Daily Kennebec journal., 1913-11-20
Doctor Says Alcohol
Poor Human Fuel.

Yes, alcohol is a food" said the
doctor. so is sulphuric acid a fuel.
You can make steam with it. but it
viii ruin the boiler. just as a matter
of cold science, alcohol does little or
nothing that is good to offset the
damage that it does
But in medicine began the Cab
met officer.
Its medicinal value is largely a fic-
tion," interpesed the doctor.
This conversation took place across
4 dinnertable in Washington, not long
ago And in Washington across a
dinner table" means that the news
paper correspondent does not quote by
name. But the doctor who made these
statements, which viii surprise most
!aymen, is Il international reputation.
He declined TO permit the use of his
n3me, ierause he WAS talking inform
ally. and desired not to enter con-
trovcrsial field in print
THE average individual regards al
cohol as II stimulant. To the scientist,
alcohol is not a stimulant, but some
thing that paralyZes. 1t happens to
select, for reasons which will be stat
ed later, the highest intellectual CEN
ters first, and the ensuing paralysis is
progressive in effect in proportion TO
dose and to time. When the paralysis
has proceeded through the higher to
the lower centres tie person becomes,
in common parlanee. dead drunk. At
that time substantially the only nerve
functions regularly performed are the
automatic functions of breathing and
the heart beat.
Even the person thus affected is
prone to believe himself stimulated or
over-stimulated. As a matter of fact,
what has happened is that all re-
straint has been removed, and the
victim, in proportion to the advance of
the paralysis, has lest sense. He Will
profess to enjoy a feeling of warmth,
but, on the contrary, he has, IN fact,
chilled the blood, and the sense OF
warmth comes only from the fact that
alcohol affects first the surface blood
vessels, and may produce, even con-
dition of sweating on the surface. II
is a well-known fact that a person un-
der the influence of alcohol, falling py
the roadside ON a cold night Will
freeze to death at a higher tempera-
tnre than one who has no alcohol in
his system.
In a sense alcohol is a food, but, in
any event, it is an injurious food. The
fact that it becomes oXidized in the
body and is burned to form carbonlc
aeid and water, thereby producing
heat. makes it, to that extent, food
in the same sense that sugar is food.
However, while you can make steam
N a boiler with diluted sulphuric acld,
fhe fact remains that the boiler VIII
not last very long. In the same way
alcohol may. through its transference
into heat in the way l have Indicated
produce some energy which can oe
utilized, but, on the whole, 1t does
harm. IT.,
"speaking of alcohol incidentally the
doctors of Europe are dropping the the =
nv that alcohol served any useful pur-
nose Among the physicians OF TINS
county it is becoming less and less IN
favor. The old theory that baby must
have a SPOONFUL OF brandy in cases oil
pneumonia has been demonstrated Z
have rested oa a fallacious premise ana
the deliriuln, which WAS formerly almost
exclusively ascribed to the progress OF
the disease. is now generally attributed
to the brandy,
."rhc only medicinal use to which the
modern physician now puts alcohol III
those cases where tEe patient is not dam
eerous.X sicS, but is what might 'Ue
called wretchcd miserable, or uncom-