346 FOODS AND DIETARIES 



which can enter the cell and become living matter can be food and have 

 an animating effect. This alcohol cannot do. 



" Hence the idea that alcohol economizes heat by its abundant heat 

 production is a fallacy." Dr. A. Holitscher, Pirkenhammer, Interna- 

 tional Monatsschrift, April, 1907. 



" Obviously only such substances can be called food material, or be 

 employed for food, as, like albumen, fat, and sugar, exert non-poisonous 

 influence in the amounts in which they reach the blood and must circu- 

 late in it in order to nourish. . . . Although alcohol contributes energy, 

 it diminishes working ability. We are not able to find that its energy is 

 turned to account for nerve and muscle work. Very small amounts, 

 whose food value is insignificant, show an injurious effect upon the 

 nervous system." Professor Grube, President of the Royal Institute of 

 Hygiene, Munich, in the Munchener Neuesten Nachrichten, May 19, 

 1903. 



" In view of the current tendency to regard alcohol as a food, it seemed 

 desirable to make a study of its effects on hepatic glycogenesis, for if 

 alcohol can replace the carbohydrates in food, it ought to spare the car- 

 bohydrate radical of the tissue proteids. An accumulation of glycogen 

 in the liver after exclusive feeding with alcohol might therefore be ex- 

 pected. . . . 



" This suggestion was put to an experimental test. The investigation 

 was carried out entirely on rabbits which were fed exclusively on alcohol 

 for periods of 4 to 6 days. Alcohol was given by mouth by means of a 

 stomach tube in amounts varying between 3 to 9 cc. per kilo per rabbit, 

 diluted to 30 and 60 per cent. As controls, rabbits were used that had 

 been starved for the same number of days as the alcohol rabbits. Instead 

 of alcohol, water was given by mouth with a stomach tube. At the 

 expiration of the periods named, the rabbits were killed under ether 

 anesthesia and the liver examined for glycogen according to Pfliiger's 

 shorter method. . . . The results at this stage of the investigation 

 showed that in rabbits fed exclusively on alcohol (10 cc. 30% per kilo, or 

 12 cc. 60 % per kilo) daily for four or five days, there is no accumulation 

 of glycogen in the liver, which shows that glycogen is not formed in the 

 liver of rabbits when fed on alcohol alone." William Salant, American 

 Medicine, April, 1906, page 41. 



"Alcohol is not a Food. It is said to be a food because eminent 

 chemists tell us it can be oxidized, but it has been pointed out that some 

 of the substances that are most readily oxidized are the most virulent 

 poisons. Alcohol is a poison; it acts as a poison; it is oxidized as a 

 poison. It contains certain elements of food necessary for the production 

 of heat, but they are arranged in such a form that they cannot be prop- 

 erly utilized by our bodies as at present constituted. It is not a food 

 because it contains certain elements that are necessary for the building 

 up of our bodies. It is only when these are in proper form that they do 



