HOW ALCOHOL AFFECTS THE BRAIN

HOW ALCOHOL AFFECTS THE BRAIN

I once had the weird , though unhappy, opportunity of observing an equivalent phenomenon within the brain structure of a person , who, during a paroxysm of alcoholic excitement, decapitated himself under the wheel of a railway carriage, and whose brain was instantaneously evolved from the skull by the crash. The brain itself, entire, was before me within three minutes after the death. It exhaled the odor of spirit most distinctly, and its membranes and minute structures were vascular within the extreme. It looked as if it had been recently injected with vermilion. The substantia alba of the cerebrum, studded with red points, could scarcely be distinguished, when it had been incised, by its natural whiteness; and therefore the pia-mater, or internal vascular membrane covering the brain, resembled a fragile web of coagulated red blood, so tensely were its fine vessels engorged

I should add that this condition extended through both the larger and therefore the smaller brain, the cerebrum and cerebellum, but wasn't so marked within the medulla or commencing portion of the medulla spinalis 

The medulla spinalis and nerves

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The action of alcohol continued beyond the primary stage, the function of the medulla spinalis is influenced. Through this a part of the systema nervosum we are accustomed, in health, to perform automatic acts of a mechanical kind, which proceed systematically even once we are thinking or speaking on other subjects. Thus a talented workman will continue his mechanical work perfectly, while his mind is bent another subject; and thus we all perform various acts during a purely automatic way, without calling within the aid of the upper centres, except something quite ordinary occurs to demand their service, upon which we expect before we perform. Under alcohol, because the spinal centres become influenced, these pure automatic acts cease to be correctly carried on. That the hand may reach any object, or the foot be correctly planted, the upper intellectual centre must be invoked to form the proceeding secure. There follows quickly upon this a deficient power of co-ordination of muscular movement. The nervous control of certain of the muscles is lost, and therefore the nervous stimulus is more or less enfeebled. The muscles of the lower lip within the human subject usually fail first of all, then the muscles of the lower limbs, and it's deserve remark that the extensor muscles subside before the flexors. The muscles themselves, by this point , also are failing in power; they respond more feebly than is natural to the nervous stimulus; they, too, are coming under the depressing influence of the paralyzing agent, their structure is temporarily deranged, and their contractile power reduced

This modification of the animal functions under alcohol, marks the second degree of its action. In young subjects, there's now, usually, vomiting with faintness, followed by gradual relief from the burden of the poison

Effect on the brain centres

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The alcoholic spirit carried yet an extra degree, the cerebral or brain centres become influenced; they're reduced in power, and therefore the controlling influences of will and of judgment are lost. As these centres are unbalanced and thrown into chaos, the rational a part of the character of the person gives way before the emotional, passional or organic part. the rationale is now off duty, or is fooling with duty, and every one the mere natural instincts and sentiments are laid atrociously bare. The coward shows up more craven, the braggart more boastful, the cruel more merciless, the untruthful more false, the carnal more degraded. ' In vino veritas ' expresses, even, indeed, to physiological accuracy, truth condition. the rationale , the emotions, the instincts, are beat a state of carnival, and in chaotic feebleness

Finally, the action of the alcohol still extending, the superior brain centres are overpowered; the senses are beclouded, the voluntary muscular prostration is perfected, sensibility is lost, and therefore the body lies a mere log, dead by about one-fourth, on which alone its life hangs. the guts still remains faithful its duty, and while it just lives it feeds the breathing power. then the circulation and therefore the respiration, within the otherwise inert mass, keeps the mass within the bare domain of life until the poison begins to pass on and therefore the nervous centres to revive again. it's happy for the inebriate that, as a rule, the brain fails goodbye before the guts that he has neither the facility nor the sense to continue his process of destruction up to the act of death of his circulation. Therefore he lives to die another day