Alcohol — is it a Food. 



129 



upon the development of various ethers and volatile princi- 

 ples, and not upon change which the alcohol undergoes. 

 Indeed, of late years, pure alcohol has been medicinally em- 

 ployed to a considerable extent and with as good results 

 as those which follow the administration of ^vbiskey or 

 brandy. 



"Under the general term alcohol, then, we include all 

 those liquids which, containing it in varying quantities, are 

 used as stimulants, and are capable of producing intoxica- 

 tion. In attempting to define the terra food, we meet with 

 greater difficulty. The dictionary definitions are most of 

 them quite unsatisfactory, comprehending many substances 

 which cannot properly be considered foods, and excluding 

 others which are essential. The physiologists are scarcely 

 more exact and in their definitions show a very great 

 diversity. A well known authority includes under the term 

 food, " all those substances, solid and liquid, which are 

 necessary to sustain the process of nutrition." He evi- 

 dently means those substances w^hich are capable of sus- 

 taining or contribute to the sustenance of the process of 

 nutrition. The definition of another physiologist includes 

 not only all those substances capable themselves of nourish- 

 ing the body, but also all others which may indirectly 

 accomplish the same end " by influencing favorably the pro- 

 cess of nutrition or by retarding destructive assimiiation.'' 

 This seems too broad. Dr. Edward Smith in his excellent 

 little treatise on Foods is fortunate in his choice of words 

 when he says that a food is a substance which when in- 

 troduced into the body supplies material which renews 

 some structure or maintains some vital process."^ The 

 word maintains is important; a medicine may modify a 

 vital process; a food maintains it. Accepting then this 

 definition as satisfactory, although it is broader than at first 



^ Smith, Foods, New York, 1874, p. 1. 

 Trans, ix.'] 17 



