Physiological aspects of the liquor problem / investigations made by and under the direction of W. O. Atwater, John S. Billings [and others] sub-committee of the Committee of fifty to investigate the liquor problem.

  • Billings, John S. (John Shaw), 1838-1913
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiological aspects of the liquor problem / investigations made by and under the direction of W. O. Atwater, John S. Billings [and others] sub-committee of the Committee of fifty to investigate the liquor problem. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    cent.), alcohol must be regarded in the scientific sense as a food. . . . While, therefore, it must be classed technically as a food, it is in many respects an unsuitable food and its place can be taken with great ad- vantage by other substances. ^ Professor G. N. Stewart says : — In small quantities alcohol is oxidized in the body, a little of it, however, being excreted unchanged in the breath and urine. It is therefore to some extent a food substance. ^ Professor Halliburton says: — Alcohol is thus within narrow limits a food. ... It is, moreover, a very uneconomical food ; much more nutriment would have been ob- tained from the barley or grapes from which it was made. The value of alcohol within narrow limits is not as a food, but as a stimulant, not only to digestion, but to the heart and brain. ^ Professor H. C. Wood says : — According to Duprd one gram of alcohol oxidized in the body evolves 7134 units of heat, while the same amount of lean beef gives off only 1482 units of heat. It has been estimated that 9.5 ounces of lean beef, equal to about two ounces of alcohol, will supply the force necessary to maintain the circulation and respiration for one day. That is, four ounces of strong spirit will suffice for this purpose. . . . These considerations warrant the statement that in a certain sense al- cohol is a food, i. e., that it is capable of being used for the purposes of the organism. * Landois and Stirling say: — Distilled spirits — brandy, whiskey, gin — have but a trifling re- tarding influence on the digestive processes; and when one considers their action on the secretory glands, it follows that in moderate die- tetic doses they promote digestion. About 95 per cent, of it [alcohol] is oxidized in the body, chiefly into carbon dioxide and water, so that it is in so far a source of heat. As it undergoes this change very readily, when taken to a certain extent, it may act as a substitute for the consumption of the body, especially when the amount of food is insufficient. (Hammond found that when he lived on an insufficient amount of food, alcohol, if given in certain 1 M'Kendrick, Physiology, Glasgow, 1889, vol. ii. p. 19. 2 Stewart, Manual of Physiology, 1895, p. 414. ^ Halliburton, Text-Book of Chemical and Pathological Physiology, 1891, p. 600. * H. C. Wood, Therapeutics, 1901, p. 284.