140 



Alcohol — is it a Food. 



is only temporarily guarded against, and becomes finally 

 greatly augmented by reason of decreased vitality. If 

 given at all it should be in very small quantities frequently 

 repeated and continued until a place of safety is reached. 

 I have known the most unpleasant consequences to result 

 from the injudicious use of whiskey for the purpose of 

 temporary stimulation, and have also known strong, able 

 bodied men to become utterly incapable of resisting cold in 

 consequence of the long continued use of alcoholic drinks."^ 

 Alcohol then is not a heat-engendering food, but, on the 

 contrary, cold and alcohol are similar agents, and the 

 popular plan of administering the latter to counteract the 

 effects of the former is based upon a fallacy and may be 

 productive of dangerous and even fatal results. As a 

 medicine alcohol may do good after exposure to cold by 

 quickening the circulation and producing a temporary 

 stimulant effect, but it should only be administered when 

 the means for supplying artificial warmth externally are 

 at hand. 



Still further we hear it alleged by those who admit that 

 alcohol can neither renew structure nor evolve heat, that 

 it furnishes force by its oxidation, which sustains the vital 

 processes. It is said that alcohol is an agent which will 

 burn inside as outside the bod}^ and that the force evolved 

 in its combustion represents a certain amount of w^ork, but 

 that in supplying force to the system by its decomposition, 

 heat becomes latent, a fact which explains the diminished 

 temperature observed after the absorption of alcohol. 

 This view of the case has been ably presented during the 

 present year by a writer in one of our medical journals. 

 The writer takes the ground that alcohol must operate by 



' Hayes, Observations on the Belations existing between Food and the Capa- 

 bilities of Man to resist low Temperatures. — Am. Journ. of the Med. Sciences, 

 July, 1859, p. 117. 



