eaten 
 bridge, sound to all outward appearances 
 but going to pieces under an additional load. 
 The evil effects of chronic nicotine-poisoning 
 upon the youth of this country, are partially 
 set forth in that prince of medical journals, 
 The Bacteriological World and Modern Medi- 
 cine, for Dec, 1891, page 66:— "Dr. Jay W. 
 Seaver, medical director of the Yale gymnasi- 
 um, and professor of physical culture in Yale 
 University, has been making a careful study 
 during the last eight years, of the influence of 
 tobacco upon development. His statistics 
 show that non-smokers were 20 per cent 
 taller than smokers, 25 per cent heavier, and 
 have a lung capacity 66 per cent greater. 
 These figures are wonderfully significant, es- 
 
122 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 pecially the last. A man who has a lung 
 capacity two thirds greater than that of 
 another man has an immense physical advan- 
 tage. His prospects for long life are greater, 
 and his physical efficiency will be certainly as 
 much greater as his breathing capacity. A 
 man with small lung capacity is like a fur- 
 nace with a small draft. All his vital activi- 
 ties must be inferior to those of a man of 
 greater lung capacity. 
 
 Similar observations have been made at 
 Amherst college, with like results. In a re- 
 cent graduating class, the non-smokers were 
 found to have gained in weight over the 
 smokers nearly one fourth. The non-smok- 
 ers surpassed the smokers by a gain in height 
 of 37 per cent, in chest circumference 42 per 
 cent, and lung capacity 8.36 cubic inches 
 (about 75 per cent.) 
 
 Science recently published the results of 
 an experimental inquiry into the condition of 
 thirty-eight boys of all classes of society, of 
 average health, who had used tobacco for 
 different periods ranging from two months to 
 two years. Of the thirty -eight, twenty-seven 
 showed severe constitutional injury and 
 stunted growth. In thirty-two there were 
 irregularities of the heart action, stomach 
 disorders, cough, and a craving for alcoholic 
 liquors. Thirteen had intermittent pulse, and 
 
JUG-OR-NOT'S YOUNGER BROTHER. 123 
 
 one had consumption. All were induced to 
 discontinue the use of tobacco, and as a re- 
 sult, in six months one half were free from 
 their former symptoms, and by the end of the 
 year the entire number had recovered, thanks 
 to nature's recuperative forces. * * Hun- 
 dreds of thousands of persons are living in a 
 state of chronic poisoning from the use of 
 tobacco. Their vital powers are depressed to 
 such an extent that their physical, mental, 
 and perhaps moral efficiency are vastly infer- 
 ior to what they might be without the de- 
 pressing influence of this toxic incubus. 
 
 The evidence of these statistics is over- 
 whelmingly convincing, and ought to set 
 every intelligent young man who is beginning 
 to patronize the pipe or cigar to thinking 
 earnestly whether he can afford to subject 
 himself during the best part of his life to 
 chronic nicotine poisoning.' ' 
 
 The statements of Dr. Seaver, of Yale, are 
 based upon observations made and compiled 
 from the records of a class of 187 men during 
 their four years college course. Such reliable 
 statistics, as those above quoted from Yale 
 and Amherst, are quite rare and very valuable. 
 It is believed that no person who uses tobacco, 
 during the growing period of his life, ever fully 
 develops, either physically or mentally. The 
 tobacco-using school boy seldom succeeds as 
 
124 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 a student, and very seldom develops into a 
 useful, prosperous, and happy man. He is 
 often careless regarding his personal appear- 
 ance and of the wishes and rights of others, 
 becomes nervous, ill-tempered, sluggish, and 
 fearful of impending danger. This fear of 
 future calamity, sometimes develops into such 
 a state of horror that it leads to suicide. 
 
