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22X

IS ALCOHOL FOOD?

BY W. II. WITHROW, M,A..

An extraordinary popular delusion prevails among many other-
wise sensible people, that wine, spirits, and especially malt liquors,
are exceedingly nourishing to the system, and are, tlierefore,
healthful and beiif'.ficial as articles of diet. In corroboration of
this idea, its advocates point to the rosy and rubicund appearance
and Falstaffian proportions of many wine, beer, or porter drinkers,
and refer to the frequently meagre solid diet of those who use
ardent spirits. These persons appear to assume that the true
ideal of manly health and vigour is not the finely moulded, lithe
and graceful Apollo, but the obese and drunken Silenus.

Like many popular fallacies, this theory of the nutritive character
of alcoholic liquors will not bear the test of scientific investiga-
tion. The deposition of fat, which its advocates regard as a proof
of nutrition and health, is actually a condition of pltysical degene-
ration and disease. " A general corpulence of the body," says Dr..
Carpenter, of London University, " can be by no means admitted
as an indication of healthy nutrition ; indeed it must be regarded
as very much the reverse." The abstemiousness from food of many
spirit drinkers is at the expense of their bodily tissues, as their
maciated appearance, their "lean and hungry -ok," fully
testifies.

The fact is, pure alcohol contains not one particle of nutritive-
material for the human body, and even in malt liquor the amount
is practically inappreciable, almost infinitesimal. " Tliere is more
food," says that eminent analytical chemist. Baron Von Liebig,
in one bushel of barley than in twelve thousand gallons of malt,
liquor." Or, to put it otherwise, according to the same authority

Is Alcohol Food?

tf a ir,an consume daily eight or ten quarts of the best Bavarian
teer, he will obtain from it, in the course of twelve months no
more nutriment than is contained in a five pound loaf of bread.

"spirits";::'*! "''"' " '^^ "^'''''^ °^' ^°'^^" --t« that
not evPn 1 I^^-°P°^tionate amount of nutritious matter, do

not even bear comparison with sugared water. Alcohol, their
essential element, and the most important substance in wine or
beer. IS not transformed into any blood constituent. It does not
therefore deserve the name of an alimentary principle" The'
des^nation. therefore, of Licensed VictuaU.l, Lumrd bv t
vendors of spirits is as flagrant a misnomer as can be concdved.

of ^he rr" f% '""'. ''"'^^ '^^'^ ^^ ^^^^^"'^ '^'^ the nature
of the process of fermentation, which destroys the albuminous, or
flesh-forming principle in the grain, or other substance subjected
Its action "Fermentation," says Liebig. "is nothing el e but
the putrefaction of a substance containing no nitrogen It

begms ^vyth^ chemical action, which is opposed to a vital on^
. -Lite IS opposed to putrefaction. . . . Fermenf-itinn
and putrefaction are stages of the return [of organic matt to
less comp ex formations." Hence alcohol can be"formed f m the
most loathsome and putrescent substances, even from caTrion
flesh. In he latter case, however, the presence of nitrogen ^ives
an mtolerable odour to the product. A scheme has actually been
proiected for the manufacture of alcohol from the sewage of he
city of Chicago. ®

Animal life is maintained, almost exclusively, upon orc^anic
mater stored up in vegetable formations or inVer aniS
But alcohol, says Liebig, cannot be evolved from vegetable
matter till after vinous fermentation sets in. which, he asiC
ts death or decomposition, and the process of disintegration to
the inorganic elements.

Alcohol is not food in any sense, moreover, because it is not assi-
milable mo any of the tissues of the body, intonerve,brain, muscle,
or bone. It passes out of the body," says Dr. Story, "just as it
goes in, un-.hanged, undigested alcohol." Dr. J. K. Chamber
physician to H. n. H. the Prince of Wales, asserts the same thing.'
^ It IS clear, he says, "that we must cease to regard alcohol as
in any sense an aUment, inasmuch as it goes out [of the body] as

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la Alcohol Food?

at went m, and does not, so far as we know, leave any of its sub-
^ stances behind it." Dr. Markham, editor of tlie British Medical

