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]