64 BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 



and bread-stuffs as far as the question of a supply 

 of energy arises. It is not superior to these as a 

 source of work and heat, and in practice is inferior 

 to them in acting not only as a food but also as a 

 drug or poison. The best food has no such further 

 effects, but acts only as a means of supplying 

 power. 



The alcoholic beverages, however, have the advan- 

 tage of being attractive to many people, and it may 

 be claimed that this justifies their use, especially in 

 these times when every substance should be used 

 which can be utilized to keep up the national stock 

 of energy. And if alcohol could be obtained from 

 some plant or other source which could not be em- 

 ployed for other purposes, the argument would be 

 a sound one. But, as is widely known, alcohol is 

 obtained from certain cereals which might otherwise 

 be utilized for food, and this changes the question 

 from the abstract one to the very practical one whether 

 the production of alcohol is the most economic way 

 of using our limited supply of cereals. Even the 

 strongest advocates of alcohol as a food would hesi- 

 tate to put it before bread as a mainstay of life. We 

 have therefore to consider whether in manufacturing 

 alcohol we merely change the cereal which might be 

 used for bread into an equivalent amount of energy 

 in the form of alcohol, or whether there is an actual 

 loss of energy in changing from cereals to alcohol. 

 In order to ascertain this we have to make a some- 

 what extensive arithmetical calculation of the amount 

 of energy contained in the original materials from 

 which alcohol is formed, and to determine how much 

 of that energy or fuel value could be utilized for food 

 as bread and how much is actually utilized for food 

 in the form of alcoholic beverages. The calculation 

 is simplified by the fact that no potable spirit is being 