.fi. Jmcrnal, states that alcohol "is, to all intents, a foreign agent

which the body gets rid of as soon as it can ; . . . and none
of It, so far as we know, is assimilated, or serves for the purpose
of nutrition. It is, therefore, not a food in the eye of science"
Dr. Rush aserts, "There is neither strengtli nor nourishment in
spirituous liquors; if they produce vigour in the body it is
transient and is speedily followed by fatigue." Dr. Eeale, physician
to King s College Hospital, says. "Alcohol does not act as food-
it does not nourish tissues. " Dr. Mussey says, "It is not capable'
ot being converted into food, and of becoming part of the livin-
organs." The great French work, "On the role of alcohol in
the organism," by Professors Lallemand, Perrinand Duroy shows
a "strong demarkation between alcohol and food." It demonstrates
that It "comes out of the body in totality, tlirough breath, skin
and kidneys; and tliat no derivatives of alcohol are to be found
m tlie blood and secretions." Professor Miller, of Edinburgh in-
quires, " Can alcohol nourish or repair the waste of tissue ^"''"Wot
at all," he replies. " It contains no sufficient chemical constitution
tor that end; andbesidesit is conveyed uiichanged (i. e. un<li-ested)
into the blood." I am aware that Dr. Hammond, of I^ew York and
two or three other pliysicians, of some authority, maintain tli'at a
sviall proportion of alcohol is assimilated in the body • but the
overwhelming balance of testimony is against this conclusion

But some assert that if not food, alcohol is, at least, its equiva-
lent, force, enabling men to do what otherwise they could not do
To this Professor Miller responds, "Alcohol is not force itself but
only the excitant of force; and its invariable effect is while pro
ducing an increased expenditure of force for a time, to brin^ the
supply of that force to an untimely close." He sums up thus"' « It
is not food in any sense appreciable to common sense. It cannot
nourish or give strength; it can only stimulate. It cannot «ive
working power; it can only hurry the expenditure of what vou
already have ; and further, it hampers and opposes you in -ettin-
^thatstoi^ renewed. . . . The best authorities," he concludes
place alcohol, not in the materia alimentaria, but in the materia
medica; ranking it not as a nutritious but as a narcotic article

Ja Alcohol Food ?

and consequently a poison." Liebig asserts that "beer, wine^.
spirits, &c., furnish no element capable of entering into the com-
position of blood, muscular fibre, or any part which is the seat of
vital principle. . . . Their use " he says, " is attended by an
inward loss of power. . . . Spirits by their action on the
nerves of the drinker make up power at the expense of hia
tody; he draws a bill on his health which must always be
renewed \ ... lie consumes his capital instead of his interest,
and the result is the inevitable bankruptcy of his body." Like
the spur in the side of the flagging steed, alcohol impels to in-
creased effort at the time, but at the cost of the more terrible
reaction afterward.

That alcohol is not assimilable with the human system is cor-
roborated by the fact that it is found unchanged, in considerable
quantities in the brain of habitual drunkards, and may be detected
in the blood, bile, and other secretions. Drs. Kirk, Hare, Cook,
Ogden, Percy and others bear testimony to this fact. The fluid
burned readily, with the characteristic blue, lambent flame of
alcohol. Dr. Percy actually distilled from the brain of a drunkard
alcohol which dissolved camphor and burned freely.

The same unassimilated substance is strongly perceived in the
breath of the confirmed inebriate. Indeed a very large portion of
the imbibed alcohol passes oft' in this way. Dr. Eudolf Massing,
of Germany, has recently prepared a new test for alcohol, which
conspicuously shows its presence in the breath of the drunkard.
A red solution of sulphuric acid and bichromate of potash in a
test tube is changed to an emerald green by a very small quantity
of alcohol. The breath of a sober man will produce no effect on
this solution ; that of a drunkard will turn it instantly green.

