substance. "On the contrary," he says, "it appears in all cases to
diminish the efficiency of the heat-producing process." And he cites
the testimony of Arctic voyagers, New York car-drivers, Russian
corporals, and Rocky Mountain hunters, in support of the statement
that alcohol diminishes the power of the system to resist cold. He
thinks he could fill a whole magazine with the evidence on this point.
Nevertheless, so far as we have examined the reports of Arctic
travellers,[13] they appear by no means decisive. They do not keep in
mind the distinction between stimulation and intoxication. We do not
doubt that "men who start under the influence of liquor are the first
to succumb to the cold, and the likeliest to be frost-bitten," if the
phrase "under the influence of liquor" be understood, as it usually
is, to mean "partly drunk." On the other hand, it is a familiar fact
that a glass of whisky, taken on coming into the house after exposure
to cold, will in many cases prevent sore throat or inflammation of the
nasal passages. In our own experience, we know of no more efficient
agent for removing the effects of a chill from the system. Before this
question can be settled, however, we must ascertain whether alcohol
is, or is not, a true food. If the food-action of alcohol is, as
Liebig maintains, to be ranked with that of fat, starch and sugar, its
heat-producing power will follow as an inevitable inference. To this
point we shall presently come; and meanwhile we may content ourselves
with citing the excellent authority of Johnston in support of the
opinion that ardent spirits "directly warm the body."[14]
[13] A good summary will be found in the _American Journal
of Medical Sciences_, July, 1859.
[14] _Chemistry of Common Life_, vol. I., p. 288.
Mr. Parton next indicts alcohol on the ground that it is not a
strength-giver. "On this branch of the subject," he observes, "_all_
the testimony is against alcoholic drinks."[15] Yet in his own
statement of the case may be found contradictions enough. On the one
hand he cites Tom Sayers, Richard Cobden and Benjamin Franklin in
support of his opinion;[16] and he tells us how Horace Greeley,
teetotaler, coming home the other day, and finding terrible arrears of
work piled up before him, sat down and wrote steadily, without leaving
his room, from ten A.M. till eleven P.M.--no very wonderful feat for a
healthy man. But on the other hand, it appears from some of his own
facts that when a supreme exertion of strength is requisite, then we
must take alcohol. "During the war I knew of a party of cavalry who,
for three days and three nights, were not out of the saddle fifteen
minutes at a time. The men consumed two quarts of whisky each, and all
of them came in alive. It is a custom in England to extract the last
possible five miles from a tired horse, when those miles _must_ be had
from him, by forcing down his most unwilling throat a quart of beer."
(p. 86.) From these unwelcome facts Mr. Parton draws the sage
inference that alcohol, like tobacco, supports us in doing wrong! "It
enables us to violate the laws of nature without immediate suffering
and speedy destruction." Now there is one much abused faculty of
mankind, which nevertheless will sometimes refuse to be
insulted,--that faculty is common sense. And in the present case,
common sense declares that when we are taxing our strength, no matter
whether "laws" are violated or not, we do not keep ourselves up by
drinking a substance which can only weaken us. It may be unfortunate
that alcohol is a strength-giver; but the fact that we can travel
farther with it than without it shows that, unfortunate or not, the
thing is so. But Mr. Parton believes that Nature is even with us
afterward. "In a few instances of intermittent disease, a small
quantity of wine may sometimes enable a patient who is at the low tide
of vitality to anticipate the turn of the tide, and borrow at four
o'clock enough of five o'clock strength to enable him to reach five
o'clock." This is sheer nonsense. There is no such thing as borrowing
at four o'clock the strength of five o'clock. The thing is a
physiological absurdity. The strength of to-morrow is non-existent
until to-morrow comes; it is not a reserved fund from which we can
borrow to-day. If Mr. Parton's notion were correct, his patient ought
to be weaker at five o'clock by just the same amount that he is
stronger at four o'clock. If the strength has been borrowed, it cannot
be used over again. You cannot eat your cake and save it. In an hour's
time, therefore, the patient should be weaker than if he had contrived
to get along without the wine. But this is not found to be the case:
he is stronger at four and he is stronger at five, he is stronger next
day, and he convalesces more rapidly than if he had not taken alcohol.
