Alcohol has no food value and is exceedingly limited in its action as a remedial agent. Dr. Henry Monroe says, "Every kind of substance employed by man as food consists of sugar, starch, oil, and glutinous matter mingled together in various proportions. The animal frame relies on these for support. The body employs the glutinous principles of food fiber, albumen, and casein to strengthen its structure, while it primarily uses oil, starch, and sugar to produce heat.
It's obvious that alcohol, as food, must contain these ingredients. It must contain either the nitrogenous elements, primarily found in meats, eggs, milk, vegetables, and seeds, which build animal tissue and repair waste, or the carbonaceous elements found in fat, starch, and sugar, which when consumed, evolve heat and force.
Dr. Hunt asserts, "The distinctness of these food groups and their relationship to the tissue-producing and heat-evolving capacities of man are so definite and so confirmed by experiments on animals and by manifold tests of scientific, physiological, and clinical experience that no attempt to discard the classification has prevailed." Indeed, it is unfeasible to establish a clear boundary that limits one food group to the production of tissue or cells, while restricting the other to the production of heat and force through regular combustion. Denying any potential interchangeability in response to specific demands or a compromised supply of one variety is also unfeasible. This does not in any way undermine our ability to use these as established benchmarks.
The chemist and physiologist are well-versed in the assimilation and force generation of these substances in the body, enabling them to determine the food value of alcohol based on well-established laws. For years, the most knowledgeable individuals in the medical field have meticulously studied this subject, putting alcohol through every known test and experiment, leading to the unanimous decision to exclude it from the category of foods that build tissue. "We have never seen a single suggestion that alcohol could act in this way, and this is merely conjecture." One writer (Hammond) speculates that it could potentially combine with the products of tissue decay and, under certain conditions, contribute nitrogen to the formation of new tissues. Neither organic chemistry nor animal chemistry provide any evidence to support this hypothesis.
Dr. Richardson asserts: "Alcohol lacks nitrogen, possesses none of the characteristics of foods that build structure, and cannot transform into any of them, making it not a food in the sense of being a constructive agent in body building." Dr. W.B. Carpenter says: "Alcohol cannot supply anything that is essential to the true nutrition of the tissues." Dr. Liebig says: "Beer, wine, spirits, etc., furnish no element capable of entering into the composition of the blood, muscular fiber, or any part which is the seat of the principle of life." Dr. Hammond, in his Tribune Lectures, in which he advocates the use of alcohol in certain cases, says: "It is not demonstrable that alcohol undergoes conversion into tissue." Cameron asserts in his Manual of Hygiene that alcohol does not nourish any part of the body. Dr. E. Smith, F.R.S., says: "Alcohol is not a true food. It interferes with alimentation." Dr. T.K. Chambers states: "It is clear that we must cease to regard alcohol as, in any sense, a food."
"Not finding any tissue-building ingredients in this substance," says Dr. Hunt, "nor in its breaking up any combinations, such as we can find in cell foods; nor any evidence either in the experience of physiologists or the trials of alimentarians; it is not wonderful that we should find neither the expectation nor the realization of constructive power in it."
Alcohol doesn't provide the body with any building blocks or waste products, so we should investigate its ability to produce heat.
The production of heat.
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"The first usual test for a force-producing food, and the one to which other foods of that class respond, is the production of heat in the combination of oxygen therewith," says Dr. Hunt. This heat means vital force and is, in no small degree, a measure of the comparative value of the so-called respiratory foods. Examining fats, starches, and sugars allows us to track and gauge the processes that transform them into heat and vital forces, thereby assessing the potential of various foods. Consumption of carbon by union with oxygen is the law, heat is the product, and force is the legitimate result, while food hydrogen and oxygen produce water. If alcohol falls under this category of foods, we should reasonably anticipate finding some evidence related to hydrocarbons.
What, then, is the result of experiments in this direction? Men of the highest attainments in chemistry and physiology have conducted these experiments over long periods with great care, and Dr. H.R. Wood, Jr. summarizes the results in his Materia Medica. "No one has been able to detect in the blood regular oxidation results." In other words, no one has been able to detect the combustion of alcohol, similar to that of fat, starch, or sugar, which would have provided heat to the body.
Alcohol and a reduction in temperature.
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Instead of elevating it, physicians have utilized it as an antipyretic during fevers. The testimony of physicians in Europe and America regarding the cooling effects of alcohol has been so consistent that Dr. Wood, in his Materia Medica, states, "It does not seem worth while to occupy space with a discussion of the subject." Liebermeister, one of the most learned contributors to Zeimssen's Cyclopaedia of the Practice of Medicine, 1875, says: "I long since convinced myself, by direct experiments, that alcohol, even in comparatively large doses, does not elevate the temperature of the body in either well or sick people." So well had this become known to Arctic voyagers that, even before physiologists had demonstrated the fact that alcohol reduced, instead of increasing, the temperature of the body, they had learned that spirits lessened their power to withstand extreme cold. Edward Smith asserts, "In the Northern regions, the entire exclusion of spirits was necessary to retain heat under these unfavorable conditions."
Alcohol does not make you strong.