 Dr. L. Bremer, late physician to the St. 
 Vincent's Institution for the Insane, at St. 
 Louis, in a paper read before the St. Louis 
 Medical Society, said: — "It may look like 
 overstating and exaggerating things, but I 
 know whereof I speak, when I say that 
 tobacco when habitually used by the young 
 leads to a species of imbecility; that the 
 juvenile smoker will lie, cheat, and steal, 
 which he would not, had he let tobacco alone. 
 This kind of insanity I have observed in quite 
 a number of cases at the St. Vincent's. The 
 patients presented all the characteristics of 
 young incorrigibles. The} r had exhausted the 
 indulgence of their parents, who saw no 
 other way to protect them from their insane 
 pranks, than to commit them to the insti- 
 tution. 
 
 I do not know whether a lasting improve- 
 ment was effected in any of them. There was 
 not one amongst them that was able to com- 
 prehend that tobacco was injuring him ; they 
 
JUG-OR-NOTS YOUNGER BROTHER. 125 
 
 were constantly on the lookout for obtaining 
 it, by begging, stealing or bribing, and re- 
 garded the deprivation of the drug as a 
 punishment. The sense of propriety, the 
 faculty of distinguishing between right and 
 wrong, was lost. The father of one of them 
 who looked upon his son only as an aggra- 
 vated case of bad boy, told me that he him- 
 self had been smoking ever since his 10th 
 year and it never had affected him. In reality, 
 being only 45 years old, he was a wreck, 
 physically and mentally, though he came of 
 health\^ stock. He could not or would not 
 comprehend that tobacco was gradually un- 
 dermining his own mind and body, although 
 his wife and his friends knew and saw it." 
 
 When tobacco or tobacco-smoke is taken 
 into the mouth it greatW increases the flow 
 of saliva and exhausts the glands of the 
 mouth, leaving the mouth and throat in a 
 more or less inflamed condition. This irri- 
 tated condition of the throat is usually mis- 
 taken for thirst. As the supposed thirst is 
 not relieved by water, but can be subdued by 
 alcohol, it is not uncommon for the tobacco 
 user to become an alcohol drinker. In fact, 
 very many of those who learn to use one 
 narcotic poison soon learn to use more than 
 one. 
 
 Tobacco interferes with digestion, circula- 
 
126 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 tion, respiration, and other vital processes, to 
 such an extent that the user is generally sev- 
 eral pounds lighter than what ought to be 
 his usual weight, many even becoming great- 
 ly emaciated. Those who best resist the bad 
 effects of tobacco are possessed of great 
 physical endurance, but it may be said that 
 they are not always endowed with great 
 mental ability. Dyspepsia, diseased heart, 
 nervousness, general debility, anxiety, "blue 
 devils," and insanity, to which all tobacco 
 users are liable, and from which so many suf- 
 fer, detract greatly from the sum total of 
 human health and happiness. 
 
 Fig. 26 represents the pulse of H. F. C. (see 
 descriptions of Figs. 19, 20 and 28) as affect- 
 ed by smoking two cigars, after abstaining 
 from the use of tobacco for ten days. 
 
 A trace was taken every five minutes. He 
 began smoking after the first trace was tak- 
 en, stopping at the fourteenth. The pulse 
 rates were; 84, 90, 97, 99, 100, 99, 101, 102- 
 101, 104, 103, 102, 104, 106, 105, 102. For 
 each fifteen minutes after taking the last 
 trace, the pulse rates were; 92, 86, 84, 89, 83, 
 80, 84, 85, 83, 83, 80. At the close of this 
 latter period, or two hours and fifty-five min- 
 utes after the second cigar was finished, the 
 elevations in the trace taken were not one- 
 third as high as those in the traces of the na- 
 
JUG-OR-NOT'S YOUNGER BROTHER. 
 
 127 
 
 76 
 
 80 
 
 85 
 
 73 
 
 77 
 
 62 
 
 61 
 
 60 
 61 
 
 |60 
 66 
 
 66 
 
 Fig. 26. 
 
