A Handbook of Health

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In fact, it was quickly found in the bitter school of experience that
alcohol, though producing an apparent glow of warmth for the time,
instead of increasing our power to resist cold, rapidly and markedly
lessens it; so that those who drink heavily are much more likely to die
from cold and exposure than those who let alcohol alone. Nowadays,
Arctic explorers, explorers in the tropics, officers of armies upon
forced marches, and those who have to train themselves for the most
severe strains on their powers of endurance, all bear testimony to the
fact that the use of alcohol is harmful instead of helpful under these
conditions, and that it is not for a moment to be compared to real
foods, like meat, sugar, or fat.

Its Effects on Working Power. Then it was claimed that alcohol
increased the working power of the body; that more work and better work
would be done by men at hard labor, if a little beer, or wine, was taken
with their meals. Indeed, most of those who take alcohol believe that
they work faster and better, and with less effort with it than without
it. But the moment that this _feeling_ of increased power and strength
was submitted to careful tests in the laboratory and in the workshop, it
was found that instead of _more_ being accomplished when alcohol was
taken, even in very moderate amounts, _less_ was accomplished by from
six to twelve per cent. The false sense of increased vigor and power was
due to the narcotic power of alcohol to deaden the sensations of fatigue
and discomfort.

It was discovered long ago, almost as soon as men began to put
themselves into training for athletic feats or contests, that alcohol
was not only useless, but very injurious. Any champion who, on the eve
of a contest, "breaks training" by "taking a drink," knows that he is
endangering his record and giving his competitors an advantage over him.

Its Deadening Effect. In short, we must conclude that the so-called
stimulating effects of alcohol are really due to its power of deadening
us to sensations of discomfort or fatigue. Its boasted power of making
men more "sociable" by loosening their tongues is due to precisely the
same effect: it takes off the balance-wheels of custom, reserve, and
propriety--too often of decency, as well. This is where the greatest
and most serious danger of alcohol comes in, that even in the smallest
doses, it begins to deaden us both mentally and morally, and thus
lessens our power of control. This loss of control steadily increases
with each successive drink until finally the man, completely under the
influence of liquor, reaches a stage when he can neither think
rationally nor speak intelligently, nor even walk straight or stand
upright--making the most humiliating and disgusting spectacle which
humanity can present.

Harmful Effects on the Body. All doctors and scientists and thoughtful
men are now practically agreed: First, that alcohol in excess is
exceedingly dangerous and injurious, and one of the most serious enemies
that modern civilization has to face.

Second, that even in the smallest doses, as a deadener of the sense of
discomfort, it blinds the man who takes it to the harm it is doing and,
as soon as its temporary comforting effects begin to pass off, naturally
leads its victim to resort to it again in increasing doses. In fact,
unlike a true food which quickly satisfies, the use of alcohol too often
creates an appetite that grows by what it feeds on, and is never
satisfied. For every natural appetite or instinct, nature provides a
check; but she provides none for tastes that must be acquired. The last
man to find out that he is taking too much is the drinker himself. Taken
first to relieve discomfort, its own poisonous after-effects create a
new and permanent demand for it.

The third point on which agreement is almost unanimous among scientists
and physicians is that, as will be seen in later chapters, there are a
considerable number of diseases of the liver, of the heart and blood
vessels, of the kidneys, and of the nervous system, which are produced
by, or almost always associated with, alcohol. There are, for instance,
three different kinds of alcoholic insanity. It is true that these
disease-changes most commonly occur in the tissues of those who use
alcohol to excess; and it is also probably true that what the alcoholic
poison is doing in these cases, is picking out the weak spots in the
body and the weaker individuals in the community. Even the strongest and
best of us have our little weaknesses of digestion, of nerves, and of
disposition that we know of, as well as others that we are not
acquainted with. And what is the use of running the risk of having these
picked out and made worse in this dangerous and unpleasant manner, just
for the sake of a little temporary indulgence?

