METABOLISM, NUTRITION AND DIETETICS 481 



consumes about 7 grammes (J oz.), a vegetarian Sepoy about 

 18 grammes (f oz.), of common salt per day. 



Wine, beer, tea, coffee, cocoa, etc., belong to the im- 

 portant class of stimulants. Some of them contain small 

 quantities of food substances, but these are of secondary 

 interest. In beer, for example, there are traces of proteids, 

 dextrin, and sugar. But 18 litres of beer would be required 

 to yield 20 grammes nitrogen, and 12 litres to give 300 

 grammes carbon ; and nobody, except a German corps 

 student, could consume such quantities. 



In some cocoas there is as much as 50 per cent, of fat, 

 4 per cent, of starch, and 13 per cent, of proteids; and in 

 the cheaper cocoas much starch is added. Still, a large 

 quantity of the ordinary infusion would be needed for a 

 satisfying meal. Frederick the Great, indeed, in some of 

 his famous marches dined off a cup of chocolate, and beat 

 combined Europe on it ; but his ordinary menu was much 

 more varied and substantial. 



The great social and hygienic evils connected with the abuse of 

 alcohol, as well as its applications in therapeutics, render it necessary, 

 or at least permissible, to state a little more fully, though only in the 

 form of summary, some of the chief conclusions that may be drawn 

 as to its action and uses. 



(1) In small quantities alcohol is Oxidized in the body, a little of 

 it, however, being excreted unchanged in the breath and urine. It 

 is therefore to some extent a food substance, although it is never 

 taken for the sake of the energy its oxidation can supply, but always 

 as a stimulant, 



(2) There is no reason to suppose that this energy cannot be 

 utilized as a source of work in the body. Heat can certainly be 

 produced from it, but this is far more than counterbalanced by the 

 increase in the heat loss which the dilatation of the cutaneous vessels 

 caused by alcohol brings about. 



(3) It is a very valuable drug, when judiciously employed, as a 

 cardiac and general stimulant in certain diseases, e.g., pneumonia. 



(4) Alcohol is occasionally of use in disorders not amounting to 

 serious disease, e.g., in some cases of slow and difficult digestion. 

 In these cases it may act by increasing the flow of certain of the 

 digestive secretions, as saliva and gastric juice. This effect seems 

 to more than counterbalance the retarding influence which, except 

 when well diluted, it exerts on the chemical processes of digestion. 



(5) Alcohol is of no use for healthy men. 



(6) Alcohol in strictly moderate doses, properly diluted and 

 especially when taken with the food, is not harmful to healthy men, 

 living and working under ordinary conditions. 



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