324 THE HUMAN BODY. 



If not more than two ounces (which would be contained in 

 about four ounces of whiskey or two quarts of lager-beer) are 

 taken in the twenty-four hours, they are completely oxidized 

 in the Body and excreted as water and carbon dioxide. In 

 this oxidation energy is of course liberated and can be util- 

 ized. Commonly, however, alcohol is not taken for this pur- 

 pose but as a force-regulator, for its influence on the nervous 

 system or digestive organs, and it is in this capacity that it 

 becomes dangerous. For not only may it be taken in quan- 

 tities so great that it is not at all oxidized in the Body but is 

 passed through it as alcohol, or even that it acts as a narcotic 

 poison instead of a stimulant, but when taken in what is 

 called moderation there can be no doubt that the constant 

 " whipping up " of the flagging organs, if continued, must be 

 dangerous to their integrity. Hence the daily use of alcohol 

 merely in such quantities as to produce slight exhilaration or 

 to facilitate work is by no means safe; though in disease 

 when the system wants rousing to make some special effort, 

 the physician cannot dispense with it or some other similarly 

 acting substance. In fact, as a force-generator alcohol may 

 be advantageously replaced by other foods in nearly all cases; 

 and there is no evidence that it helps in the construction of 

 the working tissues, though its excessive use often leads to an 

 abnormal accumulation of fat. Its proper use is as a " whip," 

 and one has no more right to use it to the healthy Body than 

 the lash to overdrive a willing horse. The physician is the 

 proper person to determine whether it is wanted under any 

 given circumstances. 



If alcohol is used as a daily article of diet it should be 

 borne in mind that when concentrated it may chemically alter 

 the proteids of the cells of the stomach with which it comes 

 in contact, in the same sort of way, though of course to a 

 much less degree, as it shrivels and dries up an animal pre- 

 served in it. Dilute alcoholic drinks, such as claret and beer, 

 are therefore far less baneful than whiskey or brandy, and 

 these are, so far as direct action on the stomach is con- 

 cerned, worse the less they are diluted. For the same reason 

 alcoholic drinks are far more injurious on an empty stomach 

 than after a meal. When the stomach is full the liquor 

 is diluted, is more slowly absorbed, and, moreover, is largely 

 used up in coagulating the proteids of the food instead 

 of those of the gastric lining membrane. The old "three 