Moreover, while it is admitted that most of these harmful effects of
alcohol are produced by its use in excess, it is daily becoming a more
and more difficult matter to decide just how much is "excess." It
certainly differs widely in different individuals, and in different
organs and parts in the same body. An amount of alcohol which one man
might possibly take without harm may greatly injure another; and its
frequent use, though it does not produce the slightest sign of
intoxication, or even of discomfort, or headache, may be slowly and
fatally damaging the cells of the liver or kidney. In fact, the
conviction is growing among scientists that alcohol does the greatest
harm in this slow, insidious way without its user's realizing it in any
way until too late to break the fearful habit.

It may even be perfectly true that alcohol seriously injures not more
than ten or fifteen per cent of those who take it in small quantities;
but how can you tell whether you, or your liver, or kidney, or nerve
cells, belong in the ten per cent or the ninety per cent class? On
general principles, it would hardly seem worth while making the test
simply for the sake of finding out. You never can _quite_ tell what
alcohol has done to you, until the _post mortem_ (after death)
examination--and then the question will not interest you very much.

Its Effect upon Character. Just as alcohol deadens the body and the
senses, especially the higher ones--so it has a terrible effect upon the
mental and moral sides of our natures. The results of the use of alcohol
are so well known that it is unnecessary here to either describe or
picture them. All that is needed is to keep our eyes open upon the
street, and read the police reports. What good effects upon man's better
nature has alcohol to show as an offset for this dreadful tendency to
bring out the worst and lowest in man?

Increasing Knowledge of the Bad Effects of Alcohol is Decreasing its
Use. It is most impressive that almost everything we have found out
about alcohol in the short time that we have been studying it carefully
has been to its discredit. Fifty years ago beer and wine, all over the
civilized world, were commonly regarded as foods. Now they are not
considered true foods, but harmful beverages. Fifty years ago alcohol
was believed to improve the digestion and increase the appetite. Now we
know that it does neither. It was believed to increase working power,
and has now been clearly shown to diminish it. It was supposed to
increase the thinking power and stimulate the imagination, and now we
know that it dulls and muddles both.

Fifty years ago it was freely used as medicine for all sorts of
illnesses, both by doctor and patient; it was supposed to stimulate the
heart, to sustain the strength, to increase the power of the body to
resist disease, and to sustain and support life in emergencies. Now we
know that practically all these claims are unfounded, and that such
value as it has in medicine is chiefly as a narcotic, as a deadener of
the sense of discomfort. As a result, it is already used in medicine
only about one-fourth as much as it was fifty years ago, and its use is
still steadily decreasing.

Fifty years ago, in this country, in England, and on the continent of
Europe, farm laborers and servants living in the house, expected so many
pints or quarts of ale or beer a day, as part of their regular food
rations, just as they now would expect milk or tea or coffee. It was
only a few years ago that the great steamship companies stopped issuing
_grog_, or raw spirits, to the sailors in their employ, as part of their
daily ration, because they at last came to realize how harmful were its
effects. And a score of similar instances could be mentioned, showing
that the unthinking and general use of alcohol as a beverage at our
tables is steadily and constantly diminishing. Great temperance
societies are springing up in this and other civilized countries and are
having a powerful influence in showing the harm of the use of alcohol
and in inducing people to abstain from using it.

This movement is only fairly started, but is being hastened by such
practical and important influences as the experience of many of the
great business corporations, such as railroads, steamship companies,
insurance companies, banks, and trust companies, which support the
findings of science against alcohol in almost every respect. On account
of the manner in which alcohol unconsciously dulls the senses and blurs
the judgment, these companies began long ago weeding out from their
employ all men who were known to drink to excess; then they began to
reject those who were likely to occasionally over-indulge, or take it
too freely; and now, finally, many of them, particularly the railway and
steamship companies, will not employ--except in the lowest and poorest
paid classes of their service--and will not promote to any position
which puts men in charge of human life and limb, those who use alcohol
in any form or amount.

Nearly all the captains, for instance, of our great trans-atlantic
liners, whose duties in storm or fog keep them on the bridge on
continuous duty for forty-eight, sixty, and even seventy-two hours at a
stretch, with thousands of lives depending upon their courage and their
judgment, are total abstainers. And while twenty-five years ago they
used to think that they could not go through these long sieges of storm
duty without plenty of wine or whiskey, they now find that they are far
better off without any alcoholic drink.

