ALCOHOL NOT A FOOD. By Sir B. W. Richardson.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 74, 24 September 1898, Page 4 (Supplement)

ALCOHOL NOT A FOOD. By Sir B. W. Richardson.

I am recording a matter of history— of personal history — on this question when I say that I for one had no thought ofalcohol except as a food. I thought it' warmed us. I thought il gave additional strength. I thought it enabled us to endure mental and bodily fatigue. I thought it cheered iho heart, and lifted up the mind into grrater activity . But it so happened that I was asked to study tho action of alcohol along with a. whole series of chemical bodies, and to investigate their bearing in relation to each other. And so I took alcohol from the shelf of my laboratory as I might any other drug or chemical thero, and I asked it, in the course of experiments extending over a long period — 'What do you do?' (I asked it — ' Do you warm the animal body when you are taken into it ?' The answer came invariably — 'I do not, except iv tho mere flush of surface excitemeno. There is, in fact, no warming, but, on tho contrary, an effect of cooling and chilling the body.' Then I turn round to it in another direction, and ask it — 'Do you givo muscular streugtb ?' I test it by the mobt ligid analysis and experiment I can adopt. I test muscular power under the influence of it in various forms -and degrees, and its reply is— ' I give no muscular strength.' I turn to its effect upon the organs of the body, and find that while it expedites the heart's action it reduces tonicity ; and turning to the nervous system, I find the same reply — that is to say, I find the nervous system more quickly worn out under tho influence of this agent than if none of it is takeu at all. I ask it — 'Can ycru build up any of the tissues of the body ?' The answer again is in the negative — ' I build nothing. If Ido anything, I add fatty matter to the body ; but that is a destructive agent, piercing the tissues, destroying their powers, and makiug them less active in their work.' Finally, I sum it all up. I find ifa to be an agent that gives no strength, that reduces tho tone of the blood vessels and heart, that reduces tho nervous power, that builds up no tissues, can be of no use to me or any other animal as a substance for food. On that side of the question my mind is made vp — that this agent, in the most moderate quantity, is perfectly useless for any of the conditions of life to which men are subjected, except under the most exceptional conditions, which none but skilled observers need declare.