This is a clinical fact which there is no blinking.[17] It shows that
the only source from which the strength can possibly come is the
alcohol. Whether it be food or not, the action of alcohol in these
cases is precisely similar to that of food. It calms delirium and
promotes refreshing sleep, exactly like a meat broth, except that it
is often more rapidly efficient. It can produce these effects only by
acting as a genuine stimulant, by either nourishing, or facilitating
the normal nutrition of, the nervous system.[18]
[15] Except that of contemporary physiologists. Among these
there are few greater names than that of Moleschott; whose
testimony to the strengthening properties of alcohol may be
found in his _Lehre der Nahrungsmitiel_, p. 162.
[16] We presume Mr. Parton thinks these three unprofessional
opinions enough to outweigh the all but unanimous testimony
of physicians to the tonic effects of beer, wine and brandy.
[17] Anstie, op. cit. pp. 381--385.
[18] In view of these and similar facts, Dr. Anstie remarks
that "the effect of nutritious food, where it can be
digested, is undistinguishable from that of alcohol upon the
abnormal conditions of the nervous system which prevail in
febrile diseases." p. 385. For the use of wine or brandy in
infantile typhoid and typhus, see Hillier on _Diseases of
Children_, a most admirable work.
When therefore Lawyer Heavy-fee and the other allegorical personages
mentioned by Mr. Parton sit up working all night, and then quiet their
nerves by a glass of wine or a cigar, they are no doubt shortening
their lives and committing "respectable suicide." But it is because
they sit up all night and waste vital force, not because they resort
to an obvious and effective means of repairing the loss. It is well to
keep early hours and avoid over-work. But on rare occasions, when the
circumstances of life absolutely require it, he who cannot sit up all
night for a week together, without inflicting permanent injury upon
himself, is rightly considered deficient in recuperative vigour. When
such occasions come, most persons instinctively seek aid from alcohol;
and it helps them because it is an imparter, or at least an
economizer, of nervous force. The fact that it is resorted to, when
supreme exertion is demanded, shows that it is recognized as a
strength-saver, if not as a strength-giver. Our inquiry into its
food-action will show that it is both the one and the other.
Thus far we have considered alcohol only as an agent which affects the
nutrition of the nerves. Whether it be also a food or not does not
essentially alter the question of its evil or beneficent influence
upon the system. As we saw in our chapter on Tobacco, the human
organism needs, for its proper nutrition, stimulus as well as
food,--force as well as material. No conclusion in physiology is
better established than that narcotic-stimulants increase the supply
of force while they diminish the waste of material;[19] and it is by
virtue of this peculiarity that they will often sustain the organism
in the absence of food. Tobacco is not food, but if you give a
starving man a pipe to smoke it will take him much longer to die.
Opium and coca are not foods; but they will sometimes support life
when no true aliment can be procured. The action of alcohol is similar
to that of these substances, but immeasurably more effective. None of
the inferior narcotic-stimulants is at all comparable with alcohol in
the degree of its food-replacing power. We read that tobacco and coca
will enable a man to go several days without anything to eat; and we
interpret this result as due to the waste-retarding action of these
substances. But when we find that alcohol will support life for weeks
and months, we can no longer be content with such an explanation.
When we recollect that Cornaro lived healthily for fifty-eight years
upon twelve ounces of light food and fourteen ounces of wine _per
diem_,[20] and reflect upon the large proportion of alcoholic drink in
this diet, the suspicion is forced upon us that alcohol is not only a
true stimulant but also a true food.
[19] See Chambers, _Digestion and its Derangements_, p. 249;
and in general, Johnston, Von Bibra, and the paper of Dr.
Hammond above referred to.
[20] Carpenter, _Human Physiology_, p. 387.
Mr. Parton of course asserts that alcoholic drinks do not nourish the
body, and denies to them the title of foods. He begins by quoting
Liebig's assertion "that as much flour or meal as can lie on the point
of a table-knife is more nutritious than nine quarts of the best
Bavarian beer." Whereupon the reader, who is perhaps not familiar with
the history of physiological controversy, thinks at once that Liebig's
great authority is opposed to the opinion that alcohol is food.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps nothing in Mr.