" Cases have occurred," says Dr. Sewell, "in which the breath
of a drunkard has been so highly charged with alcohol as to
render it actually inflammable at the touch of a taper." Over
fifty such cases are recorded in the medical journals, in which the
bodies of habitual drunkards were thus consumed. They become
so saturated with alcoholic spirit as to become living volcanoes,,
which, when by accident ignited, burn with inextinguishable
flame, leaving only a loathsome residuum of greasy and fetid soot.
Dickens describes the horrible death of Krook, in " Bleak House,'"

Is Alcohol Food? 6

^s occurring in this way. The Reviewers strongly questioned the
possibility of the occurrence, but the novelist cited irrefragable
medical testimony in its support. It is also recognized in the
statistical nosology of the General Registrar's office under the
name of Catacausis Ehriosa, and though rare, its possibility can-
not be questioned.

These multiplied evidences all demonstrate that alcohol always
acts as a foreign and unassimilable substance in the human body ;
that it passes out by the various excretory organs undigested and
unchanged; and that, wherever it lodges, it still retains its
spirituous, acrid, and irritating character. It cannot therefore be
food for the body, nor supply the waste of aiip of its tissues.

But we are frequently told that, if not actually food, alcoholic
liquors assist greatly in the digestion of food, and thus, like salt,
are a valuable adjunct to other articles, and enable us to derive
greater benefit from them. Now this comparison is the most un-
fortunate that could possibly be made. " For," says Dr. Carpenter,
" salt is not a mere casual adjunct to our necessary food, but is
itself an indispensable ingredient in our diet. It is contained in
large proportion in the blood, and in every fluid secreted from it,
and enters into the composition of most of the tissues. , . .
Now, all that salt is" he continups " alcohol is not. It is not one
of the proper components of th. . ood or of the tissues, and its
presence in the circulation is entirely abnormal"

The remarkable effect of alcohol on animal tissue out of the body,
in hardening and toughening its fibre, would suggest the a priori
probability, that it would retard rather than aid digestioa It is
found to produce the same effects in the stomach, both on the
coats of that organ and on whatever it may contain. This has
been demonstrated by actual experiment. Dr. Figg, of Edin-
burgh, gave the same quantity of meat to two dogs. He then
forced an ounce and a half of spirit down the throat°of one of the
dogs. In three hours he killed them both. In the stomach of
the dog that drank the spirit the meat was found just as he ate it
—undigested. The other dog's stomach was empty,— the meat
having been all properly digested. Spirituous liquors have been
known to protract the digestion of food in the human stomach as
long as eight and forty hours.

Is Alcohol Food?

Alcoliol prevents digestion also in another way. That process
is effected by the action of the salivary, gastric and pancreatic
fluids on the food. The peculiar principle, however, on which
digestion depends is j^q^sin, a powerful solvent of organic matter.
Now the gastric juice will not digest alcohol, but is itself neutral-
ized thereby. Alcohol is one of the most powerful solvents known,
being strong enough to dissolve sulphur, iodine, ammonia, potash,
camphor, resin, and all the organic vegetable alkalies. When
taken into the stomach it instantly changes the pepsin from its
soluble and active form to a solid, inert precipitate, which has no-
effect whatever on the food in the stomach. Alcohol is thus a
prompt and powerful antagonist to the digestive process. " It
also," says Orhlla, " coagulates the albuminous portion of the con-
tents of the stomach, and this coagulated albumen passes out of
the stomach almost unchanged."

To these facts Trofessors Miller, and Youmans, and Drs.
Thompson, Gregory, Figg, Sewell, Story and others bear testimony.
Dr. Munroe, of Hull Medical School, strikingly illustrated this
remarkable effect of alcohol by an ingenious and interesting
experiment. He mixed some bread and meat in two vials with
some gastric juice, but to one he added a little pale ale. He set both
vials in a box of warm sand, which he kept about the tempera-
ture of a healthy stomach, occasionally shaking the box to imitate
the motion of the stomach. In the vial without tlie ale the food
was digested in from six to eight hours. In the vial with the ale
it would not dissolve at all, though kept warm for several days.