Another powerful force in the same direction is our insurance companies,
practically all of whom now will refuse to insure any man known
habitually to use alcohol to excess, because where lists have been kept
of their policy-holders showing which were users of alcohol and which
total abstainers, their records show that the death rate among the users
of alcohol is some twenty per cent greater than among the total
abstainers. A similar result has also been reached in the companies that
insure against sickness, whose drinking members average nearly twice as
many weeks of sickness during the year as the abstaining ones. So both
of these two great groups of business corporations are becoming powerful
agencies for the promotion of temperance.

Within fifty years from now the habitual use of alcohol will probably
have become quite rare. It is already becoming "good form" among the
best people not to drink; and the fashion will spread, as the bad
effects of alcohol become more generally understood.

TOBACCO

Smoking, a Senseless Habit. Smoking is the curious act of drawing
smoke into the mouth and puffing it out again. Why this custom should
have become so widespread is even a greater puzzle than is the drinking
of alcohol. In civilized countries at least, it is a custom of much more
recent growth than "drinking," as it was introduced into Europe from
America by the early explorers, notably those sent out by Sir Walter
Raleigh. As tobacco-smoke is neither a solid nor a liquid, but only a
gas, no one could even pretend that it is of any value, either as food
or drink. All that can be said of smoking, even by the most inveterate
smoker, is that it is a habit, of no possible use or value to body or
mind, and of great possibilities of harm.

Another singular thing about smoking is that its effects vary so greatly
according to the individual who practices it, that scarcely any two
smokers can agree as to the exact reason why they smoke, except that in
some vague way smoking gives them pleasure. The only thing that they do
agree upon is that they miss it greatly, and crave it keenly whenever
they stop it. The only thing that stands out clearly about smoking is
that while it does no good, and does not even give one definite and
uniform kind of pleasure, it does form a powerful and over-mastering
habit, which is exceedingly difficult to break, and develops a craving
which can be satisfied only by continuing, or returning, to it.

It is Very Difficult to Break the Habit of Smoking. As a matter of
practical experience, not one smoker in fifty who tries to swear off
ever succeeds in doing so permanently. Why then should any one form a
habit, which is of no benefit whatever, which is expensive, unpleasant
to others, and which may become exceedingly injurious, simply for the
sake of saddling one's self with a craving which will probably never be
got rid of all the rest of one's life? The strongest and most positive
thing that a smoker can say about his pipe, or cigar, or cigarette, is
that he could not get along without it; and he will usually add that he
wishes he had never begun to use it. You are better off in every way by
letting tobacco strictly alone, and never teaching yourself to like it.

Tobacco is Not a Natural Taste. As might be expected, in the case of
such an utterly useless drug, we have no natural liking or instinct for
it; and the taste for it has to be acquired just as in the case of
alcohol, only as a rule with greater difficulty and with more painful
experiences of headache, nausea, and other discomforts.

[Illustration: A BOARD OF HEALTH EXAMINATION FOR WORKING PAPERS

The Board of Health of the City of New York requires that all children
between the ages of fourteen and sixteen shall have certificates of good
health before they can be employed in business. Any employer who hires a
child without such a certificate is liable to a heavy fine. This law is
to protect the health of both the worker and the public.]

Nicotine, a Powerful Poison. Tobacco contains and depends largely for
its effects upon considerable amounts of a substance called _nicotine_.
This is a powerful poison, even in very small doses, with only feeble
narcotic, or pain-deadening, powers; but fortunately, the larger part of
it is destroyed in the process of burning. Enough, however, is carried
over in the smoke, or absorbed through the butt of the cigar or
cigarette, or the mouth-piece of the pipe, to injure the nervous system,
especially in youth. As will be seen in the chapter upon the "Care of
the Heart," it especially attacks the nerves supplying the heart, and is
thus most harmful to growing boys.

On account of its injurious effects upon the nerves of the heart,
smoking has long been forbidden by trainers and coachers to all athletes
who are training for a contest or race. In addition to its poisonous
effects upon the nervous system, tobacco also does great harm to boys
and young men by providing them with an attractive means of filling up
their time and keeping themselves amused without either bodily or mental
effort. The boy who smokes habitually will find it much easier to waste
his time in day-dreams and gossip, and tends to become a loafer and an
idler.