Parton's book shows more forcibly the danger of "cramming" a subject
instead of studying it. When Liebig wrote the above sentence, he
believed that foods might be sharply divided into two classes,--those
which nourish, and those which keep up the heat of the body. He
believed that no foods except those which contain nitrogen can nourish
the tissues; and he therefore excluded not only alcohol, _but fat,
starch and sugar also_, from the class of nutritious substances. But
Liebig was far from believing that alcohol is not food. On the
contrary he distinctly classed it with fat, starch and sugar, as a
_heat-producing food_,--a fact which Mr. Parton, if he knows it, takes
good care not to quote! But this twofold classification of foods has
for several years been known to be unsound. It has been shown that all
true foods are more or less nutritious, and that all are more or less
heat-producing. Starch and sugar have maintained their places in the
class of nutritive materials from which Liebig tried to exclude them,
and we have now to see whether the same can be said of the closely
kindred substance, alcohol.
Mr. Parton thinks he has proved that alcohol cannot be food, when he
has asserted that it is not chemically transformed within the body. As
soon as it is taken, he tells us, lungs, skin and kidneys all set
busily to work to expel it, and they send it out just as it came in:
_therefore_ it is an enemy. Now all this may be said of water. Water
is not chemically changed within the body; as soon as we drink it,
lungs, skin and kidneys begin busily to expel it; and it goes out just
as good water as it came in. Nevertheless, water is one of the most
essential elements of nutrition.
But it is by no means certain that alcohol is not transformed within
the body. It is neither certain nor probable. Mr. Parton relies upon
the experiments of Messrs. Lallemand, Duroy, and Perrin, who in 1860
thought they had demonstrated that _all_ the alcohol taken into the
system comes out again, _as_ alcohol, through the lungs, skin and
kidneys. By applying the very delicate chromic acid test, these
gentlemen appeared to prove that appreciable quantities of alcohol
always begin to be excreted very soon after the dose has been received
by the stomach, and continue to pass off for many hours. "They failed,
after repeated attempts, to discover the intermediate compounds into
which alcohol had been represented as transforming itself before its
final change; and, on the other hand, they detected _unchanged_
alcohol everywhere in the body hours after it had been taken; they
found the substance in the blood, and in all the tissues, but
especially in the brain and the nervous centres generally, and in the
liver."[21] Mr. Parton has, it would appear, read their book, and he
is fully persuaded by it that "if you take into your system an ounce
of alcohol, the whole ounce leaves the system within forty-eight
hours, just as good alcohol as it went in." These experiments,
moreover, "produced the remarkable effect of causing the editor of a
leading periodical to confess to the public that he was not
infallible." The _Westminster Review_, it seems, in 1861, retracted
the opinions which it had expressed in 1855, "concerning the _rôle_ of
alcohol in the animal body." The _Westminster Review_ has now an
opportunity to retract its recantations; for in 1863, these
experiments were subjected to a searching criticism by M. Baudot,
which resulted in thoroughly invalidating the conclusions supposed to
flow from them.[22] The case is an interesting one, as showing afresh
the utter impossibility of getting at the truth concerning alcohol,
without paying attention to the difference in the behaviour of large
and small quantities.
[21] Anstie, op. cit., p. 359.
[22] Baudot, _De la Destruction de l'Alcool dans
l'Organisme, Union Médicale_, Nov. et Déc., 1863. See also
the elaborate criticism in Anstie, op. cit., pp. 358-370.
The researches of Bouchardat and Sandras,[23] and of Duchek,[24] have
rendered it probable that, if alcohol undergoes any digestive
transformation, it is first changed into aldehyde, from which are
successively formed acetic acid, oxalic acid and water, and carbonic
acid.[25] But this transformation, like any other digestive process,
cannot go on unless the nervous system is in good working order. Now
when a narcotic dose of alcohol is taken, the flow of gastric juice is
prevented by local paralysis of the nerve-fibres distributed to the
stomach. What then must happen? Solid food may remain undigested, in
the stomach;[26] but liquid alcohol is easily absorbable, and has two
ways of exit,--one through the portal system into the liver, the other
through the lacteals into the general circulation, by which it will be
carried chiefly to the organ which receives most blood,--namely, the
brain. _It is thus probable that no alcohol can be transformed after
narcosis begins._ But the absorbed alcohol, loading the circulation,
begins at once to be excreted. Paralysis of the renal plexus of the
sympathetic sets up a rapid diuresis, and considerable amounts of the
volatile liquid escape through the lungs and skin. In examining,
therefore, a drunken man or dog, we need not, on any theory, expect
to find the intermediate products of alcoholic transformation; we
must expect to find large quantities of undigested alcohol in the
circulation, and notably in the brain and liver; and we need not be
surprised if we detect unchanged alcohol in the excretions. _Our
experiment will not show that alcohol cannot be assimilated; it will
only show how serious is the damage inflicted by a narcotic dose, in
checking assimilation._ Now all this applies with force to the
experiments of Messrs. Lallemand, Duroy and Perrin. In their
experiments, these gentlemen always tried intoxicating doses; thus
paralyzing at the outset the whole digestive tract, _and preventing
the formation of those transformed products which they afterward
vainly tried to discover_. As so often happens in experimenting upon
the enormously complex human organism, they began by creating abnormal
conditions which rendered their conclusions inapplicable to the
healthy body.
