Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1899-08-18
TEMPERANCE COLUMN
ALCOHOL NOT A FOOD IN THE HY-
GlENlC SENSE.

Prof. Atwater's Experiments and the
Teaching in Regard to the Alcohol
Question in the schools.
The recent experiments of Prof. At
water are of great interest to physiolo.
gists and chemists since they throw
much light upon one of the doubtful
que stions of physiological chemistry or
pharnacology, that of the metabolism of
alcohol In the body.
1t is a mistake, however, to think as
some people apparently do, that the
result of these experiments should
change the teaching In the schools in
regard to the use of alcohol from
hygienic point of view. The schools
teach that the use of alcoholic liquors as
a beverage is not iustifiable under the
laws of hygiene. The results of Prof.
Atwaters experiments do not contradict
this teaching.
These experiments merely show that
the body can derive some energy from
alcohol. This does not in itself enttle
alcohol to be placed among the food
substances in the hygienic sense of the
term, which is the sense in which the
schools and people in general use the
term food. If it did, such a violent
poison as muscarine, the active principle
of the poisonous plants of the mush
room family, would have to be classed
with the foods, since it also is oxidized
in the body with liberation of its con-
tanned energy.
TO class substance among the foods
we must know that the sum total effects
of its use are beneficial to the body.
Muscarine is not a food because its
poisonous effects offset the benefit of the
energy which it liberates. Alcohol has
poisonous effects, as Prof. Atwater him.
self admits. The question as to whether
1t can be considered as food depends
entirely upon whether its beneficial
effects are greater than It's poisonous
effects. Prof. Atwater's experiments do
not prove this. Until this is proven the
burden of the proof is against those who
would include alcohol IN the list of food
substances. For scientific experiment so
far, experiments upon large bodies of
men in the ordinary conditions and
vicissitudes of life, In the armies and IN
exploring expeditions where labor and
exposure have to be endured indicate
that when the regular moderation"
quantity of alcohol is taken the harmful
effects offset the beneficial ones and that
the drinker is made less tit rather than
more fit to work.
And stronger still is the reason against
speaking, as Prof. Atwater does, of al
cohol as food in the same sense as sugar.
For people generally will interpret this
to mean that it is food equally to be
recommended with sugar and ordinary
hygienic foods. And this, as Prof. At
water will agree, is an entirely false idea
and one calculated to do much harm.
For while we get our energy from sugar
without risk of poisoning, to get energy
from alcohol we run great risk of poison
ing, and to get any amount such as
would be necessary to support life in
ordinary conditions, we must take enough
alcohol to poison ourselves seriously.
(By poisoning is meant some harmful
effect upon the functions of the body.)
The above dangers in the use of alcohol,
also the possibility of the formation of
the alcohol habit, make Its use as a
beverage unjustifiable even if there were
no other arguments against it.
1t is unfortunate that the alcohol
question has been brought upon this
technical ground. The question of the
hygienic status of the use of alcohol does
not depend upon the technical question
of the definitions of a food and of
poison. The controversy upon this
point has produced statements upon both
sides which have given rise in the public
mind to great misconception of the
truth.
Both sides in this technical controversy
will agree in regard to the main question,
that children should be taught to look
upon alcoholic liquors as dangerous
substances, to be avoided from coGsidera-
lions of health and general welfare.
And in the..present light of our expert
ence and of scientific investigation, the
school books must continue to exclude
alcohol from the list of substances
desirable as foods, and to teach the
avoidance of this substances as a good
hygienic rule. II. F. HowEs, NJ. d.
BOSTON, MASS, July ), 1899.
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