THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXXIV. 
No. 403. 
JULY, 1861 . 
Fourth Series. 
No. 79. 
Communications and Cases. 
ON THE ACTION OF ALCOHOL ON THE SYSTEM. 
The division by Liebig of alimentary matters into two 
grand classes—viz., elements of nutrition and elements of 
respiration, or nitrogenized and non-nitrogenized substances, 
has been pretty generally accepted by chemico-physiologists, 
and is well known to our readers. The first-named are 
capable of being converted into blood,—having a composition 
identical, or nearly so, with it,—from which all the organized 
tissues of the frame are formed. The latter, not undergoing 
this transformation, serve to support the process of respira¬ 
tion, by which the heat of the body is produced. 
To bring about this, such substances must necessarily be 
burnt up in the organism, which is effected by the action of 
the inspired oxygen, or should they not, they become de¬ 
posited as fat. Among them we find alcoholic fluids placed; 
and hitherto it has been accepted and taught that these, in 
common with sugar, starch, and the allied bodies, by the pro¬ 
cess of slow combustion already referred to, generate heat and 
furnish carbonic acid and water. To this theory Dr. Edward 
Smith demurs, averring that alcohol passes out of the system 
unchanged, acting indirectly rather than directly as a gene¬ 
rator of warmth, it being a general stimulant, and only slightly 
increasing the respiration. He says— 
“ As to the influence of alcohols upon the respiration and the heat- 
forming function, to chemists we owe the statement that alcohol aids in the 
heat-forming function of the body, because it is an hydrocarbon; and that 
as it is transformed in the system, and eliminated as carbonic acid and 
water, it must yield heat in these transformations. Hammond and all 
others found that, alcohol lessened the quantity of carbonic acid expired, but 
no one has pointed out the inconsistency of this statement with the 
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