The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-02-22
ALCOHOL NOT A FOOD.
A Popular Error Among People Who Are
Given to Drinking.

A Popular Error Among People Who Are
Given to Drinking.
There is very widespread opinion
among the masses of the people that
alcoholic liquors have a positive food
value Hundreds of people drink beer
or ale under the impression that this
will increase their flesh. Notwith-
standing the wide acceptance of this
idea, it has no basis in fact. Perhaps
it may be of interest to advance some
of the authorities on this subject, for
the information of those interested in
the subject, and to furnish the friends
of temperance with arguments to do
battle with ignorance.
DR.. A. Baer, of Berlin, in discussing
this subject in 1881, wrote this: AL
cohol contains neither alhumen, nor
fat, nor any other substances either
present in the animal organism. or
arising by chemical changes in the
body and replacing part of the same"
DR.. Perrin and English authority,
makes the following statement in the
Encyclopaedia Dictionary of Medical
Sciences: There is not found in the
blood or the expired air any trace of
the transformation or destruction of
the alcohol. 1t accumulates in the
nerve centers and in the liver, and final
ly it is excreted through the diverse
channels of elimination. Hence, the
conclusion that the alimentary role of
alcohol has no other pretence to a
scientific basis than that of an expert
mental error"
There are are some of these bever-
erages which contain small quantities
of nutritious matter, but it is not in the
alcohol but in the other substances
which enter into their composition.
Their proportion, however, is so small
as to render it absurd to assume that
it is necessary to drink in order to OBJ
tain them. In the London Lancet,
the leading medical journal of Great
Britain, some years ago, was published
an analytical report as TO the real
amount of nutrient elements found in
wines 1t says: SIN every 1000 grain
measures of the clarets and Burgun-
dies tested, the mean amount of al
luminous matter present was only 1-3
grain, whilst in 1000 grains by weight
grains of such matter. That is, the
quantities being equal, beefsteak is 1876
times more nutritious than wine"
Sir Lyon Plavfair, an eminent Brit
ish scientific and medical authority,
makes this statement: Zone hundred
parts of ordinary beer or porter con-
tain IA parts of solid matter: and of
this only $40 consist of fesh-forming
matter. To drink beer or porter to
nourish us is tantamount to swallow
ing sack of chaff for "a grain of
wheat"
And the eminent Baron Justus Won
Liebig made this statement: IF man
drinks daily eight or ten quarts of Ba-
varian beer, in twelve months he will
have taken into his system the nutri-
tive constituents con tained in a FIVE
pound loaf OF bread" Think of drink
ing many barrels of beer to get, in a
whole year, as much nutrition as there
is in one loaf of bread.
These facts should be widely known,
that those who use the popular error
us a shield for their own indulgence
in intoxicants shall no longer be en-
aDled to hide behind it. Furthermore,
this error is sedulously cultivated by
the men who are engaged in the liquor
traffic; and, worse than all, it is ad-
hered to by many progressive doc
tors, who do not seem to know that the
old theories regarding the effect of al
cohol on the human system have all
been disproved, and that the most ad-
vanced members of the profession no
longer prescribe liquors as beverage
in any form of disease. If this error
can be demonstrated to the public, an
other step will have been taken in the
effort to pulverize the rum power!-
Toledo Blade.