Year: 1868

Alcohol.


The atlantic Monthly for August has
an article by Parton, on the question,
Z" VIII the Coming Man Drink Wine ?''
that will excite thought, provoke discus
sion, and we would fain hope have prac-
tical influence among thoughtful men. We
give below this negative answer to the
question what does alcohol do for US?


If something more is known of the ope-
ration of alcohol than for any other
chemical fuid-if there is any approach to
certainty respecting tive owe it chiefly
to the teetotalers, because it is they who
have provoked contradiction, excited in
quiry, suggested experiment. They have
not done much themselves in the way of
investigation, but they started the topic,
and have kept it alive. They have also
published few pages which throw light
upon the point in dispute. After going
over the ground pretty thoroughly, can
tell the reader in few words the subsance
of what has been ascertained and plausibly


inferred, concerning the effects of wine
beer, and spirits upon the human constitu-
ton


They cannot be nOuriShment, in the or
dinary acceptation Of the word, because the
quantity of nutritive matter in them is so
small. Liebig, no enemy of beer, says this ::
" We can prove with mathematical GER
tainty, that as much -four or meal as can


lie on the point of a table-knife is more
nutritious then nine quarts of the best Ba
varian beer; that a man who Is able daily
to consume that amount of beer, obtains
from it in a whole year,in the most fayora-
bic case, exactly the amount of nutritive
constituents which is contained in five
yound loaf of bread, or in three pounds of
flesh" So of wine; when we had taken
from glass of wine the ingredients known
to be innutritious, there is scarcely any
thing left but grain or two of sugar
Pure alcohol though a product of highly
nutritive substance, is mere poison, an
absolute poison, the mortal foe of life is
every one of its forms, animal and vegeta-
ble If therefore, these beverages do US
good, it is not by supplying the body with
nourishment.


Nor can they aid digestion by assisting
to decompose food When we have taken
too much shad for breakfast, we find that
wine-glass of whiskey instantly mitigates
the horrors of indigestion, and enables US
again to contemplate the future without
dismay. But if we catch curious fish or
reptile and want to keep him from decom-
posing, and bring him home as a contrib
ution TO the museum of Professor Agassiz,
we put him in bottle of whiskey. Several
experiments have been made with a view
to ascertain whether mixing alcohol with
the gastric juice increases or lessons its
power to decompose food, and the results
Of all of them point to the conclusion that
the alcohol retards the process of decom-
position. \ little alcohol retards it lit
tie, and much alcohol retards it much 1t
has been proved by repeated experiment,
that any portion of alcohol, however small,
diminishes the power of the gastric juice
to decompose. The digestive fluid has
been mixed with wine, beer, whiskey,
brandy, and alcohol, diluted with water,
and kept at the temperature of the living
body, and the motions of the body imitat-
ed, during the experiment; but in every
instance, the pure gastric juice was found
to be the true and sole digestion, and the
alcohol a retarder of digestion. This fact,
however, required little proof. We are
all familiar with alcohol as a preserver,
and scarcely need to be reminded, that. if
alcohol assists digestion at all, it cannot
be by assisting decomposition.


Nor is it a heat-producing fluid. On
the contrary, it appears in all cases to di-
minish the efficiency of the heat producing
process. Most of US who live here in the
North, and who are occasionally subjected
to extreme cold for hours at time, know
this by personal experience, and all the
Arctic voyagers attest it. Brandy is de-
struction when men have to face temper
ature of 90 degrees below zero they want
lamp-oil then, and the rich blubber of the
whale and walrus Dr. Rae, who made
two or three pedestrian tours of the Polar
regions, and whose powers of endurance
were put to as severe a test as mans ever
were, Is clear and emphatic upon this
point. Brandy he says, stimulates but
for few minutes, and greatly lessons
mans power to endure cold and fatigue
Occasionally We have in New York a cool
breeze from the north which reduces the
temperature below zero-to the sore dis
comfort of omnibus-drivers, and cab driv-
vers, who have to face it on their way up
town. On a certain Monday night, two or
three winters ago, % drivers on one line
were disabled by the cold, many of whom
had to be lifted from the cars and carried
in. 1t is fact familiar to persons in this
business that men who drink freely are
more likely to be benumbed and overcome
by the cold than those who abstain. 1t
seems strange to us, when we first hear it,
that meager tetotaller should be safer on
such night than a bluff, red-faced imbi-
Der of beer and whiskey, who takes some
thing at each end of the line to keep him.
self warm; it nevertheless appears to be
true. A traveller relates, that when Russ
ian troops are about to start upon march
in very cold region, no grog is allowed
to be served to them; and when the men
are drawn up, ready to move, the corporals
smell the breath of every man, and send
back to quarters all who have been drink
ing. The reason is, that men who start
under the influence of liquor are the first
to succumb to the cold, and the Gkeliest
to be frost-bitten. 1t is the uniform expe-
rience of the hunters and trappers in the
northern provinces of North America, and
of the Rocky Mountains, that alcohol di-
minishes their power to resist cold. This
whole magazine could be filled with testi-
mony on this point