The continual neutralizing of the gastric juice— the true diges-
tive fluid — by the use of alcohol, overtaxes the glands by which it
is supplied in the effort to secrete the quantity necessary for
digestion, till chronic dyspepsia is produced. And who are so
subject to that complaint, which saps the very foundations of life,
as confirmed dram drinkers ? This characteristic effect of alco-
holic liquors is well described in the old convivial song of
Bishop Stett, in the play of " Gammer Gurton's Needle," — the
earliest specimen of the British drama, —

" I cannot eat but little meat.

My stomach is not good ;
But sure I think that I can drink

With him that wears a hood.

Is Alcohol Foodf

I love no roast, but a nut brown toa»t,

And a crab laid on the Hro ;
And little bread shall do me stead ;

Much bread I nought desire."

We have seen that alcoholic liquors not only cainiot aid, but
that they actually prevent digestion, and that they injure tho
tone of the entire digestive apparatus. Neither do they* increase
the power of endurance of fatigue, as is often asserted, but rather
diminish it, as is a!)undantly proved by the testimony of those
who have had to perform the severest labour under circumstances
of the greatest physical hardship.

Dr. Carpenter has examined tliis subject very thoroughly, and
presents ample evidence of the fallacy of the popular notions
upon it. He quotes, among many otlier examples, the circum-
stances of a vessel that sprang u leak at sea, and was kept afloat for
twelve weeks by the unceasing efforts of the passengers and crew.
At first they partook of spirits, but their strength failed so rapidly
that, by the captain's orders, coffee and cocoa were substituted,
"when," says the Dr., "their vigour returned ; their fatigue
diminished ; and after twelve weeks' incessant and severe labour
(witli no interval longer than four hours), the ship was brought
into port witli all on board of her in as good condition as ever
they were in their lives."* He also received the voluntary testi-
mony of thirty-four men engaged in the most laborious oper-
afi'^g, furnace and foundry-men, glass-blowers, etc., "that they
w ire able to perform their toil with greater ease and satisfaction
when abstaining from li(iuor than when they drank moderately
of it." A teetotal glass-blower, publicly stated at a meeting
at Exeter Hall, that he liad "worked sixty hours at a
stretch, without ever lying down, at his exhaustive labour, a feat
which he had never been able to accomplish wliile using spiri-
tuous liquors." A member of a Glasgow fire brigade statics that
he sustained seventy-three hours' continued exertion at a fire,
with no other beverage than coffee and ginger-beer, while his
spirit-drinking comrades "were beat, and fell avv.ay," The
superior efficacy of total abstinence in promoting bodily vi<Tour
was uniformly demonstrated in competitive trials between two sets
* Physiology of Temperance, p. 121.

I« Alcohol Food t

of lalioiintrs (iiij^nped in very divei-se but arduous toil,— mowers,
harvesters, Inick-nmkers, miners, iron-workers, railway-navvies
and the like, — the one set practising total ahstinenoe, whilst the
other relied on the assistance of alcoholic liquors.* The same
truth is corroborated by the noble physi(iue and athletic power of
the boatmen, porters, and water-carriers of Constantinople, said
to be strongest and finest set of men in Europe. The Moham-
medan populations of the East, generally, who are all aljstainers
on religious principle from wine or fermented liquor, are charac-
terized by their fine developnient and muscular energy. In compe-
titions of strength between the most athletic grenadiers of the Bri-
tish service, and the water drinkers of the Himalayas, the latter
were uniforn)ly victorious, their average strength, according to J. S.
Buckinghan), the oriental traveller, being one and three-quarter
times that of the strongest Europeans. The extraordinary endu-
rance of fatigue of the New Zealand Maories, the Cape Caffers,
the North American Indians, and of the Guachos of the South
American pampas, who all drink water exclusively, i)rove, at least,
the entire compatibility of total abstinence with perfect physical
health and vigour.

Military experience also proves that the prolonged and often
severe hardships of a soldier's life are better endured without
liquor than with it. During Sir John Moore's retreat from
Corunna, notwithstanding the depressing circumstances under
which this march was performed, the army was found to improve
in health and vigour, as soon as the usual allowance of spirits
was unattainable. The Duke of Wellington, during the Penin-
sular War, feared more for his men from barrels of wine than
from batteries of cannon, and sent a body of troops to destroy a
large magazine of wine which lay on his line of march.

