ALCOHOL AS FOOD-THE QUESTION SETTLED.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 692, 11 June 1903, Page 22

ALCOHOL AS FOOD-THE QUESTION SETTLED.

The Annals of the Pasteur Institute have settled this much-vexed question for ever and a day. In last December’s volume is 1 to be found the results of a long series of experiments recorded. Dr. Duclaux, director of the Pasteur Institute, proved that guinea-pigs could be kept alive by injections of alcohol alone. Dr. Chauveau, substituting for the vile body of Dr. Duclaux’s experiment that of man himself, devised a cage in which an observer could ensconce himself, surrounded by thermometers, dynamometers, spirometers, and all the latest apparatus for testing heat, strength, and energy, and could thus establish experimentally the effect of different foods upon his own system.—London “ Academy,” of January 17, continues the story, which the “ Bulletin,” Sydney, reprints on its “ Red Page ” in the April 18 issue : —“ The usual American millionaire, it appears, was found to endow the scheme, and several such machines were erected in the laborotory of an American University. In these, three students, trained in observation, two of whom had been total abstainers from their youth,

were shut up for a considerable period, and were fed on a varied diet of meat, farinaceous substances, vegetables, siugar, and water, until something like a normal standard of nutrition, <»s evidenced by temperature, energy of grip, and the Ilk® was attained. Then certain parts of the meat and sugar ration were withdrawn, and its presumed equivalent in alcohol was substituted. The result. . . was to completely upset the confident assumptions of the total abstinence theory. No loss whatever of weight, of heat, or strength, followed the substitution of alcohol for other forms of food. The experiments were varied, checked, and controlled in every way possible. The subjects, one of whom was a Canadian, one an American, and one a Swede, were made to spend part of their imprisonment in repose, part in, violent gymnastics ; the substitution of alcohol for other foods was made, sometimes gradually, and sometimes abruptly ; but the effect produced remained always the same.

Mr “Jimmy” Lowther, M.P., boasts that he has never owned a public-house in his life, nor a share of any sort or kind or any interests in connection with any branch of the licensing Trade. He therefore maintains that he occupies Quite an independent position, and at the annual dinner of the Isle of Thanet Licensed Victuallers’ Association, held at the Hotel Arcadian, Margate, to which he was an invited guest, he told the members assembled that he had stuck up for their rights and property not out of love for any particular trade, but because he felt the privileges of the community .at large were at stake. It is gratifying to find that the hon. member recognises the plain and palpable fact that Parliament must come to the rescue of the Trade, and if he and his friends in the House of Commons will only help the Government to pass Sir William Hart Dyke’s Bill through the present session, the injustice which has been meted out to the Trade by those “ dressed in a little brief authority ” will, at any rate, be stopped for some time to come. What the licensing magistrates must be taught is that capital invested in any particular industry—licensed or otherwise —must be safeguarded, subject, of course, to the conditions imposed upon the particular industry. —(“ L.V. Gazette.”)