904 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



not even of fat. It is not essential as an article of diet ; it may even 

 be detrimental, by its chemical action on albuminoid substances, hard- 

 ening and precipitating them, or by its physiological action, stimula- 

 ting or even poisoning the nervous system, or producing slow and in- 

 sidious changes in the blood, the tissues, and the secreting and excre- 

 ting organs, which render the system unable to resist injury or disease; 

 it may even lay the foundation for irremediable organic changes in 

 the brain, heart, bloodvessels, liver, and kidneys. In smaller and 

 more moderate quantities, alcohol, however, is probably oxidized in 

 the blood, and so serves for the development of motion and heat. It 

 restores a feeble pulse, quickens the vascular action, and so raises, 

 for a time, the vital activity of all the functions, vegetative as well as 

 animal. Much difference of opinion exists as to the claim of alcohol 

 to be regarded as an aliment, of course of the non-nitrogenous class. 

 Alcohol certainly enters the circulation ; but its effect on the blood is 

 not understood, though it has been supposed to render that fluid 

 thicker, and the blood plasma less fit for penetrating the tissues. 

 Persons have been known to live long periods on alcoholic beverages, 

 but not on pure alcohol, unless this was accompanied by small quan- 

 tities of bread or other food. So also persons who drink much beer 

 become fat, but spirit-drinkers do not. It has been supposed to be 

 possibly nutrient to the nervous system, but this is not established, 

 and its plastic properties may be doubted. Whether it may act by 

 saving tissue, through its own oxidation, or whether it may serve as 

 respiratory or calorific food, depends on its ability to undergo oxida- 

 tion in the system. According to Lallemand, Perrin, arid Duroy, it 

 leaves the body entirely, and unchanged; this view is also, in some 

 measure, supported by Dr. E. Smith. By these authors, alcohol has 

 been found unchanged in the blood, in the various organs, especially 

 in the liver and the cerebro-spinal nervous centres, and also in the 

 breath, the perspiration, and the urine, moreover, they have not found 

 aldehyde, nor acetic or oxalic acids, 'into which alcohol has been said 

 to be changed, in the body. It has also been shown that aldehyde, if 

 administered, is itself unstable in the system, and appears as acetic 

 acid. But the quantities of alcohol found in the excretions do not 

 appear to have been accurately compared, by those observers, with 

 the quantity actually taken into the stomach. Baudot and Thudichum 

 have shown that when this is done, the quantities eliminated are pro- 

 portionally small. Even in the results obtained by Lallemand, Per- 

 rin, and Duroy, only th of the alcohol taken is thus accounted for. 

 (Gingeot.) In these cases, and also in those in which enormous quan- 

 tities have been given in disease, more or less alcohol must therefore 

 be appropriated, or assimilated, by the tissues, be retained in them, or 

 be oxidized. The administration of alcohol does not increase, but 

 diminish, the temperature (Perrin, Dumeril, Demarquay, Ringer, and 

 Rickards), and also the quantity of carbonic acid gas evolved. (Leh- 

 mann, Vierordt, Hammond, Bocker, Lallemand, and Dr. E. Smith.) 

 The quantity of urea excreted is likewise diminished. Duchek and 

 Mialhe supposed that this was owing to the formation of aldehyde, or 

 some other compound not so perfectly oxidized as .carbonic acid ; but 



