presence is announced in the breath.
But wherever alcohol is carried in the tissues, it is always an irritant,
every organ in turn endeavoring to rid itself of the noxious material.

171. Effect of Alcoholic Liquor upon the Stomach. The methods by
which intoxicating drinks impair and often ruin digestion are various. We
know that a piece of animal food, as beef, if soaked in alcohol for a few
hours, becomes hard and tough, the fibers having been compacted together
because of the abstraction of their moisture by the alcohol, which has a
marvelous affinity for water. In the same way alcohol hardens and toughens
animal food in the stomach, condensing its fibers, and rendering it
indigestible, thus preventing the healthful nutrition of the body. So, if
alcohol be added to the clear, liquid white of an egg, it is instantly
coagulated and transformed into hard albumen. As a result of this
hardening action, animal food in contact with alcoholic liquids in the
stomach remains undigested, and must either be detained there so long as
to become a source of gastric disturbance, or else be allowed to pass
undigested through the pyloric gate, and then may become a cause of
serious intestinal disturbance.[27]

This peculiar property of alcohol, its greedy absorption of water from
objects in contact with it, acts also by absorbing liquids from the
surface of the stomach itself, thus hardening the delicate glands,
impairing their ability to absorb the food-liquids, and so inducing
gastric dyspepsia. This local injury inflicted upon the stomach by all
forms of intoxicants, is serious and protracted. This organ is, with
admirable wisdom, so constructed as to endure a surprising amount of
abuse, but it was plainly not intended to thrive on alcoholic liquids. The
application of fiery drinks to its tender surface produces at first a
marked congestion of its blood-vessels, changing the natural pink color,
as in the mouth, to a bright or deep red.

If the irritation be not repeated, the lining membrane soon recovers its
natural appearance. But if repeated and continued, the congestion becomes
more intense, the red color deeper and darker; the entire surface is the
subject of chronic inflammation, its walls are thickened, and sometimes
ulcerated. In this deplorable state, the organ is quite unable to perform
its normal work of digestion.[28]

172. Alcohol and the Gastric Juice. But still another destructive
influence upon digestion appears i