Alcoholic and Other 

 BEVERAGES IN WAR-TIME 



The purpose of this paper is not to discuss the 

 general question of the value or the noxiousness of 

 alcohol. Most educated people now have definite 

 views on the subject, and I do not propose to bring 

 forward arguments in favour of either of them. 1 My 

 objective is a comparatively narrow salient of this 

 great question namely, how far alcohol may be re- 

 garded as a food, and that in special reference to the 

 present conditions of the country. In that connection 

 some references will be made to other beverages 

 which are generally regarded as enjoying a less 

 equivocal position, and are associated with the do- 

 mestic hearth rather than the public-house. 



Alcohol in its various forms of beers, wines, and 

 spirits is of course the same substance, but in each 

 of these it is accompanied by other bodies of different 

 qualities. It is impossible to take up these, however, 

 partly because they are largely unknown. The essen- 

 tial feature in all is the alcohol, be it drug, food, or 

 poison, or all three. The other constituents act mainly 

 if not entirely as flavours. Alcohol when swallowed 

 is taken up rapidly by the walls of the stomach and 



1 To those who wish to pursue the alcohol question in other directions I may 

 commend a small book published by the Board of Control (Liquor Traffic), 

 which gives all the known facts and none of the fictions in regard to drink: 

 Alcohol, its Action on the Human Organism. H.M. Stationery Office, Lon- 

 don, S.W. 



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