FOOD ACCESSOEIES AND DKUGS 301 



greatly to one's comfort for the time being, is generally 

 followed by undesirable or dangerous after effects. 



17. Alcohol as a food. There has been much discussion 

 as to whether alcohol is or is not a food; that is, whether 

 its oxidation within the body may supply energy. This 

 question must now be answered in the affirmative, although 

 whether it can do more than supply heat to maintain the 

 body temperature, that is, whether it can also supply the 

 power for muscular work, as do fats and carbohydrates, we 

 cannot in the present state of our knowledge positively say. 

 In many cases of sickness the oxidation of alcohol is prob- 

 ably a useful source of heat production, since it is absorbed 

 quickly and without digestion, but the healthy man does 

 not and should not use it in this way. The amounts which 

 would be required to be of any considerable service as food 

 are far beyond those in which it may be used with safety. 

 In other words, in using alcohol for food one would be ob- 

 taining heat at the cost of direct injury to many organs and 

 also at the cost of impaired working power. Moreover, men 

 do not use alcohol as a food ; they use it as a drug. So that 

 while the action of alcohol as a food is of practical impor- 

 tance to the physician, who must deal with the abnormal 

 conditions of disease, its action as a food is not a matter of 

 practical importance to healthy people. 



18. Pathological conditions due to the use of alcohol. 

 When alcoholic beverages are taken in excessive amounts 

 we have the sad and degrading spectacle of a " drunken 

 spree." Whether or not the drinker at first appears bright 

 or witty, sooner or later there is presented the pitiable pic- 

 ture of complete loss of nervous coordination and control. 

 The man becomes silly, or maudlin, or pugnacious, as the 

 case may be, but always irrational; he staggers, stumbles, 

 or falls ; and finally passes into a drunken stupor. In this 

 event the victim of his own indulgence is said to be 

 "dead" drunk, or "intoxicated," being as it were thoroughly 



