110 ALIMENTATION. 



solutely essential to the inhabitants and travellers in Arctic 

 countries, alcohol is, in almost any shape, not only completely 

 useless but positively injurious. * * * Circumstances 

 may occur under which its administration seems necessary ; 

 such, for instance, as great prostration from long-continued 

 exposure and exertion, or from getting wet; but then it 

 should be avoided, if possible, for the succeeding reaction is 

 always to be dreaded ; and, if a place of safety is not near at 

 hand, the immediate danger is only temporarily guarded 

 against, and becomes, finally, greatly augmented by reason 

 of decreased vitality. If given at all, it should be in very 

 small quantities frequently repeated, and continued until a 

 place of safety is reached. I have known the most unpleas- 

 ant consequences to result from the injudicious use of whis- 

 key for the purpose of temporary stimulation, and have also 

 known strong able-bodied men to have become utterly inca- 

 pable of resisting cold in consequence of the long-continued 

 use of alcoholic drinks." ' 



It is not demonstrated that alcohol increases the capacity 

 to endure severe and protracted bodily exertion. Its influ- 

 ence as a therapeutic agent, in promoting assimilation in cer- 

 tain conditions of defective nutrition, in relieving shock and 

 nervous exhaustion, in sustaining the powers of life in acute 

 diseases characterized by rapid emaciation and abnormally 

 active destructive assimilation, etc., is undoubted; but the 

 consideration of these questions does not belong to physi- 

 ology. 



Distilled Liquors. The variety of distilled liquors con- 

 sumed in civilized countries is very great. Brandy, the 

 product of the distillation of wine, is the one most esteemed, 

 and, in therapeutics, generally produces most positively and 

 promptly the beneficial effects of alcohol. As the liquor 



1 HAYES, Observations upon the Relations existing between Food and the Capo- 

 birdies of Men to resist Low Temperatures. American Journal of the Medical 

 Sciences, July, 1859, p. 117. 