The Advantage that Non-Smokers have over Smokers. When both of these
influences are taken together, it is little wonder that the
investigations of Dr. Seaver, the medical director of Yale, showed that
out of the 187 men in the class of 1881, those not using tobacco during
their college course had gained, over the users of tobacco, twenty-two
per cent in weight, twenty-nine per cent in height, nineteen per cent in
growth of chest, and sixty-six per cent in increase of lung capacity.

[Illustration: A TEST OF CLEAR HEAD AND STEADY NERVES

The boy who smokes cigarettes finds it increasingly difficult to obtain
a position in a bank or other large commercial house.]

In the Amherst graduating class for the same year, the non-users of
tobacco had gained twenty-four per cent more in weight, thirty-seven per
cent more in height, and forty-two per cent more in growth of chest than
had the smokers. In lung capacity, the tobacco users had lost two cubic
inches, while the abstainers had gained six cubic inches.

As a wet-blanket upon ambition, a drag upon development, and a handicap
upon success in life, the cigarette has few equals and no superiors. The
stained fingers and sallow complexion of the youthful cigarette smoker
will generally result in his being rejected when applying for a
position. The employer knows that the non-smoking boy is much more
likely to succeed in his work and win his way to a position of trust and
influence than is the "cigarette fiend." Especially in these days of
sharp competition, no boy can afford to contract a habit which will so
handicap him in making his way as will the cigarette habit.

CHAPTER XI

THE HEART-PUMP AND ITS PIPE-LINE SYSTEM

THE BLOOD VESSELS

Where the Body Does its Real Eating. When once the food has been
dissolved in the food-tube and absorbed by the cells of its walls, the
next problem is how it shall be sent all over the body to supply the
different parts that are hungry for it; for we must remember that the
real eating of the food is done by the billions upon billions of tiny
living cells of which the body is made up.

The Pipe Lines of the Body. What do we do when we want to carry water,
or oil, or sewage, quickly and surely from one place to another? We put
down a pipe line. We are wonderfully proud of our systems of water and
gas supply, and of the great pipe lines that carry oil from wells in
Ohio and Indiana clear to the Atlantic coast. But the very first man
that ever laid a pipe to carry water was simply imitating nature--only
about ten or fifteen million years behind her. No sooner has our food
passed through the cells in the wall of the food-tube, than it goes
straight into a set of tiny tubes--the blood-pipes, or _blood
vessels_--which carry it to the heart; and the heart pumps it all over
the body.

Veins and Arteries. These blood-tubes running from the walls of the
food-tube to the heart are called _veins_; and the other tubes through
which the heart pumps the blood all over the body are called _arteries_.
If you will spell this last word "air-teries," it may help you to
remember why the name was given to these tubes ages ago. When the body
was examined after death, they were found to be empty and hence were
not unnaturally supposed to carry air throughout the body, and
"air-teries" they have remained ever since. While absurd in one way, the
name is not so far amiss in another, for an important part of their work
is to carry all over the body swarms of tiny baskets, or sponges, of
oxygen taken from the air.

Why the Blood is Red. The first and main purpose of the blood-pipes
and the heart is to carry the dissolved food from the stomach and
intestines to the cells all over the body. But the cells need air as
well as food; and, to carry this, there are little basket-cells--the
_red corpuscles_. Take a drop of blood and put it under a microscope,
and you will see what they look like. The field will be simply crowded
with tiny, rounded lozenges--the red cells of the blood, which give it
its well-known color.

[Illustration: BLOOD CORPUSCLES (Greatly magnified)

_A_, red blood; _B_, white blood.]

