ever, but by discrete degrees, an equivalent of sugar, for instance, being changed into 2 of lactic acid (CHO), not at once converted into carbonic acid and water. It is this property of oxygen which constitutes it vital air, though one which led mere chemists some years back into the fallacy of regarding oxygen as a foe to living structure. The fallacy yet lingers, for we occasionally hear of alcohol being recommended as a combustible to protect the tissues from the destructive action of oxygen!-quite an imaginary evil, since there is no disease characterised by a too sudden or rapid oxidation of the blood."* Lehmann thus refers to the threefold elements of food:- The proportions in which these factors of nutrition are mixed in the diet, exert the most decided influence on the welfare of the organism, their intermixture being essential to the metamorphosis of matter. Great as are the fluctuations which nature allows in these proportions, an undue preponderance of one or other of the factors always acts injuriously upon the due course of nutrition. No single section of this process can go on without the concurrence of all these factors. Thus all experiments teach us that the carbo-hydrates (sugar, &c.) alone are not sufficient for the formation of fat; protein bodies (albuminates), as well as salts, must co-operate in the metamorphosis.'t

Alcohol has no pretensions to rank as a histogenetic aliment. 'Beer, wine, spirit, &c., furnish no element capable of entering into the composition of blood, muscular fibre, or any part which is the seat of the vital principle.' Alcohol does not effect any direct

implied in the witty and popular work, No. 6 (pp. 6, 24) at the head of our article. But a Liverpool newspaper lately announced, on the alleged authority of Liebig, that the stomach was the place of combustion!' Challenged to the proof, he adduces a passage which says that combustion takes place in the living body! This is the fallacy, of which another most amusing form is the following:- Food is force: alcohol is force. Therefore, alcohol is food!' The fallacy consists in identifying two things because one of their attributes is the same, as thus:- Man is mortal, an ass is mortal: Ergo, An ass is (that) MAN!' The conclusion would seem just enough if restricted to the logical architect of such a syllogism, which contains, besides, fallacies of equivocation and confusion. Food gives nutritive force; while alcohol only expends it. Hence the sophism of the copulative 'is.' Alcohol, in fact, neither increases heat, nor contributes to nutrition. The same writer, in an article on Food and Drink,' maintains that water is food-salt is food-lime is food-and that there is no ground for the distinction between histogenetic and combustive food! We have carefully considered his reasons, which amount simply to this: that, under certain circumstances, both kinds of food may serve to form part of tissue, while both are undoubtedly burnt, and that all these elements are essential. All this does not reconcile us to the paradox, nor alter the obvious facts-that though air unites with the body and is essential, it is not food;' that our daily drink is not our daily bread; that the matter of the muscle is not oil, though oil may be needful in the process of making it; and that, though albumen may be finally decomposed, its first use was that of a building material. + Lehmann: iii., p. 430.

Lehmann: iii. On Respiration.'

Liebig: Chemical Letters,' 1844, p. 57.

restitution

Alcohol perverts Nutrition and Excretion.

67

restitution, nor deserve the name of an alimentary principle.* Still it passes into the blood. By the oxygen we inhale it is burnt into acetic acid and water, and finally into water and carbonic acid. But the oxygen [necessarily limited], which decomposes the alcohol, is withdrawn from the albuminous and fatty substances of the blood.... In addition, both special experiment and ordinary experience prove that alcoholic beverages diminish the quantity of carbonic acid exhaled.' The fatty and effete matters of the blood, therefore, remain to accumulate, since the alcohol appropriates the oxygen appointed to consume them, and which, by their combustion, is destined at once to warm and purify the living temple. Thus alcohol is obnoxious to the charge of perverting both nutrition and excretion; impairing the integrity of the one, and diminishing the activity of the other. It has the same tendency on another ground; because it is an exciter of the nervous system, expending force,' but never conferring it. It is upon the full and regular activity of that system, which it disturbs, that the normal intensity of all nutritive and excretive processes are regulated. Obesity, biliousness, and fatty degeneration of the tissues, are the natural developments of these tendencies ;† and to prevent, as well as alleviate such disorders, abstinence is plainly indicated.