Probably no troops ever performed more laborious work than
those that in 1870 proceeded by the Dawson Road to Red River
merous and often steep portages. Yet all this fatigue was suc-
dragging their heavy boats, stores, and war-material over nu-
cessfully undergone with the absolute prohibition of intoxicating
liquors and the substitution therefor of tea ad libitum.

" Since it has been proved," says the gallant Havelock, referring

* Carpenter, Physiology of Temperance, pp. 121, 122.

la Alcohol Food f

forced marches

to the capture of Ghuznee, " that troops can m
ot forty miles, and storm a fortress in seventy-five minutos, with-
ont tlie aid of rum, behavinjr after success with a forl.ennmce and
humanity unparalleled in histoiy— not the slightest insult being
offered to one of the fem.'iles fouml in the Zenana— let it not
henceforth be arj^ued that distilled opirits are an indispensable
portion of a soldier's ration."

Copious evidence of this nature, both from the naval and mill-

tary service, was given before the Parliamentary Committee for

the Suppression of Intemperance. The superiority of Cromwell's

grave and temperate Ironsides over the drunken and roystering

<;avaliers is corroborative of the proposition here maintained.

We may learn, even from the prize ring, thiit the highest degree
of bodily vigour is inconsistent with even a moderate indulgence
m alcoholic liquors, This was also the experience of the andent
-athletes of the Isthmian games.

" Qui studet optatam cursu contingere motam,
Multa tulit, fecitque puer : sudavifc et alait ;
Abstinuit venere, et vino."

Homer also uukea Hector reject the entreaty of "royal
Hecuba " : —

" Stay till I brinK the cup with Bacchus crowned,
Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul.
Spent as thou art with long laborious fight."
•| Far hence be Bacchus' gifts, " the chief rejoined,
•• Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind.
Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind."

Milton thus represents the wisdom of abstinence from wine in
the drama of " Samson Agonistes."

" OAorwa.— Desire of wine and all delicious drinks,
Which many a famous warrior overturns,
Thou couldst repress. . .
Samson.~l drank from the clear, milky juice, allaying

Thirst, and refreshed ; nor envied them the grape
Whose heads that turbulent liquor filled with fumes.
Cams. O JT-adneas, to think use of strongest wines

And strongest drinks our chief support in health,
When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook."

Is Alcohol Food ?

There has long been a prevalent idea among the professional
classes, that a " moderate " use of fermented or spirituous liquors
conduces to intellectual vigour, and enables them better to endure
the mental strain they have to undergo. But this opinion, too, dis-
appears before the crucial test of actual experience. Those who
indulge in wine or spirit drinking mistake the transient stimulation
of the faculties for an increase of mental power, not considering
that the subsequent reaction and depression are all the greater for
the previous excitement. When men have sought the aid of these
delusive supports, it has often failed them utterly after a short
time. Hartley Coleridge, Mozart, Burns, Byron, E. A. Poe, and
many other gifted sons of genius, who had recourse to alcoholic
stimulus for the excitement of their powers, all died at an early
age, " as if," says Dr. Carpenter, " in consequence of the prema-
ture exhaustion of their nervous energy."

S. C. Plall, the well-known author, and editor of the Art-
Journal, gave his testimony as follows : " He lived by the labour
of his brain, and could testify that since he became a teetotaler^
he had an increase of intellectual power. He was better in body
and mind, and was able to work three times longer than ever he
could while he indulged, even moderately, in the use of strong
drinks."

Few men have performed greater public labours than the late
Mr. Cobden. He says : " No one has more faith than I have in
the truth of the teetotal doctrine, both in a physical and moral
point of view. I have acted upon the principle that fermented
or distilled drinks are useless for sustaining our strength, for the
more work I have had to do, the more I have resorted to the

pump and the teapot From what I have seen of the

House," he continues, " I must say that I have the belief that
the men who are the most temperate are the men who bear the
fatigue of the House best." The late Col. Thompson and Mr.
Bright, those indefatigable workers in the public service, were
both practical teetotalers. John Howard, the illustrious philan-
thropist, notwithstanding his constitutional weakness, seemed to
bear a charmed life amid plague and pestilence, and the extraor-
dinary fatigues of his extensive travels, the result, doubtless, of
his abstemious diet. Some dried biscuit and a cup of milk or

Is Alcohol Food?

cold water was his usual fare. Locke, also, attributed his pro-
longed life and labours to his entire abstinence from alcoholic
liquors. The testimony of great numbers of the clergy phy-
sicians and lawyers, lecturers, and other public speakers, who
once thought that alcoholic stimulants were necessary for the
sustenance and repair of their physical and mental powers, but
discovered that total abstinence was much more conducive to
that object, might also be cited.

