Diet and cookery for common ailments / by a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Phyllis Browne.

Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diet and cookery for common ailments / by a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Phyllis Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    75/344 page 59
    F(J]t COMMON AILMENTH. T,!) true restorative, but stiinulants iiuiy be necessary to its assimilation. Always, then, stimulants must be o-iven in relation to the takinsf' of food : this is the vevitas in vivo which we must ever keep before us. But if alcohol be to some extent burnt np within the body, after the fashion of foods in general^—and there is evidence in favour of a limited utilisation of it in this sense—then a fortiori it will be of use. We would caution, however, against this view of the value of alcohol: it is, at best, a very poor food. There remains another aspect which the oppo- nents of alcohol lay stress upon : they say that the presence of alcohol in the alimentary tract impedes the digestive ferments, and therefore impedes diges- tion and assimilation. This is true in the test-tube and laboratory flask, when alcohol is added in cpiantity to the test fluids; but it is not true even here for the lower percentages of alcohol additions, as is well shown by Sir William Koberts, in his book on “Digestion and Diet”* Therefore, not even in the test-tube do these objections hold; * “ Digestion and Diet,” p. 116 ; 1892.
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