IS ALCOHOL A FOOD? 105 



Liebig stated tliat, in temperance families where beer was witliheld 

 and money given in compensation, it was soon found that the monthly- 

 consumption of bread was so strikingly increased that the beer was 

 twice paid for once in money, and a second time in bread. Pie also 

 reported the experience of the landlord of the Hotel de Russie, at 

 Frankfort, during the Peace Congress ; the members of the Congress 

 wei-e mostly teetotalers, and a regular deficiency was observed every 

 day in certain dishes, especially in farinaceous dishes, pudding, etc. 

 So unheard of a deficiency, in an establishment where for years the 

 amount of dishes for a given number of persons had so well been 

 ' known, excited the landlord's astonishment. It was found that the 

 men made up in pudding what they neglected in wine. Finally, every 

 one knows how little the drunkard eats. 



Again, in cases of disease, there are numerous instances wliicl) it 

 is difficult to refer to any thing but the food- property of alcohol. Dr. 

 Anstie refers to one very instructive case of the kind, which also 

 came under his care in 1861, and which obviously left a great impres- 

 sion upon his mind. A young man, only eighteen years of age, was 

 so reduced by a severe attack of acute rheumatism, that he was un- 

 able to retain food of any kind upon his stomach. He was sustained 

 for several days upon an allowance of twelve ounces of water and 

 twelve ounces (f pint) of gin per day. His recovery under this treat- 

 ment was very rapid and complete, and almost without any trace of 

 the emaciation and wasting that ordinarily follow upon such a dis- 

 ease. The lad, pi-evious to this illness, was of a strictly sober and 

 temperate habit, and, during the use of gin, the abnormal frequency 

 of the pulse and of the breathing came gradually down to the proper 

 standard of ordinary health ; and there was never at any time the 

 slightest tendency to intoxication which is a very notable point in 

 such cases. 



Dr. D'Lalor, before quoted, also mentions the case of a child only 

 fourteen months old, suffering from inflammation of the lungs, and 

 whose stomach could retain nothing but port wnne. For twelve days 

 it subsisted entirely upon wine ; it was rapidly cured, with no wasting 

 of any account ; nor, although it drank large quantities of alcohol, 

 was it ever intoxicated. 



These cases are very impoi-tant on account of their exceptional 

 character ; but they are quite in accordance with the well-established 

 power of brandy and wine to sustain the life of sinking men in the 

 critical periods of exhausting fevers ; and they afford ground for the 

 familiar and popular belief that there is support in wine and spirit- 

 uous drink as held of old and exemplified in the well-known recom- 

 mendation of St. Paul to his ailing disciple. 



Dr. Anstie's conclusion from such evidence, and from a very large 

 hospital experience, is that, beyond all possibility of doubt, pure al- 

 cohol, with the addition of only a small quantity of water, will pro- 



