CHAPTER I. 



PLAN OF THE INVESTIGATION 



Probably no subject in physiological chemistry has received so much 

 desultory experimental attention as has that of the effects of ethyl 

 alcohol on organic processes. We have numerous systematic and 

 exhaustive contributory studies on the physiology of the proteins, of the 

 carbohydrates, and of the fats; but in spite of the fact that several 

 million people regularly obtain a somewhat larger proportion of their 

 total energy requirement from alcohol than they do from protein, there 

 has been no adequate, systematic investigation of the metabolism of 

 alcohol and its physiological action. This is a misfortune to science. 

 On these grounds the Nutrition Laboratory believed it important to 

 classify the lines of research, and to prepare a tentative plan for an 

 extended systematic investigation into the physiological action of ethyl 

 alcohol in man. 



While the central problems of the plan are questions of general 

 physiology and total metabolism, it seemed desirable that there should 

 be a correlated investigation of the psychological effects of alcohol. 

 Accordingly, as the plan indicates, a definite program was arranged 

 for the study of the specific effects of alcohol on the various neural 

 processes. This plan, 1 which was privately printed and issued under 

 date of January 1, 1913, is reprinted in full, with minor typographical 

 changes, as Appendix I of this monograph. 



As a consequence of the distribution of this plan among scientists in 

 Europe and in America, we received a large number of comments and 

 suggestions which showed clearly that the program was given serious 

 consideration. Many scientists granted personal interviews and freely 

 discussed the problems. These are Drs. Paul He*ger, Slosse, and Van 

 Laer, of Brussels; Alquier and Bertrand, of Paris; Kossel, of Heidel- 

 berg; Cohnheim, of Hamburg; Jaquet and Staehelin, of Basel; Fano, 

 of Florence; Luciani, of Rome; Tangl and V6rzar, of Budapest; Durig, 

 Kassowitz, and Hans Horst Meyer, of Vienna; Franck, Griiber, F. 

 Miiller, and Neubauer, of Munich; His, Rubner, and Zuntz, of Berlin; 

 Schaternikoff, of Moscow; Albitsky, Kartaschefsky, Likhatscheff, and 

 Pawlow, of Petrograd; Tigerstedt and Von Wendt, of Helsingfors; 

 Arrhenius, Johansson, and Santesson, of Stockholm; Hasselbalch, 



'Tentative Plan for a Proposed Investigation into the Physiological Action of Ethyl Alcohol 

 in Man. Boston, 1013. (Reprinted aa Appendix I.) 



