delicacy of muscular action is lost, the power of nice control of the hand
and fingers, as in neat penmanship, or the use of musical instruments.

To this perverted chemical action is also due the fatty degeneration so
common in inebriates, affecting the muscles, the heart, and the liver.
These organs are encroached upon by globules of fat (a hydrocarbon),
which, while very good in their proper place and quantity, become a
source of disorder and even of death when they abnormally invade vital
structures. Other poisons, as phosphorus, produce this fatty decay more
rapidly; but alcohol causes it in a much more general way.

This is proved by the microscope, which plainly shows the condition
mentioned, and the difference between the healthy tissues and those thus
diseased.

[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Principal Muscles on the Left Side of Neck.

A, buccinator;
B, masseter;
C, depressor anguli oris;
D, anterior portion of the digastric;
E, mylo-hyoid;
F, tendon of the digastric;
G, sterno-hyoid;
H, sterno-thyroid;
K, omo-hyoid;
L, sternal origin of sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle;
M, superior fibers of deltoid;
N, posterior scalenus;
O, clavicular origin of sterno-cleido-mastoid;