 Fig. 27 
 
128 
 
 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 Fig. 28. 
 
 tural pulse at the beginning of the experi- 
 ment. When the second cigar was finished, 
 the heart was so affected that it was running 
 at the rate of 31,680 more beats per day 
 than natural. The spasmodic action of the 
 heart, when under the influence of tobacco, is 
 nicely illustrated by some of the traces. The 
 two cigars did not produce sickness. Fig. 27 
 represents the pulse of I. H. 0., age, 47, 
 weight, 132, during the early part of his ex- 
 perience in smoking (two-thirds of) ''his first 
 cigar/ ' 
 
 The traces were taken five minutes apart, 
 except the last three, each of which was taken 
 fifteen minutes after the preceding one. The 
 pulse rates were: 76, 80, 85, 88, 81, 73 7 77, 
 67, 67, 69, 69, 61, 62, 61, 60, 60, 61, 64, 60, 
 60, 66, 66. He began smoking after taking 
 the first trace, and smoked about two-thirds 
 
JUG-OR-NOT'S YOUNGER BROTHER. 120 
 
 of a "mild" (?) cigar during the next twenty 
 minutes. Began to feel sick in five minutes ; 
 much worse in ten; nausea an pallor in fifteen; 
 sweating, trembling, and death-like pallor at 
 the end of twenty minutes, with an "awful 
 feeling in the stomach." Vomited at the end 
 of the next five minutes. The trembling con- 
 tinued for forty minutes after he stopped 
 smoking. At the close of the experiment, 
 which lasted two and one-fourth hours, the 
 man was able to walk, being still pale, sick, 
 and weak. He had not fully recovered the 
 next day. The writer has some vivid recol- 
 lections regarding this experiment — some of 
 the most vivid of a life time. Fig. 22 repre- 
 sents the natural pulse of the same person. 
 A very careful comparison between Figs. 22 
 and 27 will be of greiat value and interest. 
 Fig. 28 represents the "natural" pulse of H. 
 F. C. taken on five separate days. (See Figs. 
 19, 20, and 26.) The first trace was taken 
 one and one-half hours after smoking his last 
 cigar. The second three days later. The 
 third three days later. The fourth one day 
 later. The fifth three days later, or ten days af- 
 ter the habit of smoking three or four cigars 
 daily was discontinued. The evil effects of 
 even a mild form of the tobacco habit, and 
 the marked and speedy recovery (of the 
 young) when the habit is discontinued, is so 
 
130 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 apparent that comments are unnecessary. 
 The five traces are a most powerful and in- 
 teresting object lesson. 
 
 If society were so constituted that each 
 person using the weed was compelled to en- 
 joy (?) all the effects of his own habit there 
 would be less reason for writing this chapter. 
 
 Millions are more or less injured every day 
 by inhaling tobacco smoke and the poison- 
 ous breath of the confirmed and saturated 
 tobacco inebriate. Many young children and 
 a few adults have lost their lives by being 
 compelled to breathe air which had been thus 
 poisoned by other people. But this is not all. 
 The evil effects which are always produced in 
 the parent by the habitual use of tobacco 
 are, to a greater or less degree, transmitted to 
 his children. Dr. J. H. Kellogg, in Man, the 
 Masterpiece, page 306, says: — " There is no 
 vice or habit to which men are addicted, 
 whose results are more certainly transmitted 
 to posterity than are those of tobacco- using. 
 A vigorous man may use tobacco all his life, 
 and be able to convince himself all the time 
 that he is receiving no injury, but the children 
 of that man, who ought to inherit from him 
 a vigorous constitution and high health, are 
 instead robbed of their rightful patrimony, 
 and enter upon life with a weakly vital 
 organism, with a system predisposed to 
 
JUG-OR NOT'S YOUNGER BROTHER. 131 
 
 disease and destined to premature decay. 
 The sons of an inveterate tobacco-user are 
 not as robust as their father; and the grand- 
 children, in case the children are tobacco- 
 users, are certain to be nervous, weakly, 
 sickly creatures. This fact we have verified 
 in so large a number of cases that we make 
 the statement fully prepared to maintain it 
 by indisputable facts/' 
 
