DKINKS. QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF FOOD. 103 



interest to determine whether it be consumed in the econo- 

 my, or whether it be discharged unchanged by the various 

 emunctories. Many volatile and other substances are known 

 to be thus exhaled or discharged from the body. The vola- 

 tile principle of the onion may be recognized in the expired 

 air for some time after the article has been taken into the 

 stomach. Various ingested matters are discharged unchanged 

 in the urine. Common salt, when taken in excess, is thus re- 

 moved. But all the ordinary nitrogenized and non-nitrogen- 

 ized principles in the ingesta are consumed, undergo certain 

 transformations in nutrition, and are never discharged, in 

 health, in the form in which they entered. 



Alcohol has long since been recognized in the expired air 

 after it has been taken into the stomach ; and late researches 

 have confirmed the earlier observations with regard to its elim- 

 ination in its original form, and have shown that after it has 

 been taken in quantity, it exists in the blood and all the tissues 

 and organs, particularly the liver and nervous system. 1 Lal- 

 lemand, Perrin, and Duroy have noted the elimination of 

 alcohol by the lungs, skin, and kidneys. 2 The experiments 

 by which these results were arrived at are very satisfactory. 

 They show that even when a very small quantity of alcohol 

 is taken it may be detected in the blood and is eliminated 

 for many hours, progressively diminishing in quantity from 

 the period of its ingestion, until it is all removed or destroyed. 

 In a man after taking " an ordinary quantity of alcoholic 

 drink" (a little more than a quart of red wine containing 



1 It was formerly a question considerably discussed whether alcohol exists in 

 the brain, or in the fluid found in the ventricles, in intoxicated persons. This 

 was settled by Percy, who found alcohol in the brain, liver, and sometimes in 

 the urine, in dogs poisoned with alcohol, and in men who had died after excessive 

 drinking. In these experiments, the presence of alcohol was determined by dis- 

 tillation, the distilled substances being inflammable, and capable of dissolving 

 camphor. PERCY, Prize Thesis. An Experimental Inquiry concerning the Pres* 

 ence of Alcohol in the Ventricles of the Brain, etc., London, 1839. 



a LALLEMAND, PERRIN, et DUROY, Du R&le de VAlcool el des Anesthesiques dans 

 rOrganisme, Paris, 1860. 



