COMPAKISON OP ALCOHOL WITH OKDINAKY FOODS 81 



fat eaten keeps the body from using up carbohydrate and 

 proteid, etc. This protective action is important, as 

 otherwise, in times of need, the tissues of the body might 

 be consumed in the demand for energy unless so protected. 

 It has been conclusively demonstrated ' that alcohol shares 

 this protecting power with fats and carbohydrates. It 

 was not until this important fact was demonstrated that 

 alcohol could be considered as a food, since, if this were 

 not so, its use might permit the destruction of tissues, 

 and then the result would be harm to the tissues in every 

 case. Compared with the other fuel foods, alcohol protects 

 fat better than carbohydrates, but carbohydrates and fats 

 both protect proteid better than alcohol. The fact that 

 carbohydrates and fats can both be stored and held in 

 reserve for this very purpose gives them an advantage 

 over alcohol in this respect. 



All energy liberated by fuel foods is ultimately trans- 

 formed in the body into either heat or muscular energy. 

 The availability of alcohol as a heat producer is greater 

 than either fats or carbohydrates, but its value as a pro- 

 ducer of muscular energy is not yet fully determined. 

 All experiments so far conducted indicate that its action 

 as a drug tends to interfere with its power in this direction 

 and make it far less valuable in this respect than either 

 fat or carbohydrate. To put a concrete case, a laborer 

 does not get from a given amount of alcohol anywhere 

 near the power of continued muscular effort that he can 

 from other fuel, owing to the fact that the drugging effects 

 which first stimulate the cells, and so weaken their later 



' See Sub-Report of Committee of Fifty, Vol. II., and Howell, Text- 

 Book of Physiology, 1906, p. 808. 



EDDY. PHYS. — 6 