 The writer is well acquainted with a family 
 in which there are four idiotic children. The 
 father's excessive use of tobacco was the only 
 cause of this terrible calamity that could be 
 discovered when making a careful exami- 
 nation of the case. He became a mental and 
 physical wreck, ending his life in the poor- 
 house. It is not reasonable to expect that a 
 being with every tissue and cell benumbed, 
 deranged, and poisoned with such a deadly 
 drug as tobacco, can be the progenitor of off- 
 spring, healthy in body and sound in mind. 
 
 The following partial summary will give 
 the reader only a limited idea regarding the 
 extent and importance of this subject. To- 
 bacco is the most poisonous product of 
 nature. (Prussic acid being a manufactured 
 article.) It exhausts the glands of the mouth 
 and produces a dry, irritated, and inflamed 
 throat. It interferes with the action of the 
 stomach, producing dyspepsia. It produces 
 
132 MICROBES AND MEN. 
 
 weakness of the muscular walls of the 
 stomach, resulting in the enlargement of this 
 important organ. It deranges both the 
 structure and function of the liver. It lessens 
 the ability of the lungs and red corpuscles to 
 do efficient work. It stupefies the white 
 corpuscles, allowing sickness to increase and 
 also the number of deaths from germ diseases. 
 It weakens both the nerves and muscles of 
 the heart, leading to palpitation, weak heart, 
 heart failure, and death. 
 
 It weakens and deranges the brain, leading 
 to nervousness, "the blues," "the horrors/' 
 insanity, and suicide. It weakens every 
 muscle, and deranges every organ and func- 
 tion, producing languor, general debility, stu- 
 pidity, carelessness, diminished activity of 
 body and mind, laziness. It leads to the use 
 of alcoholic liquors, and makes the reforma- 
 tion of the drunkard doubly difficult, and the 
 permanency of his reform very doubtful, if 
 not impossible. It is a prolific cause of bron- 
 chitis, consumption, cancer, impotency, deaf- 
 ness, loss of sense of smell, sore eyes, short- 
 sightedness, blindness, loss of voice, epilepsy, 
 delirium tremens, paralysis, spinal weakness, 
 death. The habitual use of tobacco stunts 
 the growth of body and mind in the young, 
 and causes much nervousness, unhappiness, 
 and sickness among all classes. 
 
JUG-OR-NO T 'S YOUNGER BROTHER. 133 
 
 The evil effects on one generation reappear 
 in the next in the form of enfeebled constitu- 
 tions, nervousness, ill-temper, weak-minds, 
 idiocy, and insanity. Tobacco smoke, and 
 the breath of the tobacco user, are poison- 
 ous, leading to sickness, and sometimes death, 
 when breathed by infants or others who are 
 very sensitive. The tobacco habit is unsocial, 
 filthy, disgusting, offnsive, and expensive, a 
 nuisance without an excuse, poisonous, crim- 
 inal, and deadly. It interferes with the phy- 
 sical, social, financial, and moral develop- 
 ment of the world. Nature never intended 
 that the mouth should convey smoke, or be 
 smoked, or that man should chew a cud. The 
 use of tobacco is a crime against self, against 
 society, and against nature. It ought not to 
 be tolerated anywhere for a single day. 
 
IJMDEX. 
 
 V IR-CELLS. SO. 
 
 Alcohol, a poison. 2-4.59. 
 Alcohol, affinitv for water. 
 
 67. 
 Alcohol and the brain 
 Alcohol and digestion . 5 
 Alcohol and the liver. 74. 
 Alcohol and muscles. 41. 
 Alcohol and nerves. 42. 
 Alcohol and protoplasm, 43 
 Alcohol and the stomach. 68 
 Alcohol and the heart. 43. 
 
