THE GENERAL NATURE OF DIET 167 



the body was naked, the loss of heat was a degree instead of one-tenth 

 or one-fifth of a degree. Large doses decrease the temperature markedly : 

 as much as 3 or 5 C. The large majority of the persons of whom we 

 read in the newspapers as being frozen to death are alcoholics. The 

 reasons for this lowering of body-heat are at least two: Alcohol, in a 

 manner not yet surely known, causes an increase in the diameter of the 

 arterioles of the skin and of those just below it, thus occasioning a large 

 increment of the heat-loss by radiation, conduction, and evaporation 

 from the body-surface. Again, as we have seen, alcohol is probably a 

 general depressant of organic function, and doubtless interferes with the 

 heat-production of tissue-metabolism. The increased heat-production 

 noted by Bevan Lewis, Wood, etc., was probably due to the combustion 

 of the ingested alcohol itself, and not to any stimulation of the metabolism. 

 The reason that alcohol gives a strong sensation of increased warmth is 

 that the sense-organs providing the feeling of heat are situated in the 

 skin, which is, of course, made actually warmer by the vasodilatation due 

 to the alcohol. 



On digestion and its mechanism the effects of alcohol are of great 

 importance, for here a great part of the evil alcohol occasions is brought 

 about if we include the liver in the digestive system (much of the harm 

 done elsewhere being in the nervous system). Small amounts of alcohol, 

 such as are contained in a bottle of koumis or of weak beer, taken with 

 or just after meals, have in many persons little effect on digestion, 

 although the appetite may be somewhat improved by its stimulation 

 of the digestive juices. (When mixed with milk it makes the latter 

 more rapidly digested and more quickly.) Sooner or later, however, 

 the digestive process is certainly slowed and somewhat hindered even 

 by such minimum amounts, owing probably to slight interference 

 with the productive glands. When a moderate quantity of a beverage 

 containing 4 or 5 per cent, of alcohol is taken regularly with meals 

 the slo wing-effect on digestion is more marked, but the ingestion of 

 this amount, especially in beer, is soon followed by metabolic changes 

 (particularly by an abnormal deposit of fat) which are of consequence. 

 Some persons might drink for years daily with their dinners a glass of 

 8 or 10 per cent, claret or other wine with n'o obvious harm either to 

 the digestive process or elsewhere. It is likely, none the less, that the 

 foundation is being laid under such conditions for a chronic gastritis 

 and enteritis later on. It is after all the frequent use of liquors containing 

 from 30 to 50 per cent, of alcohol which causes the inevitably serious 

 effects seen in the severe chronic or subacute gastritis, cirrhosis of the 

 liver, degenerations in the nervous system, fatty degenerations in the 

 circulatory system, and so forth. The hospitals show how very common 

 and how very serious these poisonings are. 



On the circulation alcohol exerts a generally stimulating effect, in- 

 creasing the pulse-rate and the latitude of the vibrations of the arterial 

 wall as felt by the finger or registered by the sphygmograph. This 

 increase may be due to the muscular activity ordinarily great soon after 

 ingesting alcohol. It is not always so caused. Sphygmograms made 



