More Liable to Disease
May 31, 1902
Summary
A scientist, in favor of temperance, experiments by injecting "no fewer than 342 animals" with alcohol to study the substance’s effect on fighting infectious diseases.
Transcription
Careful experiments which demonstrate that alcohol weakens power to resist infection.
Whether alcohol increases the susceptibility to infection or not is a question of great importance and in which comparatively little work has been done. So far as experiments have been made on animals it would seem that alcohol, like carbonic oxide, etc., does render the consumer more liable to fall a victim to the germs of infections diseases, and this view is supported by clinical experience in the tropics and elsewhere. Seeing that brandy and other alcoholic stimulants are frequently given to patients suffering from infections diseases, the question presents itself whether we are increasing the disease or not by giving them. Dr. Laitinen has recently experimented on no fewer than 342 animals-- dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, fowls and pigeons-- with a view to settling the question. As infecting agents, cultivations of the anthrax, tubercle and diphtheria bactill were employed. These were chosen as types of acute infection, chronic infection and a pure intoxication. The alcohol employed was, as a rule, a 25 per cent. solution of ethyl alcohol in water. In greater strength the alimentary mucuous membrane of the birds became inflamed. Some of the dogs had 50 per cent. solutions. It was given dropping it into the mouth from a pipette. The dose varied with the animal and its weight, from one and a half cubic centimeters in the case of the pigeon to 60 cubic centimeters in that of some of the dogs. It was administered in several ways and for varying times; sometimes in single large doses, at others in gradual increasing doses, for months at a time, in order to produce here an acute poisoning and there a chronic poisoning. A full account of these experiments is given in an elaborate series of tables, to which we must refer the reader for details. Briefly, Dr. Laitinen found that in all these cases without exception the effect of the administration of alcohol, in any form whatever, was to render the animal distinctly, sometimes markedly, more susceptible to infection than were the controls.-- British Medical Journal.
Whether alcohol increases the susceptibility to infection or not is a question of great importance and in which comparatively little work has been done. So far as experiments have been made on animals it would seem that alcohol, like carbonic oxide, etc., does render the consumer more liable to fall a victim to the germs of infections diseases, and this view is supported by clinical experience in the tropics and elsewhere. Seeing that brandy and other alcoholic stimulants are frequently given to patients suffering from infections diseases, the question presents itself whether we are increasing the disease or not by giving them. Dr. Laitinen has recently experimented on no fewer than 342 animals-- dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, fowls and pigeons-- with a view to settling the question. As infecting agents, cultivations of the anthrax, tubercle and diphtheria bactill were employed. These were chosen as types of acute infection, chronic infection and a pure intoxication. The alcohol employed was, as a rule, a 25 per cent. solution of ethyl alcohol in water. In greater strength the alimentary mucuous membrane of the birds became inflamed. Some of the dogs had 50 per cent. solutions. It was given dropping it into the mouth from a pipette. The dose varied with the animal and its weight, from one and a half cubic centimeters in the case of the pigeon to 60 cubic centimeters in that of some of the dogs. It was administered in several ways and for varying times; sometimes in single large doses, at others in gradual increasing doses, for months at a time, in order to produce here an acute poisoning and there a chronic poisoning. A full account of these experiments is given in an elaborate series of tables, to which we must refer the reader for details. Briefly, Dr. Laitinen found that in all these cases without exception the effect of the administration of alcohol, in any form whatever, was to render the animal distinctly, sometimes markedly, more susceptible to infection than were the controls.-- British Medical Journal.
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Brooke Royer
Citation
“More Liable to Disease,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 12, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1063.