EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 185 



" While all this applies to prolonged effort of any kind, 

 and to conditions where other food can be obtained and assimi- 

 lated, it does not detract from the fact that alcohol is a most 

 helpful food and stimulant in emergencies, when other food 

 cannot be had, or when the body is temporarily endangered 

 from acute disease and the higher rate of combustion in fever, 

 or from failure to assimilate other nourishment. 



" Captain Woodruff, assistant surgeon United States army, 

 says, ' Spirits can never be used in the army as a regular 

 issue ; the practice is thoroughly vicious, and was virtually 

 abandoned sixty years ago. On extraordinary occasions of 

 great fatigue they are allowable in moderation. Under such 

 temporary stimulation the men will brace up arid perform the 

 necessary work of making earthworks, etc., when without it 

 they would be too exhausted to do anything. Without such 

 stimulation a man is not worth much after he has made a 

 forced march of forty miles. 7 



" The problem whether the world as a whole is better or 

 worse for the existence of alcohol, aside from all ethical ques- 

 tions, and viewed merely from the scientific standpoint of the 

 influence of alcohol upon mortality, is difficult of solution ; 

 for to offset the numerous cases of fatal alcoholism, and the 

 still larger number of cases of diseases which would not pre- 

 sumably be fatal without the existing condition of chronic 

 alcoholic poisoning of the system, are very many cases, among 

 both infants and adults, in which life is undoubtedly saved by 

 the prompt resort to this food and stimulant, and its energetic 

 use. So long as man is exposed to hardships and conditions 

 arising from improper and deficient food supply, as well as to 

 the numerous infectious diseases to which he is heir, alcohol 

 must still be regarded rather as a blessing than a curse ; for 

 there is no form of stimulant and food combined, or stimulant 

 alone, which, taken all in all, can be so completely relied upon 



