DIGESTION AND ABSORPTION 365 



As a result of his experiments, Professor Chittenden remarks: 

 " We believe that the results obtained justify the conclusion that 

 gastric digestion as a whole is not materially modified by the 

 introduction of alcoholic fluids with the food. In other words, 

 the unquestionable acceleration of gastric secretion which follows 

 the ingestion of alcoholic beverages is, as a rule, counterbalanced 

 by the inhibitory effect of the alcoholic fluids upon the chemical 

 process of gastric digestion, with perhaps at times a tendency 

 towards preponderance of inhibitory action." Dr. Kellogg, Sir 

 William Roberts, and others have come to the same or stronger 

 conclusions as to the undesirable action of alcohol on digestion, 

 as a result of their own experiments. 



Horsley and Sturge say: " Hundreds of men and women who 

 haunt the out-patient departments of hospitals suffer from chronic 

 atony and slight dilatation of the stomach, which arise in part 

 from the badly cooked food they eat, but chiefly owe their 

 origin to the debilitating effect of alcohol upon the muscular 

 walls of this organ and the fermentation of its retained contents." 



