This delayed oxidation tends to increase the body weight. The cells in an intermediate stage of fatty degeneration clog the body, and, of course, add to its weight. The natural effect of taking alcohol is to make the body obese. On abstaining from alcohol, the superfluous tissue is often burned away, and the weight of the body reduced, and a look and feeling of youth is recovered. _The Effect of Alcohol on the Heart and Circulation._—By the circulation we understand the driving of the fluid blood around the body, through the blood-vessels, such driving being maintained by the pumping power of the heart, which is practically a hollow muscle. In consequence of this pumping power of the heart, the blood in the vessels is under considerable pressure, which is naturally increased if the blood-vessels are narrowed or contracted, and diminished if the blood-vessels are expanded or dilated. Gradual deterioration in the heart power is a cause of premature death. One of the early indications that the foregoing changes may be occurring in a heart is a sense of fatigue and breathlessness on slight exertion, or a feeling of disinclination for normal effort. The result of such depression of the efficiency of the heart is often seen when the individual is attacked by some disease; she succumbs to heart failure, instead of being able to resist the disease. This probably accounts for a great many deaths between forty and sixty years of age. Further, it must be remembered that all the nutritive action of the blood depends on its power of rapidly filtering through the walls of the blood-vessels to the tissues, and, conversely, its power of drawing off the waste-products of the tissues depends on the facility with which such products can penetrate its walls. As soon as degeneracy sets in, the walls of all vessels tend to become thickened, and the active transference through them, more and more prevented; the nutrition of the body is thus gravely hampered, and, with the advance of this thickening of the walls, the vessels are less able to adjust themselves to the variations in pressure from within; and, finally, when unable to withstand the pressure, they rupture, causing hemorrhage and apoplexy, which, when occurring in the brain, cause paralysis and mental decay. A similar degeneration takes place in old age, but the point is, that many persons, instead of waiting until old age comes to them, deliberately precipitate these senile changes. _The Effect of Alcohol on the Kidneys._—The elaborate mechanism of the kidneys consist of a filtering system of thousands of tubules, arranged closely side by side, whose function it is to carry away from the body the waste material, which otherwise would interfere with the vitality of the different organs.