第93章 CHAPTER XXVIII.(1)
A scientific article on the effects of alcohol on the human system.
If any doctor should try to deceive you here is the proof of his malicious intent to drug you.
LIQUOR DRINKING IN HEALTH AND DISEASE.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE UPON THE PROGRESS MADE IN MEDICAL SCIENCE IN FAVOR OF TEMPERANCE DURING THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 1, 1902--A. W. GUTRIDGE, CHAIRMAN. READ AT THE THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE CATHOLIC TOTAL ABSTINENCE UNION OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. PAUL, AND ORDERED PUBLISHED BY THE CONVENTION.
In order to understand what progress has been made during the year, it is necessary to note the condition of affairs at the commencement of the period.
Long before this committee began work the leading physicians of every enlightened country, the men to whom the entire profession looks for guidance, had declared against the use of alcohol both in health and in disease.
IS ALCOHOL A DRINK!
One reason why all the greatest physicians believed it harmful was because it had been found that alcohol was not a drink. The most abundant substance found in the human body, is water. About 130 pounds of the weight of a 160-pound person is water, "Quite enough if rightly arranged to drown him." Man has been irreverently described as "about 30 pounds of solids set up in 13 gallons of water." So it is quite natural for us to hunger for water; "death by thirst is more rapid and distressing than by starvation." "It is through the medium of the water contained in the animal body that all its vital functions are carried on."
Dr. W. B. Richardson of England has pointed out more than fifty characteristics of the action of a natural drink upon the system. The action of alcohol is the opposite of these in every particular, and therefore it is not a real or natural drink. Of course the water which is found in mixture in all alcoholic liquors serves to quench thirst, even though it is often foul water.
IS IT A FOOD!
We also found, upon taking up the work imposed upon us, that alcohol had been demonstrated not to be a food. Many classifications of foods have been made, but about the best is that which divides them broadly into two classes: to use homely language, flesh formers and body warmers; those which build up or repair the bodily waste, and those which sustain the animal warmth. The slow fire within us being necessary to life we hunger for that only which will replace the substance destroyed by the burning. "To the child of nature all hurtful things are repulsive, all beautiful things attractive," As to flesh formers, it had been noted that all foods useful in repairing bodily waste contain the element nitrogen. Alcohol contains no nitrogen, and so could not be classed among body builders. The chief body warmer is sugar. Alcohol being a product of sugar, people were all misled for years into thinking that it does in some kind and degree feed the system. The mistake was easy, since after taking alcohol there is a temporary increase in vivacity of mind and manner and in surface temperature, and a lessened requirement for regular foods. These opinions had been tested in the light of truth and proved erroneous. Axel Gustafson, in his Foundation of Death, considers this subject at length. As early as 1840 French physicians discovered that alcohol actually reduced the temperature of the body. Prominent German and English medical men soon confirmed the statement, and in 1850, Dr. N. S. Davis of Chicago, the founder of the American Medical Association, in speaking of a number of observations during the active period of digestion after ordinary food, whether nitrogenous or carbonaceous, the temperature of the body is always increased, but after taking alcohol, in either the form of the fermented or the distilled drinks, it begins to fall within half an hour and continues to decrease for from two to three hours. The extent and duration of the reduction was in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol taken." The most prominent physicians in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Russia reached similar conclusions shortly after this. In explorations in the Arctic regions where the cold is intense, no alcoholic drinks are permitted. Dr. Nansen, the great Norwegian, attributes the fatalities of the Greely expedition to the use of liquor, and this is the only expedition of recent years which permitted the use of alcoholic drinks.
As a matter of fact it was long ago proved that "Alcohol does not warm nor cool a person, but only destroys the sensation and decreases the vitality." Superficial observers, however, have upheld the use of alcohol as a food, saying, "See how fleshy it makes people." Well, healthy fat is not always an advantage, but beer drinkers' fat is not the genuine article. Healthy fat represents a stock of body warming food laid up for a time of need and is formed only in health. The "fat" usually exhibited by beer drinkers is not a fat at all; oil is not its chief factor. It consists of particles of partly digested flesh forming food which the system required, but which it was unable to assimilate owing to the presence in the body of the alcohol which the beer contained. This sort of fat instead of indicating health points to disease. This general teaching as to the worthlessness of alcohol as a food had been set forth by the leaders in medical profession, and accepted largely by the rank and file of practitioners for about twenty-five years. An occasional cry came from the other side, however, and late in 1899 Dr. W. O. Atwater, professor in Wesleyan University, announced that he had, by an extended series of experiments, proved the truth of the claims of those experimentors who believed alcohol to have value as a food. Dr. Atwater's reports were widely published by the whiskey press, and a state of some unrest amongst thinking physicians followed, which had not been wholly quieted when this committee began work.
IS IT A MEDICINE?