Another purpose to be served by food is that of sustaining the
temperature of the body. Many articles of diet, which do not
contain much actual nutriment, are valuable for maintaining the
vital t. Spirituous liquors, it is asserted, are especially
adapted for that purpose. The immediate sense of warmth which
IS felt on their imbibition, favours the popular apprehension ; and
the large amount of carbon in their chemical composition— about
fifty-two per cent, in pure alcohol— gives a sort of quasi proba-
bility^ to the presumption. That presumption, however, is
fallacious. Tlie true and normal supporters of combustion—
which is really the process which takes place in the lungs, as well
asm the capillaries— are the sugar, starch, and fetty substances of
the food we eat. According to the estimate of Leibig, two hundred
and sixty-six parts of spirits of the strengtii of ordinary brandy
are required to generate the same amount of heat as a hundred
parts of fot would produce ; " so that weight for weight," says
Prof Carpenter, who has examined this subject exhaustively
"the heat-producing power of proof spirit, considered simply as a
chemical agent, is actually less than starch or sugar;"* com-
pared with fat, it is only as one to two and a half

Moreover, when alcohol is in the blood it prevents the com-
bustion of the proper fuel for maintaining the animal heat. The
effete material is not removed from the blood, as by the process
of respiration when uninterrupted by the presence of alcohol it
always is, and these impurities are retained in the system to the
great injury of the whole vital economy. After the first tran-
sient effect in quickening the circulation has ceased, the general
temperature of the body is lowered, so that for the very purpose
for which alcohol is so highly recommended, it is an actual injury
* Physiolgy of Temperance, p. 136.

Is Alcohol Foodf

instead of a benefit. Ammonia and cam^phor possess similar
stimulating powers, yet no one thinks them appropriate articles of
diet on that account ; and there is no more reason why alcohol
should be so considered. The experiments of Dr. Prout on this
•subject show, " that alcohol enormously depresses the combustion
of carbon in the system during its existence in the body," and
therefore lessens the amount of animal heat generated. " The
supposition," says Dr. Lees, " that alcohol is necessary in cold
■climates is erroneous, and contrary alike to common experience
and scientific experiment."

The result of wide and varied experience fully confirms these
conclusions, based on scientific data. The unvarying testimony
of arctic explorers, whale-fishers, fur-traders and trappers, and of
the inhabitants of high northern latitudes, of Alpine guides and
others exposed to extreme and long-continued cold, demonstrates
not only the inutility, but the absolute injuriousness of alcohol
as a generator of animal heat, and the vast superiority of an
oleaginous diet for that purpose.

Sir J. Eichardson mentions as a proof of his power of resisting
cold, which he attributed to his entire abstinence from spirits,
that, though advanced in years, he was enabled to go into the
open air at a temperature of 50° below zero without an over-
coat.

Sir John Ross says of his northern expedition : " I was twenty
years older than any of the officers or crew, and thirty years older
than all excepting three, yet I could stand the cold and endure
fatigue better than any of them, who all made use of tobacco
and spirits." " He who will make the corresponding experiments,"
says the same commander, " on two equal boats' crews, rowing in
a heavy sea, will soon be convinced that the water-drinkers will
far outdo the others." The free use of ardent spirits is one of
the chief causes of the failure of so many Arctic expeditions, and
when the men drank nothing but water, they endured the rigour
of the climate with impunity. A Danish crew of sixty men
were winter-bound in Hudson's Bay. Before spring, fifty-eight of
them died. An English crew, under the same circumstances, lost
only two men. The former had an ample supply of ardent
spirits ; the latter had none.

