136 



Alcohol — is it a^Food. 



alcohol undergoes rapid oxidation or combustion within the 

 system. Thus Bouchardat and Sandras asserted positively 

 in 1847, that alcohol is speedily converted by the inspired 

 oxygen into carbonic acid and water,^ and the late Professor 

 Johnston in his Chemistry of Common Life^ says that ardent 

 spii'its ''directly warm the body and by the changes they 

 undergo in the blood supply a portion of the carbonic acid 

 and watery vapor which, as a necessity of life, are continu- 

 ally being given off by the lungs." ^ Liebig, as is well 

 known, held the same opinion^ and in his Chemical Letters 

 places ''spirits" among respiratory foods.'* Dr Thudic- 

 hum has declared himself of the same belief, founding it, 

 it would seem illogically, upon the fact that in a number 

 of experiments which he conducted, but a minute portion 

 of the alcohol administered escaped from the body un- 

 changed. He therefore draws the inference that it must 

 of necessity have undergone rapid oxidation and acted as 

 a true food. ^ Stille in the last edition of his work on 

 Therapeutics and Materia i^iecfci presents arguments to prove 

 that the temperature of the body is raised by alcoholic 

 drinks. ^ Dr. Prout held that the temperature was first 

 diminished but afterwards increased by their administra- 

 tion,^ and we even find Dr. Edward Smith asserting as late 

 as in 1873, in his work on Foods to which reference has 

 been made, that spirits of wine cause an increase in the 

 amount of carbonic acid exhaled while brandy, whiskey 

 and gin lessen it.^ As no explanation is ofiered for this 



' Annuaire de Therapeutigue, 1847, p. 279. 



' JoliDSton, Chemutry of Common Life, ^. Y., 1873, vol. i, p. 288. 

 ' Animal Chemistry, Part i, p. 96. 



* Familiar Letters on Chemistry, Lond., 1854, vol. ii, p. 106. 



* Letbeby On Food, N. Y., 1872, p. 92. 

 ' Stille, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 729-741. 



' Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, July, 1851. 

 " Op. cU, p. 377, et seq. 