[23] _De la Digestion des Boissons Alcooliques_, in _Annales
de Chimie et de Physique_, 1847, tom. xxi.
[24] _Ueber das Verhalten des Alkohols im thierischen
Organismus_, in _Vierteljahrsschrift für die praktische
Heilkunde_, Prague, 1833.
[25] See Moleschott, _Circulation de la Vie_, tom. ii. p. 6.
[26] So decisive is the paralyzing power of a narcotic dose
of alcohol upon the stomach in some cases, that we have
seen a drunken man vomit scarcely altered food which, it
appeared, had been eaten fourteen hours before. The sum and
substance of the above argument is that, as the narcotic
dose of alcohol prevents the digestion of other food, it
will also prevent the digestion of itself.
A further criticism by M. Baudot, supported by renewed experiments, is
still more decisive. M. Baudot justly observes that in order to
substantiate their conclusions, Messrs. Lallemand, Duroy and Perrin
should have at least been able, with their excessively delicate tests,
to discover in the excretions _a large part_ of the alcohol which had
been taken into the system. This, however, they never did. In all
cases, the amount of alcohol recovered was very small, and bore but a
trifling proportion to the amount which had been taken. According to
these physiologists, the elimination always takes place chiefly
through the kidneys. But M. Baudot, in a series of elaborate
experiments, has proved that, unless the dose has been excessive, _no
sensible amount of alcohol reappears in the kidney-excretions for more
than twenty-four hours_. The quantity is so minute that the alcoometer
is not in the least affected by it, and it requires the chromic acid
test even to reveal its presence. Similar results have been obtained
by experiments upon the breath.
Finally, the gravest doubts have been thrown upon the trustworthiness
of the chromic acid test relied on by Messrs. Lallemand, Duroy and
Perrin. It is considered possible, by good chemical authority, that
the reactions in the test-apparatus, which they attributed to the
escaping alcohol, may equally well have been caused by some of the
results of alcoholic transformation. For reasons above given, however,
it is probable that in cases of narcosis some alcohol always escapes.
When we reflect upon its absorbability and its ready solubility in
water, it seems likely beforehand that a considerable quantity must
escape. But all that these able Frenchmen can be said to have
accomplished, is the demonstration of the fact that when you take into
your system a greater quantity of alcohol than the system can manage,
a part of it is expelled in the same state in which it entered. And
this may be said of other kinds of food.
These experiments have, therefore, instead of settling the question,
left it substantially just where it was before. But we have now a more
remarkable set of facts to contemplate. In many cases of typhoid
fever, acute bronchitis, pneumonia, erysipelas, and diphtheria,
occurring in Dr. Anstie's practice, it was found that the stomach
could be made to retain nothing but wine or brandy. Upon these
alcoholic drinks, therefore, the patients were entirely sustained for
periods sometimes reaching a month in duration.[27] In nearly every
case convalescence was rapid, and the emaciation was much slighter
than usual: the quality of the flesh was also observed to be
remarkably good. Dr. Slack, of Liverpool, had two female patients who,
loathing ordinary food, maintained life and tolerable vigour for more
than three months upon alcoholic drinks alone. Mr. Nisbet reports "the
case of a child affected with marasmus, who subsisted for three months
on sweet whisky and water alone, and then recovered; and that of
another child, who lived entirely upon Scotch ale for a fortnight, and
then recovered his appetite for common things." Many similar examples
might be cited.