 46 to 63. 
 Alcohol, irritating effects ,68. 
 Alcohol is excrement. 23. 
 Alcoholic liquors. 45. 
 Alcohol, production of. 20. 
 
 23. 
 
 DACTERIA. 7. 
 
 Bacteriology. 7. 
 Beer and water, 67. 
 Beer and thirst. 67. 
 Brain, affected bv alcohol, 
 41. 100. 
 
 C 1 
 
 IARBOXIC acid gas. 23. 
 Chart of pulse rate. 60. 
 Chicken cholera. 21. 
 Consumption, 13. 34. 
 Corpuscle^ - ~ 
 Culture, 18. 24. 
 
 TAEATH-RATE, 16, 34. 
 ^ 112. 
 Development. 1 
 Dipsomania. 68, 112. 
 
 rERMEXTATION. 23. 
 Fatty degenerate 
 
 pi ERM diseases, 3 3. 
 
 TTABIT. 40. 105. 
 
 Heart, affected bv alco- 
 hol. 46 to 63. 
 
 Heart, affected bv tobacco. 
 120. 122. 132. 
 
 Health, defined. 105. 
 
 Heredity. 108 to 117. 
 
 Hob-nail liver. 76. 7$. 
 
 INCREASE, rate of. 16. 
 
 Intoxication. 21. 
 Idiocy, cause of. 112. 
 
 T IYER. 72 
 
 Liver and alcohol. 74. 
 Liver, hob-nail. 76 ~ v 
 Liver, fatty degeneration, 78 
 Liquors, odors of. 24. 
 
 A TARTIX'S experiment. 61 
 "*" Micro 1 . 
 Microbes, breeding of, 18. 
 Microbes, color of, 10. 
 
136 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Microbes, description, of, 9. 
 Microbes, eaten by white 
 
 corpuscles, 30. 
 Microbes, excretions of, 21. 
 Microbes, food of, 22. 
 Microbes, number of, 11. 
 Microbes, odor of, 22. 
 Microbes, office of, 17. 
 Microbes, reproduction of, 
 
 11. 
 Microbes, size of, 10. 
 Microbes, where found, 11. 
 Microbes of Anthrax, 19. 
 Microbes of consumption, 
 
 13. 
 Microbes of la-grippe, 10. 
 Microbes of malaria, 8. 
 Microbes of typhoid fever, 
 
 14. 
 
 "Vf ERVES, sensitiveness of, 
 
 1> 99, 102. 
 
 Nerves, injured by alcohol, 
 
 100. 
 Nicotine, 118. 
 
 DARKE'S experiment, 53. 
 Personal odors, 22. 
 
 Protoplasm, 10, 39, 41, 43. 
 
 Ptomaines, 20. 
 
 Pulse-chart, 60. 
 
 Pulse, affected by alcohol, 
 46 to 63. 
 
 Pulse, affected by chloro- 
 form, 52. 
 
 Pulse, affected by tobacco, 
 
 51, 126. 
 Pulse, normal, 52. 
 Pulse, traces, 46, 127. 
 Pulsewriter, 44. 
 
 "DATE of increase, 16. 
 
 Red corpuscles, 27. 
 Red corpuscles, office of, 28, 
 
 30. 
 Red corpuscles, destroyed 
 
 by alcohol, 36. 
 Reproduction, 11, 108. 
 
 Sphygmograph, 44. 
 Sphygmographic traces, 46, 
 
 127. 
 Spores, 12, 14. 
 
 rpHIRST, 66. 
 ^ Tobacco, 118 to 133. 
 Tobacco and growth, 121. 
 Tobacco and heredity, 130. 
 
 TTITAL resistance, 15, 31. 
 
 TX7ATER, 64. 
 * V White corpuscles, 28. 
 
 White corpuscles, affected 
 by alcohol, 35. 
 
 White corpuscles, move- 
 ments of, 29. 
 
 White corpuscles, office of, 
 30 to 38. 
 
 VEAST, 20, 23. 
 
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