la Alcohol Food? jj

U^HBtration of the depressing effect of alcoholic liquors on the
bodjy powers The crews of two ice-locked vessels were fled

order to take refuge m that to which he belonged. The one had
only he,r usual rations of fat pork and biscuil The other ha^
m addition a supply of brandy. The whole of the fl,.t e^w

TXT'- ''^ """'^ " '"' '^""""^ p-'*^^ f™» -1" -d

spmts from the north-west fur country, and the hardy Canadian
voyageurs, or coureurs rfe boi. in these desolate wilds as well a^
the Indians and half-breeds, wiU endure the intensest =;id on tl^efr
generous rations of pemmican, and the bears' meat or blvej
tails they may obtain on the route

Can°ad'atX°'M""/f ""'" ^'«"- *^" «ovemor-Ge„eral of

int feet ^r ''""''^' ■'' ^"y'' ^ " =" '' " "''^' i'>'«=^'^=t-

ing fact, both m a moral and hygienic view, that for some years

a^osf u"the'°? 'TV7' ''""' "8"°"^'y e..cluded from
Z^l \, "' °' ""= lumbei-men ; and that uotwith-

ttandmg the exposure of the men to cold in the winter, and to

sIusLo;."'™- *' '''^' "' '"^ ^•^f--"' !>- "een entirely

The setting in of a Canadian winter, or any "cold snap" of

ranr™'"'-"""?"^ ""^"^^'1 -'"--eral instaifces of
death from exposure of poor wretches enfeebled and almost
devitahzed by habits of inebriation.

Baron Larrey, the great French surgeon, says that "durin.
Napoleons retreat from Moscow, those soldiers who indulged "n
the use of intoxicating liquors sank under the elfects of cold
almost in battalions; but their fate was not shared by those of
their comrades who abstained from those liquors." Marshal
Gjouchy says that "he was kept alive for days on coffee whil

time the Eussuin soldiers, on a winter march, have ration^ of oU
aerved out instead of spirits, experience having shown t
superiority as a generator of heat. The Esquimaux who liv^

Is Alcohol Food?

Dr. Hooker, a medical officer under Sir J. Ross, says : " Ardent
spirit never did me an atom of good. It does harm ; the ex-
tremities are not warmed by it . . . you are colder and more
fatigued a quarter or half an hour after it, than you would have
heen without it."

Such testimonies might be multiplied indefinitely, but
sufficient evidence has been adduced to show that " for enabling
the body to resist the continued influence of severe cold, alcoholic
liquors are far inferior in potency to solid food, especially of the
oleaginous kind;"* and that after tlie temporary stimulation of
the circulation that they produce has subsided, " the cold is felt
with augmented severity, and its action on the system is propor-
tionately injurious."

It is also maintained that among the many fancied virtues of
alcohol, is that of enabling the system to endure the effects of
intense and long-continued heat, whether climatic or artificial.
Indeed, it seems in the opinion of its admirers to be a universal
panacea, adapted to the most contrary circumstances and produc-
tive of the most contrary effects. It enables one to endure the
ligours of cold, it diminishes the effects of heat. It is a whole-
so°me corrective of too dry an atmosphere. It is an antidote to
the ill effects of wet. It is necessary to ward off the effects of
malaria on the Gold Coast. It is also necessary in the breezy sana-
toria in the hill country of India. It is required by those who
are in health to keep them so, and by those who are ill for their
recovery. It is prescribed for fevers and for colds, in cases of
exhaustion and of surfeit alike. It is part of the outfit of the
whaler in Baffin's Bay and of the ivory-trader in Timbuctoo.
Their spirit rations are served out to the British sailors when
sweltering between decks off the Slave Coast, as well as when
rounding°Cape Horn ; and to the British soldiers at Aden— the
hottest place on earth— as well as in midwinter to the garrisons
at Vancouver's Island or Quebec; and it is thought equally
necessary for them all. But neither the Esquimaux in the snow
huts of Nova Zembla, nor the naked negroes of Senegal use these
wondrous beverages, yet are superior in health and vigour to the
Europeans who enjoy its fictitious aid. The first maintains his

• Carpenter's Physiology of Temperance, p, 144.

