252 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



been determined that any real progress will be made in solving the 

 social problem of alcohol. 



How, then, shall the cause of the desire for alcohol be determined? 

 It would seem a priori improbable that anything so profoundly and 

 universally desired should not answer to some real need of the human 

 organism. It is clear, therefore, that the first thing to do is to make 

 a scientific study of alcohol and its relation to the body and mind. It 

 is only in recent years that any real attempt has been made to carry 

 out such studies, but they have already cast a flood of light upon the 

 subject. Physiological, psychological and sociological laboratories, hos- 

 pitals and asylums, medical records and the reports of life insurance 

 companies have all contributed to give us a more accurate knowledge of 

 the action of alcohol on the human body and the human mind and to 

 pave the way for a scientific theory of the alcoHol motive. These 

 researches are particularly instructive for the reason that they deal with 

 the real question, i. e., with the effects of alcohol in moderate doses, not 

 with its excessive use. The literature on inebriety, alcoholism and 

 intemperance has always been sufficiently abundant. 



It would be impossible in an article of this length to attempt even 

 the briefest summary of these researches. It will be sufficient simply 

 to recall the more important conclusions. 



1. The desire for alcoholic drinks is due to the presence of ethyl 

 alcohol, CgHgO. Beer, ale, wine, and even whiskey and brandy, have 

 characteristic odors, pleasant to many people and ravishing to some, 

 but it is not on this account that they are desired. The pleasantness 

 of the tastes and odor are largely if not wholly due to association with 

 ethyl alcohol. 



2. It is not on account of its food value that alcohol is desired. The 

 researches of Atwater and others have seemed to show rather conclu- 

 sively that a certain amount of alcohol, say two and one half ounces per 

 day, may under favorable circumstances be oxidized in the body and 

 so act as a substitute for other food by furnishing heat and possibly 

 energy. It is not claimed, however, by those who hold that alcohol 

 may in some cases act as a food that it is on this account that it is 

 desired. The history of drinking, which shows that it has been wholly 

 convivial among primitive people and that it is still largely so, precludes 

 this view. It is only in modern industrial drinking that any attempt 

 has been made to work on alcohol or to live on it, and here the attempt 

 has not been successful, as Sullivan has shown in his careful and pains- 

 taking work on " Alcoholism." 



3. It has now been pretty definitely shown that alcohol is not a 

 stimulant, and thus there is overthrown at once the most commonly 

 accepted theory as to the cause of tlie desire for it. Alcohol acts as a 

 depressant upon all forms of life from the simplest micro-organism to 

 the most complex nervous structures in the human brain. It is inter- 



