The Press., 1888-06-07
(For The Prcse.l ALCOHOL AGAIN.


 The correspondent who did me the hon. or to comment upon my recent lecture fears that some of my statements regard. ing tbe action of alcohol may be miscon- strued by the minimizing. I should be very sorry if this should happen. should regret if anything that have said should be interpreted as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It would be a source of great modification to me if thought that the champions of the saloon regarded me as an ally. think, however, that we must admit the possibility of an- other danger. It appears that the friends of temperance who are neither careless nor minimizing may derive erroneous i'm. pressions from the perusal of the lecture.
 The Rev. MT. Newell thinks that laid too much stress upon the fact that alcohol is food. My object in emphasizing that point was to controvert the numerous as- sertions by prominent temperance writers and speakers to the contrary. For thirty years it has been a stock assertion of the temperance platform that alcohol is not a food. This error is based upon the false assumption that all the alcohol taken into the system is excreted in some way, and that no part is used up in the body. This error has been exploded time and again but, notwithstanding that it has been re- peatedly pulverized by scientific research, it "bobs up serenely" upon every occa- sion, and fourishes like green bay-trees "Alcohol is never q food and always a poison" has been the war-cry of temper ance chieftains for years, and it still re- sounds from the rostrum and echoes in print. As misinformed temperance advo- cates have spent thirty years in denying that alcohol is ever food, l thought 1t | n fa fSa1 Axya Y,afn fl lecture to showing that they are wrong.
 The correspondent thinks that Prof. At water has more justly stated the value of alcohol as food in the following quota tion from his recent article in the Century Magazine "The action of alcohol as a food is so limited, and so out-balanced by it's effects upon the nerves and the brain, that, except in certain abnormal condi- tions of the body, the food value of alco- hol is of scarcely enough importance to be taken into account" Contrast this state ment with this extract from my lecture "Alcohol is much more than food, it is an active drug H particularly aBects the reerVOus system, and ytoT his reason it cGn neUer Dc recommended Gs c fOOd for he hedLthy." These two extracts are almost identical in their meaning. A little further down in the same column I stated that "healthy men do not take alcohol for food, they drink it because they like its ef- fects." I may add that I never knew a topper to assert that he took his dram as nourishment.
 am sorry that I cannot endorse Mir Newell's statement that everybody at all read upon the subject acknowledges that alcohol is a food with the limited re- strictions that Prof. Atwater has placed upon it." When an eminent doctor of divinity, now president of a well-known university, states that the theory that alec. hol 'is in any sense a food has been dis tinctly disproved and everywhere abandon ed, " we have reason 10 believe that there are persons, who certainly ought to be we'll read upon the subject about which they attempt to enlighten the public, who would not agree with MT. Newell that alco- hol can be food under any circumstances. Here in Massachusetts we have an absurd law that requires the teaching of the physi- ology of alcohol in the public schools. The text book used in Mouson makes the un- qualified statement that alcohol is not q food. The book was written by presum. ably intelligent person, and its accuracy is vouched for by a we'll known physician Prof. Atwater, in his article in the Century Magazine, refers in foot-note to very valuable paper by my friend, Dr. J. w. Warren, of the Harvard medical school to which he seems to have been largely in. debted for many of his facts about alcohol. The paper is a very excellent resume of the scientific work that has been done to date regarding the physiological action of alcohol. The immediate incentive that prompted pr. Warren to prepare this pa per was lecture upon the action of alec hol delivered by prominent professor in a medical college in this country to a class of medical students, and afterwards pub lished ill a work on the Principles and Practice of Medicine. This lecture con tains many erroneous statements, the ab- surdities of which have been well shown by Dr. Warren. This chapter in a text book for medical students demonstrates that even those who ought to be authori- ties in these matters, and whom the public regard as such, are sometimes responsible for the dissemination of untruth.
 am charged with failure to "fully state the evil effects of alcohol upon the nervous system." The charge is true. It would have taken very long lecture to fully treat of these effects. think that the ed. itor of The Press and his compositions, as we'll as those who have inflicted penance upon themselves by reading my address, will admit that that production was of suf. ficient length. Nevertheless, I devoted nearly one-half of a column to the action of alcohol upon the nervous system, par ticularly the brain. For it should be re. membered that it is the brain and not the nerves that chiefly suffers from it's effects. The nerves bear about the same relation tc the brain that telegraph wires do to the re- ceiving and transmitting apparatus in tho office where the messages are sent and re }. ceived. The statement that "as food tho e only use of alcohol is to serve as fuel tC l. the nerves, is hardly comprehensible to ( physiologist. The effects of the combus tion of alcohol in the body are felt by al its parts.
 I did not enter into the political aspect of the temperance question, as these wer' foreign to my subject. I wish to say however, that do not believe m compro missing with the devil and, where there i local option law, I hold it to be the dut' I- of all good citizens to vote for DO license.
 DR. F. w. ELLIS. 
 MARION HkRLAND, the celebrated authoress t.uytt nf