The White Corpuscles or Scavengers of the Blood. As the blood-tubes
are not only supply-pipes but sewers and drainage canals as well, it is
a good thing to have some kind of tiny animals living and moving about
in them, which can act as scavengers and eat up some of the waste and
scraps; and hence your microscope will show you another kind of little
blood corpuscle, known, from the fact that it is not colored, as the
_white corpuscle_. These corpuscles are little cells of the body, which
in shape and behavior are almost exactly like an _ameba_--a tiny "bug,"
seen only under the microscope, that lives in ditch-water. Under the
microscope the white corpuscles look like little round disks, about
one-third larger than the red corpuscles, and with a large kernel, or
_nucleus_, in their centre. They have the same power of changing their
shape, of surrounding and swallowing scraps of food, as has the ameba,
and are a combination of scavengers and sanitary police. When disease
germs get into the blood, they attack and endeavor to eat and digest
them; and whenever inflammation, or trouble of any sort, begins in any
part of the body, they hurry to the scene in thousands, clog the
blood-tubes and squeeze their way out through the walls of the smallest
blood-tubes to attack the invaders or repair the damage. This causes the
well-known swelling and reddening which accompanies inflammation.

Blood, then, is a sticky red fluid, two-thirds of which is food-soup,
and the other third, corpuscles. How tiny the blood-corpuscles are, may
be guessed from the fact that there are about 5,000,000 red cells and
10,000 white cells in every _cubic centimetre_ (fifteen drops) of our
blood.

How the Blood Circulates through the Body. Now let us see how some
portion of the body, say the right thumb, gets its share of food and of
oxygen through the blood. We will start at the very beginning. The food,
of course, is put into the mouth, chewed by the teeth, and softened and
digested in the stomach and intestines. It is then taken up by the cells
of the mucous coat of the intestines and passed into the network of tiny
blood-pipes surrounding them, between the lining of the bowels and their
muscular coat. These tiny blood-pipes, called _capillaries_, run
together to form larger pipes--the small veins; and the small veins from
the walls of the intestine and stomach finally run together into one
large pipe, or trunk-line (called the _portal vein_), which carries them
to the liver.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

All details are omitted. The connection between arteries and veins is
shown only in the brain. Both heart and blood vessels are considerably
enlarged to show clearly the course of the blood.]

In passing through the liver, the blood is purified of some irritating
substances picked up from the food-tube, and the melted food which it
contains is further prepared for the use of the cells of the body. The
portal vein of the liver breaks up into a network of veins, and these
again break up into a number of tiny capillaries, in which the blood is
acted upon by the cells of the liver. These capillaries gather together
again to form veins, and finally unite into two large veins at the back
of the liver, which run directly into the great trunk-pipe of all the
veins of the body--the _vena cava_ (or "empty vein," so called because
it is always found empty after death), about an inch from where this
opens into the right side of the heart.

In the vena cava the blood from the food-tube, rich in food, but poor in
oxygen, mixes with the impure, or used-up, blood brought back by the
veins from all over the body and, passing into the right side of the
heart, is pumped by the heart through a large blood-pipe to the lungs.
This large blood-pipe divides into two branches, one for each lung; and
these again break up into smaller branches, and finally into tiny
capillaries, which are looped about in fine meshes, or networks, around
the air-cells of the lung. Here, through the thin and delicate walls of
the capillaries the blood cells give off, or breathe out, their carbon
dioxid and other waste gases (which are passed out with our outgoing
breath), and at the same time they breathe in oxygen which our incoming
breath has drawn into the lungs.

This oxygen is picked up by, and combines with, the red coloring matter
of the millions of little oxygen sponges, or baskets--the red
corpuscles--and turns them a light red color, causing the blood to
become bright red, such as runs in the arteries and is known as
_arterial blood_.

The loops of tiny capillaries around the air cells of the lungs run
together again to form larger pipes; and these unite, at the point of
each lung nearest the heart, to form two large blood pipes--one from
each lung--which pour the rich, pure blood, loaded with both food and
oxygen into the left side of the heart. The left side of the heart pumps
this blood out into the great main delivery-pipe for pure blood, known
as the _aorta_, and this begins to give off branches to the different
parts of the body, within a few inches of where it leaves the heart.

[Illustration: SURFACE VEINS AND DEEP-LYING ARTERIES OF INNER SIDE OF
RIGHT ARM AND HAND

The deep-lying veins that run parallel to the arteries have been
omitted; so have the veins of three of the fingers.]

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