to death. If, on the contrary, they become condensed or thickened, or
loaded with foreign material, then they fail to allow the natural fluids
to pass through them. They fail to dialyse, and the result is, either an
accumulation of the fluid in a closed cavity, or contraction of the
substance inclosed within the membrane, or dryness of membrane in
surfaces that ought to be freely lubricated and kept apart. In old age
we see the effects of modification of membrane naturally induced; we see
the fixed joint, the shrunken and feeble muscle, the dimmed eye, the
deaf ear, the enfeebled nervous function.

"It may possibly seem, at first sight, that I am leading immediately
away from the subject of the secondary action of alcohol. It is not so.
I am leading directly to it. Upon all these membranous structures
alcohol exerts a direct perversion of action. It produces in them a
thickening, a shrinking and an inactivity that reduces their functional
power. That they may work rapidly and equally, they require to be at all
times charged with water to saturation. If, into contact with them, any
agent is brought that deprives them of water, then is their work
interfered with; they cease to separate the saline constituents
properly; and, if the evil that is thus started, be allowed to continue,
they contract upon their contained matter in whatever organ it may be
situated, and condense it.

"In brief, under the prolonged influence of alcohol those changes which
take place from it in the blood corpuscles, and which have already been
described, extend to the other organic parts, involving them in
structural deteriorations, which are always dangerous, and are often
ultimately fatal."