130 



Alcohol — is it a Food. 



sight would appear and includes many substances not 

 ordinarily ranked as foods, we see that it but expresses the 

 well known fact that food is required by the body for two 

 great purposes, — to renew its structure and to maintain the 

 vital processes, chief among which is the production of heat. 

 Few single substances, it is true, produce solely the one 

 or the other effect, but j et any given article acts chiefly 

 either as a tissue former or a heat producer. The first class, 

 or tissueformers, are nitrogenized substances from which, 

 combined with mineral matter, the whole frame work of 

 the body is made up. Fat alone, a substance which may 

 almost be regarded as extraneous or non-essential, save 

 that it furnishes a supply from which the heat of our bodies 

 may be kept up for a time if food is cut ofl:', contains no 

 nitrogen. The essential constituents of the body, the 

 fibrine, ossein, cartihigin, albumen, and similar principles 

 are all nitrogenized substances. The second class, the 

 heat producers or respiratory foods, are non-nitrogenized 

 bodies containing carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Novi' if 

 alcohol acts as a true food it is evident that it must do so 

 either by a conversion into some nitrogenized proximate 

 principle, or by undergoing oxidation within the body and 

 evolving heat or other form of force. 



Having glanced at theseelementary physiological facts let 

 us now inquire what evidence there is to prove that it is 

 capable of accomplishing either result. 



The claim that alcohol can be converted into tissue sub- 

 stance proper is now less frequently made than heretofore. 

 The attempt has often been made to prove it, but all eflbrts 

 in this direction have failed, and there are no reliable facts 

 which can be adduced to show that such a change ever 

 does take place. Still that the assertion is made without 

 even an attempt at proof may be seen from the following 

 quotation from a well-known standard treatise on thera- 

 peutics by an eminent medical authority. The author 

 says: "Alcohol is itself, in all probabiUty, assimilated. 



