290 FOODS AND DIETARIES 



a bottle of light wine.^ This alcohol was administered in small 

 doses six times during the day. Professor Atwater's results may 

 be summed up briefly as follows : — 



1. The alcohol administered was almost all oxidized in the body. 



2. The potential energy in the alcohol was transformed into heat 

 or muscular work. 



3. The body did about as well with the rations including alco- 

 hol as it did without it. 



The committee of fifty eminent men appointed to report on the 

 physiological aspects of the drink problem reported that a large 

 number of scientific men state that they are in the habit of taking 

 alcoholic liquor in small quantities, and many report that they do 

 not feel harm thereby. A number of scientists seem to agree 

 that within limits alcohol may be a kind of food, although a very 

 poor food. 



On the other hand, we know that although alcohol may techni- 

 cally be considered as a food, it is a very unsatisfactory food and, 

 as the follo\ving statements show, it has an effect on the body 

 tissues which foods do not have. 



Professor Chittenden of Yale College, in discussing the food 

 problem of alcohol, writes as follows: " It is true that alcohol 

 in moderate quantities may serve as a food, i.e. it can be oxidized 

 with the liberation of heat. It may to some extent take the 

 place of fat and carbohydrates, but it is not a perfect substitute 

 for them, and for this reason alcohol has an action that can- 

 not be ignored. It reduces liver oxidation. It therefore pre- 

 sents a dangerous side wholly wanting in carbohydrates and fat. 

 The latter are simply burned up to carbonic acid and water or are 

 transformed to glycogen and fat, but alcohol, although more easily 

 oxidized, is at all times liable to obstruct, in a measure at least, the 

 oxidative processes of the liver and probably of other tissues also, 

 thereby throwing into the circulation bodies, such as uric acid, 

 which are harmful to health, a fact which at once tends to draw a 

 distinct line of demarcation between alcohol and the two non- 



1 Alcoholic beverages contain the following proportions of alcohol : beer, from 

 2 to 5 per cent ; wine, from 10 to 20 per cent ; liquors, from 30 to 70 per cent. Pat- 

 ent medicines frequently contain as high as 60 per cent alcohol. (See page 294.) 



