186 ALIMENTATION. 



vous system. 1 Lallemand, Perrin, and Duroy have stated, also, that there is a consider- 

 able elimination of alcohol by the lungs, skin, and kidneys ; but the accuracy of the ex- 

 periments by which these results were arrived at has lately been questioned. The re- 

 cent observations of Drs. Anstie and Dupre have, indeed, thrown great doubt upon the 

 chromic-acid test for alcohol, which was employed by the French observers above men- 

 tioned. Anstie and Dupr6 have clearly shown that the color-test applied to the urine of 

 persons who do not drink alcohol at all not only acts with chromic acid in the same 

 way as does alcohol, but that the substance in the urine, whatever it may be, " is capa- 

 ble of being similarly oxidized into an acid which is apparently identical with acetic acid, 

 and similarly converted to iodoform by boiling with iodine and an alkali." Nevertheless, 

 when alcohol has been taken in narcotic doses, there is a certain amount of alcoholic elimi- 

 nation in the urine, as was shown long ago by Percy. We are not, however, considering 

 at present the elimination of alcohol when the ingestion of this principle has been pushed 

 to extreme intoxication, but only the question whether moderate doses of alcohol be 

 eliminated in totality or be consumed in the organism in the same way as sugar or albu- 

 men. It is possible to administer, for example, such quantities of sugar that a certain 

 amount will pass off in the urine ; and no one supposes that moderate quantities of sugar 

 are not consumed in the organism. As the result of the final experiments of Anstie, it 

 is absolutely certain that most of the alcohol which is taken in quantities not sufficient 

 to produce alcoholic intoxication is consumed in the organism, and but a trivial amount 

 is thrown off, either in the urine, the faeces, the breath, or the cutaneous transpiration. 

 This question is of the greatest importance with regard to the moderate use of alcohol 

 under normal conditions, and especially in its bearing upon the therapeutical action of 

 the various alcoholic drinks administered in cases of disease. 



Taken in moderate quantity, alcohol generally produces a certain amount of nervous 

 exaltation, which gradually passes off. In some individuals the mental faculties are 

 sharpened by alcohol, while in others they are blunted. There is nothing, indeed, more 

 variable than the immediate effects of alcohol on different persons. In large doses, the 

 effects are the well-known phenomena of intoxication, delirium, more or less anesthesia, 

 coma, and sometimes, if the quantity be excessive, death. As the rule, the mental exal- 

 tation produced by alcohol is followed by reaction and depression, except in debilitated 

 or exhausted conditions of the system, when the alcohol seems to supply a decided 

 want. 



The views of physiologists concerning the influence of a moderate quantity of alcohol 

 on the nervous system are somewhat conflicting. That it may temporarily give tone and 

 vigor to the system when the energies are unusually taxed, cannot be doubted ; but this 

 effect is not produced in all individuals. The constant use of alcohol may create an ap- 

 parent necessity for it, producing a condition of the system which must be regarded as 

 pathological. 



The immediate effects of the ingestion of a moderate quantity of alcohol, continued 

 for a few days, are decided. It notably diminisbes the exhalation of carbonic acid and 

 the discharge of other excrementitious principles, particularly urea. These facts have 

 long since been experimentally demonstrated. The proper amount of mental and physi- 

 cal exercise, tranquillity of the nervous system, and all circumstances which favor the 

 vigorous nutrition and development of the organism physiologically increase, rather than 

 diminish, the amount of the excretions, correspondingly increase the demand for food, 

 and, if continued, are of permanent benefit. Alcohol, on the other hand, diminishes the 

 activity of nutrition. If its use be long continued, the assimilative powers of the system 



1 It was formerly a question considerably discussed whether alcohol exist in the brain and 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 experi- 

 ments, the presence of alcohol was determined by distillation, the distilled substances being inflammable and capable 

 of dissolving camphor. PERCY, Prise Thesis. An Experimental Inquiry concerning the Presence of Alcohol in 

 the Ventricles of the Brain, etc., London, 1839. 