[27] In typhoid and typhus the "poison-line" of alcohol is
shifted, so that large quantities may be taken without risk
of narcosis. Women, in this condition, have been known to
consume 36 oz. of brandy (containing 18 oz. of alcohol)
_per diem_.
It may be said that alcohol maintained these persons by retarding the
waste of the tissues. This is no doubt an admissible supposition.
There is no doubt that alcohol, by its waste-retarding action, will
postpone for some time the day of death from starvation.[28] But to
this action there must be some limit. Though the waste is retarded, it
is not wholly stopped. Though there is relatively less waste, there is
still absolutely large waste. The mere act of keeping up respiration
necessitates a considerable destruction of tissue. Then the
temperature of the body must be kept very near 98° Fahrenheit, or life
will suddenly cease; and the maintenance of this heat involves a great
consumption of tissue. Now this waste, under the most favourable
circumstances, will soon destroy life, unless it is balanced by actual
repair. You may diminish the draught on your furnace as much as you
please,--the fire will shortly go out unless fresh coal is added. Upon
these points the data are more or less precise. The amount of waste
material daily excreted from the body, under ordinary circumstances,
is a little more than seven pounds.[29] Of this the greater part is
water, the quantity of carbon being about twelve ounces, and the
quantity of nitrogenous matter about five ounces.[30] To make up for
this waste we usually require at least two and a half pounds of solid,
and three pints of liquid, food.[31] In Dr. Hammond's experiments, the
weight-sustaining power of the alcohol taken seems to have amounted to
four or five ounces.[32] It will be seen, therefore, that in spite of
any stimulant effect of alcohol upon nutrition, unless at least ten or
twelve ounces of nitrogenous or carbonaceous matter be eaten daily,
the weight of the body must rapidly diminish.
[28] It is not certain, however, that alcoholic drinks, as
usually taken, materially retard the waste of tissue. These
drinks contain but from 2 to 50 per cent of alcohol; the
remainder being chiefly water, which is a great accelerator
of waste. The weight-sustaining power of brandy, or
especially of wine and ale, can, therefore, perhaps be
hardly accounted for without admitting a true food-action.
[29] Dalton, _Human Physiology_, p. 363.
[30] Payen, _Substances Alimentaires_, p. 482.
[31] The liquid food may be taken in the shape of free
water, or of water contained in the tissues of succulent
vegetables. See Pereira, _Treatise on Food and Diet_, p.
277.
[32] _Physiological Memoirs_, Philadelphia, 1863, p. 48.
Now the experiments of Chossat have demonstrated that no animal can
suddenly lose more than two-fifths of its normal weight without dying
of starvation. If a man, therefore, weigh 150 lbs., for him 90 lbs. is
the starvation-point; as soon as he reaches that weight he dies.
Usually, indeed, death occurs before this degree of emaciation can
have been attained,--in most cases, on the fifth or sixth day; though
there are a few authentic instances of persons who have lived for
twelve, and even sixteen, days before finally succumbing.
In view of these facts, we are willing to grant that people may in
rare cases live for three months on their own tissues, if waste be
duly retarded. We are willing to grant it, though we do not believe
it. But we are not prepared to admit that this process can go on for
six months or a year; and we believe that the cases now to be cited
can in nowise be got rid of by such an interpretation.
Mr. Nisbet mentions the case of a man who lived for seven months
entirely on spirit and water. At Wavertree, a young man afflicted with
heart-disease lived for five years principally, and for two years
solely, on brandy. His allowance was at first six ounces, afterward a
pint, _per diem_. His weight was not materially decreased, when, at
the end of the five years, he died of his disease. But the next case
is still more remarkable. Dr. Inman had a lady-patient, about
twenty-five years old, plump, active and florid, but somewhat
deficient in power of endurance. "This lady had two large and healthy
children in succession, whom she successfully nursed. On each occasion
she became much exhausted, the appetite wholly failed, and she was
compelled to live solely on bitter ale and brandy and water; on this
regimen she kept up her good looks, her activity and her nursing, and
went on this way for about twelve months; the nervous system was by
this time thoroughly exhausted, _yet there was no emaciation_, nor was
there entire prostration of muscular power."[33]
[33] Anstie, op. cit. p. 388.