;f ■•

Is Alcohol Food?

temperature on an appropriate diet of whale's blubber, the second
keeps cool on melons and rice ; but the Englisliman, with a sub-
lime indifference to circumstances, continues to imbibe his
brandy, London stout, and Barclay's XXX, in every variety of
•climate, till he often falls a victim to his defiance of the laws of
health and common sense. It is said that a favourite beverage
in Jamaica is rum, flavoured with cayenne pepper ! We find, as
a consequence, that the planters die in scores from sunstroke.
About as suitable to the climate, this, as that described by a
Yankee in reply to the Cockney inquiry—" Do they drink hale in
your country ?" " Drink hail !" said Jonatlian, unaccustomed to
the aspirate, but not to be outdone by an Englishman, " We drink
thunder and lightnin" !"

A vast and varied experience has shown that instead of bein"
beneficial in any or all of those diverse circumstances, alcoholic
liquors are always and everywhere injurious. But they are
especially injurious to those living or labouring in elevated
temperatures. It has been thought absolutely necessary, when
the body is pouring out water in perspiration, to pour in alcohol
in order to keep up the supply. But this, really, is adding fuel to
the flames; and is increasing the amount of injurious material in
the blood, which the system is trying to get rid of througli the
pores. Tlius the blood is poisoned, the nervous and muscular
•energy is enfeebled, the appetite is impaired, and a state of
physical collapse is induced.

Dr. Carpenter has accumulated a vast body of proof of the
insufficiency of alcoholic liquors to sustain bodily vigour under
the enuurance of extreme and continued heat, or of great vicissi-
tudes of temperature. The experience of men in performing exces-
sive labour in an elevated temperature— steamship stokers, anchor
forgers, glass-blowers, and others similarly engaged— confirms this
theoretic opinion.

The testimony of oriental and tropical travellers and explorers,
of missionaries, of military and naval commanders, all conspire
in proof of the proposition that these liquors do not sustain
•either the mental or the physical powers under extremes or
striking vicissitudes of temperature.

Sir John Ross, to whose Arctic experiences we have referred

la Alcohol Food?

says of exposure to heat : « On my last voyage to Honduras all
the sailors, twelve in number, died, and I was the only person
that went out in the ship who came home alive, which I attribute
entirely to my abstaining from the use of spirituous liquors."
" Eum," says Dr. Bell, speaking of its use in the West Indies
always diminishes the strength of the body, and renders man
more susceptible to disease, and unfit for any service in which
vigour or activity is required. As well might we throw oil into
a burniug house to extinguish the flames, as pour ardent spirits
into the stomach, to lessen the eflect of a hot sun upon the skin "
" I have served." says the veteran Governor of Gambia " in all
the West India colonies, and in Africa, and I never knew a dram-
drinker long-lived, healthy, or always equal to the duties he was
called upon to perform."

"Wherever," says an eminent medical authority, "in con-
conformity with their absurd national customs, European residents
m tropical countries continue to indulge in their usual alcoholic
beverages, they speedily fall victims to the climate or become
invalided." Small wonder that the Indian nabobs, who persist
in using curry powder and brandy and water, return to En-land
If they return at all, as yeUow as their own guineas \nd
with a temper as irascible as that of Nana Sahib himself

We liave thus seen that neither as food proper, for furnishincr
nourishment to the animal tissue, nor as an aid to digestion nor
as fuel for sustaining vital heat, do alcoholic liquors possess the
qualities popularly attributed to them. We have seen that they do
not aid in the least degree in the formation of bone, muscle, blood
brain, nerve, nor any tissue or substance of the human body but
are an absolute injury to all its parts ; and that they neutralize
and destroy the digestive fluids, and thus instead of aiding
actually hinder and prevent digestion. We have also seen that"
so far from increasing the power of resisting extreme cold or'heat
they depress the bodily powers, and render them less capable of "
such resistance.

Toronto : Published at the Methodist Book Roo^aTsOKing Street EmT