August, 1905 ] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



195 



lower than that at which pure water freezes. Yet even 

 this artificial lowering; of the freezing point of water 

 will only enable us to stave off for a time its universal 

 solidification in the tissues and the consequent passage 

 of living matter into a solid frozen condition. 



Were living- matter a rigid unadaptable machine, one 

 might well look with despair upon the prospects of life 

 in the coming ages of cold and eternal night. Many 

 facts we know, however, point to the conclusion that 

 living matter posseses the power of adapting itself to 

 changing exter.ial conditions; for example, it is a well- 

 known observaiion that by gradually raising the tem- 

 perature of water in which certain organisms live, we 

 can in the course of time cause them to live and 

 flourish in water so hot that specimens of the same 

 organism which had not become acclimatised to the 

 changed temperature are at once killed when placed 

 therein. The question is, therefore, in what direction 

 can living matter change its constitution in order to 

 adapt itself to temperatures much below that at which 

 water enters into a solid condition ? 



One thing appears certain. If living matter is to 

 avoid being frozen hard with the falline temperature, 

 the water as such must be gradually eliminated from 

 the organism and its place taken by another liquid 

 which remains fluid and mobile under conditions which 

 render the existence of water as a fluid impossible. 



Now is there any other fluid which perhaps could 

 take the place of water in living matter and fulfil this 

 condition? Alcohol seems to be such a fluid; alcohol 

 freezes at - 130° C, water at 0° C. 



Moreover, of all the known compounds alcohol is 

 the one which approaches both chemically and 

 physically nearest to water in properties. 



Both are mobile fluids; both are great solvents; both 

 have a very similar constitution — alcohol, in fact, is 

 water in which a hvdrogen atom is replaced by the 

 heavier radicle C, H,, thus : — 



water. 



C-H-' 



>o 



Alcohol can perform many of the functions of water; 

 for example, just as water can combine with molecules 

 to form " Water of Crystallisation," so also alcohol 

 can, and we can likewise speak of " Alcohol of 

 Crystallisation." 



Moreover alcohol is, like water, though to an enor- 

 mously smaller extent, associated with living matter. 



It is the product of fermentation in enormous 

 quantity by the lower forms of life, and occurs to a 

 greater or less extent in fermented ripe plants and 

 fruits. 



It is, therefore, by no means inconceivable that 

 alcohol could enter into the constitution of living matter 

 to an enormously greater extent than it does at pre- 

 sent, and thus replace the water as the fluid which 

 bathes the tissues. 



Moreover, there even seems to be at hand the 

 mechanism by which such a replacement could be 

 brought about; certain of the lower forms of life can 

 manufacture alcohol as a product of their vital activity. 



The whole phenomenon of alcoholic fermentation is 

 an instance of this fabrication. 



We have only to conceive that this fabrication of 

 alcohol takes place to an increasing extent in the living 

 body itself. These alcoholic ferments can be conceived 

 to enter as the temperature falls to an increasing extent 

 into the constitution of living matter, and thus to 



gradually increase the store of alcohol in the body itself. 

 So that when the temperature falls below that at which 

 water freezes, the watery fluids in the lower forms of 

 life will have been replaced by fluids in which alcohol 

 largely predominates, and which, therefore, remain 

 fluid and mobile at a temperature whereat the plant 

 would be frozen hard if it contained only water. 



The age of water life would thus gradually pass into 

 the age of alcohol life; and the cause of the variation 

 would be the necessity for the organism to adapt itself 

 to the altering external physical conditions by 

 eliminating a less volatile for a more volatile fluid. 



It is in the light of this conception that we approach 

 the treatment of the question of alcohol drinking by 

 the human race. It is well known that men in cold 

 climates drink alcohol in a more concentrated form 

 than the men of warmer lands. 



Coldness, in fact, seems instinctively to drive men to 

 alcohol. And if the temperature of the world is gradu- 

 ally reduced, so as to replace a temperate climate by a 

 colder one, doubtless this tendency would be greatly 

 intensified. 



I can easily imagine a process by which man first 

 began by drinking only water — as the lower animals do 

 now; then by drinking water with a little alcohol in it, 

 as man does now; then as the world grew colder and 

 colder age by age, the amount of alcohol in the drink 

 gradually increased until ages hence man will have 

 evolved into a creature which will drink only alcohol. 

 Together with the increase in the alcohol in the fluids 

 man consumed, the quantity of alcohol in the fluids of 

 the body increased, and the quantity of water 

 diminished, until ultimately in the course of ages the 

 constituents of the fluids of the tissues so altered that 

 the water was entirely replaced by alcohol. The 

 process of evolution would then be complete; a less 

 volatile fluid would be replaced by a more volatile one, 

 by a process probably of the same nature that caused 

 the less volatile elements such as sulphur, phosphorus 

 and silicon, to be replaced by the more volatile ones 

 such as oxvgen, nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen. 



Water would then exist in mere traces in the body, 

 much as .S does now, as the relics of a bygone time 

 when it assumed a far greater importance in living 

 matter than it does at the present time. 



Is not this tendency men have to abstain from drink- 

 ing pure water and to drink instead alcoholic beverages 

 nothing else than the beginning of the gradual replace- 

 ment of the water in the human body by alcohol? 



Viewed in this light the phenomenon of alcoholism 

 assumes the greatest interest and importance, as the 

 possible manifestation of a mightv organic change 

 sweeping slowly but irresistibly over the whole of living 

 matter. 



It may be, however, that some other fluid — for ex- 

 ample, an oily liquid such as is found in great quantities 

 in the bodies of fishes which live in cold seas — and not 

 alcohol, would be the liquid which will ultimately re- 

 place water in living matter. Whether this be so or 

 not, one thing, I think, is almost certain, and that is 

 that if life is to continue at much lower temperatures 

 than those which hold normally upon the earth, the 

 water must be eliminated and its place taken by another 

 liquid harder to freeze. 



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