THE GENERAL NATURE OF DIET 165 



capability of mental work for short periods of time. It is in doubt, 

 however, whether the quality of this work is ever improved by alcohol, 

 and there is much good experimental evidence (as that by Kraepelin) that 

 it is not so improved, even for brief periods. For example, one research, 

 done by Rudin, showed that 95 grams ingested by men unaccustomed to 

 its use lengthened the time required to add columns of numbers, made 

 more difficult and uncertain the learning of rows of figures, shortened 

 reaction-time of some sorts and lengthened it in others. The influence 

 on the mental powers lasted, as a rule, from twelve to twenty-four hours, 

 but in one case forty-eight hours. Similar researches by several others 

 interested in the question have given similarly complicated results. 

 They agree, however, in the conclusion that alcohol deranges the neural 

 and neuromuscular " basis" of mental activities. 



Its power of abolishing the emotional over-stress of our hurried and 

 complicated modern life is not easily explained. It is, however, to accom- 

 plish this very purpose that alcohol is most largely used as a beverage 

 by the mass of mankind; they for the most part employ it as a sedative. 

 Here too, perhaps, it is a depressive inhibitant, shutting out from present 

 experience those finer cultural restraints represented probably in the 

 cortex cerebri. 



The action of alcohol on digestion and on the complicated processes 

 of metabolism was of late in certain respects a vigorously, not to say 

 rancorously, discussed question. This discussion is now, fortunately, 

 nearly closed by decisive research conducted by scientists whom all may 

 trust. Is or is not alcohol a food ? Those opposed infallibly and emo- 

 tionally to even the therapeutic use of alcohol in the saving of life and 

 for the restoration of health, have bitterly opposed the presumption of 

 physiological science that alcohol is under some narrow conditions a food, 

 lest the drink-evil, one of the worst the world knows, be stimulated still 

 -more. Elaborate and costly work by the United States calorimetrist, 

 Atwater, however, and by others, has shown conclusively that in amounts 

 not over 50 or 60 cubic centimeters (40 grams) in twenty-four hours 

 ethyl alcohol is oxidized by the body with the production of heat and 

 other forms of energy. Furthermore, it has been shown that these 

 oxidative processes take place in the tissues, and not in the gut alone, 

 thus making the energy liberated available to the needs of organism as 

 in the case of other foods. Hoppe-Seyler supposes that alcohol is formed 

 in the normal katabolism of carbohydrate in the tissues, for he found 

 traces of it in fresh tissues when they were distilled with water. Not more 

 than 1 or 2 per cent, of the alcohol in the above-mentioned daily amount 

 leaves the body unburned, in the urine and in the breath, for the greater 

 part of the maximum quantity of 60 cubic centimeters (two ounces) is 

 oxidized to carbon dioxide and water, the usual end-products of carbo- 

 hydrate katabolism. It will be remembered (see page 143) that the 

 combustion-equivalent of average proteid and of average carbohydrate is 

 4.1 calories per gram, and of average fat 9.3 calories. Alcohol, having 

 no waste, is of higher calorie-value than the average carbohydrate, and 