6

'While the enlightened practitioner is disposed to attach at least as much importance to a rational dietetic as to a specifically therapeutic mode of treatment, the value of investigations on normal respiration, in reference to the science of medicine, can never be over-rated; for when once the fact is universally admitted, THAT THE FIRST THING IN MANY DISEASES IS TO FURNISH A COPIOUS SUPPLY OF OXYGEN TO THE BLOOD WHICH HAS BEEN LOADED WITH IMPERFECTLY

DECOMPOSED SUBSTANCES, and to remove as speedily as possible the carbonic acid which has accumulated in it, these observations will have afforded us true remedial agents, which exceed almost every other in the certainty of their action.'‡

Under the influence of alcohol, the respiratory function is never normal, a tenth of the carbonic acid being retained. The characteristic property of food, as distinguished from that of foreign or toxic bodies, is its innocency in relation to structure. It does not excite, irritate, or inflame. Syrup, flour, oil, white of egg, are soothing or neutral. Hence, in following their changes in the human body, we can calculate upon them as chemical compounds of a fixed value for their respective purposes. There is no disturbing element-no drawback-no complication. Their values as heat-givers can be tabulated. Fat, in 100 parts, is equal to 240 of starch, 249 of cane-sugar, and 266 of brandy. But although,' as Lehmann remarks,

Moleschott: Lehr der Nahrungs-mittel. Erlangen, 1853.

+ Alcohol, as Naas shows, occasioned an augmentation of the fluid bile, but a diminution of its solid constituents. On the other hand, Bidder and Schmidt found that water increased the solids of the bile greatly. The same distinction holds of the gastric juice. Alcohol, by arresting vital metamorphosis, dries up the fountain of the solid effective constituents of the digestive juices. Hence, water-drinkers have the best appetites and digestion. Lehmann, iii. F $2

'In

In our considerations of the influence of ordinary food on the respiratory function, we have deduced the results of the observations from purely chemical relations, we should greatly err were we to adopt the same method in reference to certain substances occasionally introduced into the organism, such as the atherea} oils, alcohol, theine, &c. Their immediate effect reminds us that there are nerves in the animal organism which exert the most important influence on all its functions, on nutrition as well as on respiration, and that, consequently, they in some degree disturb that uniform course of phænomena which we might suppose would result from chemical laws. WE CANNOT, THEREFORE, BELIEVE THAT ALCOHOL, THEINE, ETC., WHICH PRODUCE SUCH POWERFUL REACTIONS ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, BELONG TO THE CLASS OF SUBSTANCES CAPABLE OF CONTRIBUTING TOWARDS THE MAINTENANCE OF THE VITAL FUNCTIONS.'

:

May not alcohol be regarded, however, when taken in moderate doses, so as not to narcotize the nerves, as an element of fuel? Is it not certainly decomposed, and so gives out heat? Yes, all this is certain but the common inference that alcohol therefore warms the body is, nevertheless, a fallacy. The fact is, as long since pointed out, that alcohol robs the blood of oxygen, and thus keeps within the system uncombusted an amount of oil and waste matter, which, if permitted to unite with the fresh air now abstracted by the alcohol, would have given out to the vital current a much greater amount of animal heat."* Oil and sugar are always present in the blood: they are of greater value than alcohol as fuel; hence, as the oxygen inbreathed cannot combine at once with both the natural and artificial element, the drinker loses the difference in value. In accordance with this calculation, the experiments of Dr. Davy, in 1845, and of Professor Davis, of America, in 1850, show that the thermometer indicates an invariable fall of temperature after the use of alcohol.† Dr. Lees, and Professors Carpenter, Gregory, Miller, and others, have adduced an overwhelming mass of experience to prove the superiority of a natural fatty diet in the Arctic regions for resisting cold; as well as furnished some very striking examples of the exemption from disease in warm climates conferred by habits of water-drinking. Want of space compels us to pass by with a bare reference numerous interesting experiments in relation to the effect of alcohol upon the structure of the tissues and of the blood, and upon the functions of the liver. Dr. Böcker's curious observations confirm all preceding inquiries as to the effect of small doses of alcohol (whether as wine, beer, or spirit) in diminishing the amount of carbonic acid, and of the phosphates, eliminated. It 'increased the coloured clot, which reddened much less rapidly on exposure to the air; and contained many more of the pale unnucleated discs than is usual in perfect health; and which Dr. Virchow regarded as defunct bodies, or partially effete matters.'‡

3rd. As to the ETHICS of this question. One great fact stands

* Dr. Lees: History of Alcohol,' 1846. + Works of Dr. Lees,' iii.

