ALCOHOL. 109 



Under ordinary conditions, when the organism can be 

 adequately supplied with food, alcohol is undoubtedly inju- 

 rious. "When the quantity of food 'is insufficient, alcohol may 

 supply the want for a time, and temporarily restore the 

 powers of the body; but the effects of its continued use, 

 conjoined with insufficient nourishment, show that it cannot 

 take the place of assimilable matter. These effects are too 

 well known to the physician, particularly in hospital-prac- 

 tice, to need further comment. 



Notwithstanding these undoubted physiological facts, 

 alcohol, in some form, is used by almost every people on the 

 face of the earth civilized or savage. Whether this be in 

 order to meet some want occasionally felt by and peculiar to 

 the human organism is a question upon which physiologists 

 have found it impossible to agree* That alcohol, at certain 

 times, taken in moderation, soothes and tranquillizes the 

 nervous system and relieves exhaustion dependent upon 

 unusually severe mental or physical exertion, cannot be 

 doubted. It is by far too material a view to take of exist- 

 ence, to suppose that the highest condition of man is that 

 in which the functions, possessed in common with the lower 

 animals, are most perfectly performed. Inasmuch as tem- 

 porary insufficiency of food, gi*eat exhaustion of the nervous 

 system, and various conditions in which alcohol seems to be 

 useful, must of necessity often occur, it is hardly proper that 

 this agent should be utterly condemned ; but it is the article, 

 par excellence, which is liable to abuse, and the effects of 

 which on the mind and body, when taken constantly in ex- 

 cess, are most serious. 



Although alcohol imparts a genial warmth when the sys- 

 tem is suffering from excessive cold, it is not proven that it 

 enables men to endure a very low temperature for a great 

 length of time. This end can be effectually accomplished 

 only by an increased quantity of food. The testimony of Dr. 

 Hayes, the Arctic explorer, is very strong upon this point. 

 He says : " While fresh animal food, and especially fat, is ab- 



