Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why. Allen Martha Meir
alcoholics are prescribed medically.
Alcohol is used in sickness as a food, when solid foods cannot be assimilated, “to support” or sustain, the vitality; it is used as a stimulant, a tonic, a sedative or narcotic, an anti-spasmodic, an antiseptic and antipyretic; it is used in combination with other drugs, in tinctures and in pharmacy. It is not wonderful that the people esteem it above all other drugs, for none other is so variously and so generally employed. Those who discard it as a remedy teach that only in human delusions is it a food or a stimulant, and for the other uses to which it is put, outside of pharmacy, there are different agents which may be more satisfactorily employed.
So well agreed are all the scientific investigators that alcohol has no appreciable food value that it would seem foolish to spend time upon a discussion of alcohol as food were it not that the idea of its “supporting the vitality” in disease, in some mysterious way is deeply rooted in the professional, as well as the popular mind.
Foods are substances which, when taken into the body, undergo change by the process of digestion; they give strength and heat and force; they build up the tissues of the body, and make blood; and they induce healthy, normal action of all the bodily functions.
Alcohol does none of these. It undergoes no change in the stomach, but is rapidly absorbed and mixed with the blood, and has been discovered hours after its ingestion in the brain, blood and tissues, unchanged alcohol. In many of the experiments made with it upon animals, considerable quantities of the amount swallowed were recovered from the excretions of the body, without any change having taken place in its composition. This, of itself, is sufficient evidence to show that it is a substance which the body does not recognize as a food.
Foods build up the tissues of the body. All physiologists are agreed that since alcohol contains no nitrogen it cannot be a tissue-forming food; there is no difference of opinion here. Dr. Lionel Beale, the eminent physiologist, says that alcohol is not a food and does not nourish the tissues.
“There is nothing in alcohol with which any part of the body can be nourished.” – Cameron’s Manual of Hygiene.
“Alcohol contains no nitrogen; it has none of the qualities of the structure-building foods; it is incapable of being transformed into any of them; it does not supply caseine, albumen, fibrine or any other of those substances which go to build up the muscles, nerves and other active organs.” – Sir B. W. Richardson.
“It is not demonstrable that alcohol undergoes conversion into tissue.” – Dr. W. A. Hammond.
If it is a food why do all writers and experimenters exclude it from the diet of children, and why is the caution always given people to not take it upon an empty stomach? Foods are supposed to be particularly suited to an empty stomach.
Foods induce healthy, normal action of all the bodily functions.
The chapter upon “Diseases Produced by Alcohol” is evidence that by this test alcohol shows up in its true nature as a poison, and not a food. Alcohol destroys healthy normal action of all the bodily functions, and builds up impure fat, fatty degeneration, instead of strong, firm muscle. Dr. Parkes, one of the most famous of English students of alcohol, says: —
“These alcoholic degenerations are certainly not confined to the notoriously intemperate. I have seen them in women accustomed to take wine in quantities not excessive, and who would have been shocked at the imputation that they were taking too much, although the result proved that for them it was excess.”
Dr. Ezra M. Hunt, late secretary of New Jersey State Board of Health, remarks: —
“The question of excess occurs in sickness as well as in health, and all the more because its determination is so difficult and the evil effects so indisputable. The dividing line in medicine, even between use and abuse, is so zigzag and invisible that common mortals, in groping for it, generally stumble beyond it, and the delicate perception of medical art too often fails in the recognition.”
All non-alcoholic writers assert that the continuous use of alcohol as a medicine is equally injurious to all the bodily functions as the employment of it as a beverage. Calling it medicine does not change its deadly nature, nor does the medical attendant possess any magical power by which a destructive poison may be converted into a restorative agent.
Dr. Noble, writing recently to the London Times, said: —
“The internal use of alcohol in disease is as injurious as in health.”
Since foods induce healthy, normal action of all the bodily functions, and alcohol injures every organ of the body in direct proportion to the amount consumed, by this test it is proved to not be a food.
Foods give strength. Alcohol weakens the body. This has been determined again and again by experiments upon gangs of workmen and regiments of soldiers. These experiments always resulted in showing that upon the days when the men were supplied with liquor they could neither use their muscles so powerfully, nor for so long a time, as on the days when they received no alcoholic drink. Of the results of such tests Sir Andrew Clark, late Physician to Queen Victoria, said: —
“It is capable of proof beyond all possibility of question that alcohol not only does not help work but is a serious hinderer of work.”
So satisfied are generals in the British army of the weakening effect of alcohol that its use is now forbidden to soldiers when any considerable call is to be made upon their strength. The latest example of this was in the recent Soudan campaign under Sir Herbert Kitchener. An order was issued by the War Department that not a drop of intoxicating liquor was to be allowed in camp save for hospital use. The army made phenomenal forced marches through the desert, under a burning sun and in a climate famous for its power to kill the unacclimated. It is said that never before was there a British campaign occasioning so little sickness and showing so much endurance. Some Greek merchants ran a large consignment of liquors through by the Berber-Suakim route, but Sir Herbert had them emptied upon the sand of the desert. A reporter telegraphed to England: —
“The men are in magnificent condition and in great spirits. They are as hard as nails, and in a recent desert march of fifteen miles, with manœuvring instead of halts, the whole lasting for five continuous hours, not a single man fell out!”
This was in decided contrast to the march in the African war some years before when, as they passed through a malarial district, and a dram was served, men fell out by dozens. Dr. Parkes, one of the medical officers, prevailed upon the commander-in-chief to not allow any more alcoholic drams while the troops were marching to Kumassi.
Experiments in lifting weights have also been tried upon men by careful investigators. In every case it was found that even beer, and very dilute solutions of alcohol, would diminish the height to which the lifted weight could be raised. As an illustration of the deceptive power of alcohol upon people under its influence, it is said that persons experimented upon were under the impression, after the drink, that they could do more work, and do it more easily, although the testing-machine showed exactly the contrary to be true.
Athletes and their trainers have learned by experience that alcohol does not give strength, but is, in reality, a destroyer of muscular power. No careful trainer will allow a candidate for athletic honors to drink even beer, not to speak of stronger liquors. When Sullivan, the once famous pugilist, was defeated by Corbett, he said in lamenting his lost championship, “It was the booze did it”; meaning that he had violated training rules, and used liquor. University teams and crews have proved substantially that drinking men are absolutely no good in sports, or upon the water. Football and baseball teams, anxious to excel, are beginning to have a cast-iron temperance pledge for their members. So practical experience of those competing in tests of strength and endurance teach eloquently that alcohol does not give strength, but rather weakens the body, by rendering the muscles flabby.
Sandow, the modern Samson, wrote his methods of training in one of the magazines a few years ago, and stated that he used no alcoholic beverages. The ancient Samson was not allowed to taste even wine from birth.
A question worthy of serious consideration is: how are the