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Alcohol cannot possibly increase an animal's strength if it does not contain tissue-building material or provide heat to the body. "Every kind of power an animal can generate, such as the mechanical power of the muscles, the chemical (or digestive) power of the stomach, and the intellectual power of the brain, accumulates through the nutrition of the organ on which it depends," states Dr. G. Budd, F.R.S. Dr. F.R. Lees, of Edinburgh, after discussing the question and educing evidence, remarks, "From the very nature of things, it will now be seen how impossible it is that alcohol can be strengthening food of either kind. Since alcohol cannot become a part of the body, it cannot contribute to its cohesive, organic strength, or fixed power. Additionally, because it exits the body in the same state as it entered, it cannot generate heat force through its decomposition process.
Sir Benjamin Brodie says: "Stimulants do not create nervous power; they merely enable you, as it were, to use up that which is left, and then they leave you more in need of rest than before."
Baron Liebig, so far back as 1843, in his "Animal Chemistry," pointed out the fallacy of alcohol-generating power. He says: "The circulation will appear accelerated at the expense of the force available for voluntary motion, but without the production of a greater amount of mechanical force." In his later "Letters," he reiterates, "Wine is quite superfluous to man; it constantly leads to the expenditure of power," while the true purpose of food is to provide energy. He adds: "These drinks promote the change of matter in the body and are, consequently, attended by an inward loss of power, which ceases to be productive because it is not employed in overcoming outward difficulties, i.e., in working." In other words, this prominent chemist asserts that alcohol abstracts the power of the system from doing useful work in the field or workshop in order to cleanse the house from the defilement of alcohol itself.
In his great work on Dietetics, the late Dr. W. Brinton, the Physician to St. Thomas, states: "Careful observation leaves little doubt that a moderate dose of beer or wine would, in most cases, at once diminish the maximum weight which a healthy person could lift." Alcohol so far opposes mental acuteness, accuracy of perception, and delicacy of the senses, as the maximum efforts of each are incompatible with the ingestion of any moderate quantity of fermented liquid. Often, a single glass is sufficient to soothe both the mind and body, lowering their performance to a level below perfection.
In his writing on the topic of alcohol as a food, Dr. F.R. Lees, F.S.A. quotes an essay on "Stimulating Drinks," which was published by Dr. H.R. Madden as long ago as 1847: "Alcohol is not a natural stimulus to any of our organs, and therefore, functions performed as a result of its application tend to debilitate the organ acted upon."
Alcohol is incapable of being assimilated or converted into any organic proximate principle and hence cannot be considered nutritious.
Alcohol use does not add new strength to the system; rather, it manifests by activating pre-existing nervous energy.
Due to its stimulant properties, alcohol's ultimate exhausting effects create an unnatural susceptibility to morbid action in all organs, which, when combined with the plethora it induces, becomes a fertile source of disease.
We can compare a person who consistently exerts himself to the point of needing daily stimulants to prevent exhaustion to a machine operating under extreme pressure. He will become much more susceptible to the causes of disease and will undoubtedly break down sooner than he would under more favorable circumstances.
The more often people turn to alcohol to combat feelings of debility, the more they need it, and with continued use, they eventually reach a point where they can no longer avoid it, unless they concurrently implement a temporary, complete shift in their lifestyle habits.
Driven to the wall.
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Alcohol's lack of direct nutritional value has led medical advocates to view it as a secondary food, as it can slow down the transformation of tissue. Dr. Hunt defines the metamorphosis of tissue as a continuous process in the body that involves the constant disintegration of material, the breaking up and avoidance of what is no longer food, and the creation of a new supply to sustain life. Referring to this metamorphosis, another medical writer asserts: "The disruption of this process clearly demonstrates its crucial role in maintaining life." Any hindrance or suspension in the discharge of excrementitious substances leads to their accumulation in the blood, tissues, or both. In consequence of this retention and accumulation, they become poisonous and rapidly produce a derangement of the vital functions. They primarily impact the nervous system, causing frequent irritability, disturbance of the special senses, delirium, insensibility, coma, and ultimately, death.
"This description," remarks Dr. Hunt, "seems almost intended for alcohol." He then says, "To claim alcohol as a food because it delays the metamorphosis of tissue is to claim that it in some way suspends the normal conduct of the laws of assimilation, nutrition, waste, and repair." According to Hammond, a prominent proponent of alcohol, alcohol slows down the breakdown of tissues. This destruction generates force, causes muscles to contract, develops thoughts, and stimulates organs to secrete and excrete. Put simply, alcohol disrupts all these processes. It's understandable why the author doesn't explain how alcohol accomplishes this, and we're uncertain about how such a delayed metamorphosis can be recovered from.
Not an originator of vital force.
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which is not known to have any of the usual power of foods, and use it on the double assumption that it delays metamorphosis of tissue and that such delay is conservative of health, is to pass outside of the bounds of science into the land of remote possibilities, and confer the title of adjuster upon an agent whose agency is itself doubtful.
We are unable to categorize alcohol as a nitrogenous or non-nitrogenous food, and it doesn't meet any standard criteria for measuring food force. Therefore, we can't discuss the benefits of postponing a regressive metamorphosis without supporting evidence, a scientific description of its process in this particular case, and a demonstration of its practical value for consumption.
Alcohol undoubtedly causes defects in the natural elimination processes of a healthy body, which, even in disease, are often protective of health.
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