60 CONSTITUENTS AND EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 



ing matter, tannin, etc. in the red wines, and sugar in the sweet wines ; 

 volatile oils and 2 or 3 other acids are likewise found in some wines. 



Beer is composed of a large proportion of extractive and mucilagi- 

 nous matters derived from the malt. The nutritive properties, as 

 compared with the barley, or even the malt, are very small, not 

 amounting to a fourth part. An analysis of North River Beer shows 

 that a pint contains 816 grains, or a llth part of extractive matter. 

 Beer, like wine, has a tendency to pass into acetous fermentation, hut 

 is restrained by the bitter principle of hops. In the infusion of malt, 

 the gluten of the grain acts as a ferment to the saccharine part. Both 

 wine and malt liquors resemble each other in being the product of su- 

 gar with water ; they are decomposed by yeast or gluten ; and alcohol 

 and carbonic acid always result. 



The ultimate, constituents of alcohol are carbon, oxygen and hydro- 

 gen. These we cannot unite so as to form alcohol; and fermentation 

 is therefore resorted to, which extricates these elements and unites 

 them in a new compound. By distillation this new compound is evolv- 

 ed, diluted with water and associated with essential oil. This oil is 

 afterwards separated by rectification. 



The alcohol of wines is procured from them by distillation ; or it 

 may be obtained by adding subucetate, or sugar of lead, which throws 

 down the acid and coloring matter ; and then, by adding dry sub-car- 

 bonate of potassa, the alcohol is brought up to the surface. This al- 

 cohol is present, as we have said, in all intoxicating drinks. 



The effects of alcohol are proved by chemistry, physiology and expe- 

 rience to be pernicious and destructive. It is opposed to digestion, 

 retarding the conversion of articles of food into chyme and also the 

 conversion of this into chyle. It has no reducing power, like water, 

 by which the food is dissolved ; but, on the contrary, it coagulates the 

 albumen and hardens the muscular fibre of flesh taken into the sto- 

 mach, hence its use in preserving animals in natural history. Beside 

 this, it is proved to render the gastric juice inert. If these results are 

 not perceived at once on the introduction of spirits, beer, wine, etc. in 

 small quantities, they are nevertheless certain. All the processes 

 therefore of digestion and assimilation are impaired or destroyed by it. 



Nor do these truths depend alone on science, the health of the liv- 

 ing or on facts after death any one of which should be satisfactory 

 but on immediate observations, as seen during life, in the stomach, in 

 the case of Martin, as reported by Dr. Beaumont, who says the use 

 of ardent spirits, wines, beers or any intoxicating liquors has invari- 

 ably produced these morbid changes. It is folly therefore to assert 

 that any alcoholic drinks promote digestion. Wine and beer, drank 

 in health under any circumstances, comes within the category of al- 

 coholic drinks and the evils we have noticed. Both produce drunken- 

 ness taken in larger quantities than spirits, and both manifest all the 



