cohol on the Blood-vessels. Alcoholic liquors injure
not only the heart, but often destroy the blood-vessels, chiefly the
larger arteries, as the arch of the aorta or the basilar artery of the
brain. In the walls of these vessels may be gradually deposited a morbid
product, the result of disordered nutrition, sometimes chalky, sometimes
bony, with usually a dangerous dilatation of the tube.

In other cases the vessels are weakened by an unnatural fatty deposit.
Though these disordered conditions differ somewhat, the morbid results in
all are the same. The weakened and stiffened arterial walls lose the
elastic spring of the pulsing current. The blood fails to sweep on with
its accustomed vigor. At last, owing perhaps to the pressure, against the
obstruction of a clot of blood, or perhaps to some unusual strain of work
or passion, the enfeebled vessel bursts, and death speedily ensues from a
form of apoplexy.

[Illustration: Fig. 81.--Showing the Carotid Artery and Jugular Vein on
the Right Side, with Some of their Main Branches. (Some branches of the
cervical plexus, and the hypoglossal nerve are also shown.)]

[NOTE. "An alcoholic heart loses its contractile and resisting power,
both through morbid changes in its nerve ganglia and in its muscle
fibers. In typhoid fever, muscle changes are evidently the cause of
the heart-enfeeblement; while in diphtheria, disturbances in
innervation cause the heart insufficiency. 'If the habitual use of
alcohol causes the loss of contractile and resisting power by
impairment of both the nerve ganglia and muscle fibers of the heart,
how can it act as a heart tonic?'"--Dr. Alfred L. Loomis, Professor of
Medicine in the Medical Department of the University of the City of
New York.]

200. Other Results from the Use of Intoxicants. Other disastrous
consequences follow the use of intoxicants, and these upon the blood. When
any alcohol is present in the circulation, its greed for water induces the
absorption of moisture from the red globules of the blood, the
oxygen-carriers. In consequence they contract and harden, thus becoming
unable to absorb, as theretofore, the oxygen in the lungs. Then, in turn,
the oxidation of the waste matter in the tissues is prevented; thus the
corpuscles cannot convey carbon dioxid from the capillaries, and this fact
means that some portion of refuse material, not being thus changed and
eliminated, must remain in the bloo