'Works,' i. p. cli.

Beiträge zur Heilkunde.' Crefeld, 1849. prominently

Temperance in Social Science.

69

prominently forth from the pages of experience and of sciencethat alcohol is, in a special sense, a brain-poison. It attaches itself to brain-substance with peculiar avidity-remains there last and longest. Its peculiarly deceptive power depends upon its action on the nerves and nervous centres. It first delights and then enslaves. It is, indeed, a very dangerous and tricksy spirit.'* When it is recollected that the power of the will is greatest over the automatic actions of the cerebrum, and least over the lower nervous centres ministering to the flesh,'-that alcohol and other narcotics intensify the automatic action of the lower centres, while they weaken and disturb the functions of cerebration involved in the development of moral volition,-the Christian moralist will perceive what a momentous individual duty this knowledge imposes.

Nor are the relations of temperance to social science less important. Alcohol, in subverting intelligence and self-control, antagonises the government which paradoxically sanctions its sale. This question, moreover, has its relations to trade and commerce, wages and capital, pauperism, insanity, and crime. As one affecting public health and economy, it transcends all others. Alcohol is a great anti-ventilator. It feeds disease internally, and perpetuates the chief objective conditions of it amongst the poor. Its use is as constantly fatal to the health of our population at home, as it was to our soldiers in the Crimea, when, at the very time that the sick rate of the British force encamped under better sanitary circumstances than the Turkish contingent, was 6, 7, and 8 per 100, the Turkish rate was but 2 per cent. ; and while the Turkish sickness, under the prevalence of scurvy, never rose higher than 5 per cent., the sickness of the British force, in its most healthy state, never sank lower than that proportion. If statistics, at home and abroad, prove anything whatever, there is the clearest evidence that one-half of the sickness of the civilised world is, simply and solely, due to alcohol. When our social leaders may be disposed fairly to examine and grapple this aspect of the Condition-of-England question,' we cannot tell; but the need is pressing. An intestine war is being waged between the tavern and intelligence, appetite and knowledge, legal temptation and moral suasion; during which temperance societies can barely keep their own. Enthusiasm should be guarded by conservative laws, which would bring our institutions into harmony with our theories. With much to encourage, there is no little to fear. Sensualism is robust and rampant, while the moral bonds of society seem to wax feebler, and on some hands to be dissolving. The destiny of Britain, we verily believe, turns upon this question of temperance. If our national vice be not effectually stemmed,

*Westminster Review,' July 1855.

the

the mental and physical constitution of the people alike will become corrupted and depraved. The Continent, through some of its wisest men, has already lifted up its warning voice. If drinking goes on, mental and moral imbecility will increase; nameless taints will ramify and spread, broader and deeper; until successive generations of physical deterioration ultimately terminate in national decay. But England a sober nation-what would be the glory of her past, compared to the splendour of her future!

ART. VI.-1. Prostitution, considered in its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects. By William Acton, M.R.C.S. London: John Churchill. 1857..

2. The Greatest of our Social Evils. By a Physician. London: H. Baillière.

1857.

3. Reports of Associate Institute and Society for the Protection of

4.

Women.

A

The Times,' January, February, March.

CONSCIENTIOUS and zealous desire to correct the social evils that beset us constitutes one of the most encouraging signs of the times. The efforts that have lately been made to reform the criminal, to instruct the ragged, to educate the ignorant-however short these efforts may be of what is required -furnish, nevertheless, so many unanswerable proofs of the existence and spread of the conviction that it is the duty of every one individually to promote, as far as he can, the welfare of all collectively. Man is not more distinguished from the brute creation by his reason, than by his social instincts. The heathen philosophic poet felt this;* but it remained for the divine Author of Christianity to consecrate the sublime principle of universal benevolence, and to give the authority of God himself to the glorious command to love our neighbour as ourselves.' That this ennobling and exalted moral principle should have been so lamentably forgotten and practically forsaken by men professedly Christian, is only one proof, amongst many that might be adduced, that mankind are very little apt to carry out principles which they theoretically profess so positively that no greater insult could be offered them than would be implied by a suspicion of the sincerity of their profession.

Yet it is quite certain that, in this Christian land of England, many-very many-thousands of women are leading lives of open, notorious profligacy; many of the streets of our great cities are thronged at night with shameless creatures, who, not content with

* Juv. Sat.' xv. 131-140.

parading