DIGESTION OF ALCOHOL. 387 



ill the blood. There is, therefore, no doubt that 

 alcohol, as alcohol, may not only be taken up by the 

 blood, but may circulate with the nutrient fluid, and 

 eventually pass away from it unchanged. But it 

 must not therefore be concluded, that all the alcoliol 

 every person takes is thus absorbed as alcohol, caused 

 to circulate through the body as alcohol, and at last 

 excreted unchanged ; for such a conclusion would be 

 opposed to the facts of observation and experiment. 

 The truth seems to be, that some of the alcohol 

 taken is unchanged in the system, but that a con- 

 siderable and very varying proportion of the total 

 quantity introduced is caused to disappear altogether 

 as alcohol, and to pass through most important 

 changes, escaping at last from the organism probably 

 as carbonic acid and water. 



A certain quantity of alcohol is digested and assimi- 

 lated ; and it is quite certain that the capacity for the 

 digestion of alcohol varies very remarkably in different 

 individuals. It is most probable that the alcohol is 

 taken up by, and carried with, the portal blood to 

 the liver. Much of it is then appropriated with other 

 substances by the bioplasm of the hepatic cells, and 

 completely changed. Its elements are re-arranged, 

 and added to the constituents which- form the liver- 

 cell, and which gradually break up to form the ingre- 

 dients of bile, the liver sugar, and the so-called 

 amyloid matter. 



It is the living matter of the yeast-cell that splits 



