THE SCIENCE OF ALCOHOL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5077, 2 July 1877, Page 3

THE SCIENCE OF ALCOHOL.

(From the London Echo.) By slow but nevertheless by sure steps Jthe nature and physiological effects of alcohol are becoming better understood ; and physician after physician pronounces against its use as an article of food for human beings.' By its chemical composition, ethylic alcohol would take a certain place as a food, because it is represented by the symbols C 4 H 6 O, which show that it possesses carbon, or heat-giving properties; butwhilst at one time it was considered a food, and was subsequently declared to be utterly useless in the human economy—being eliminated comparatively unchanged—it is now generally conceded that it is a “ food” of a sort, but working rather more injury than good in the human system. If we take two men of equal vitality, and give one alcohol and keep all food from the other, it is probable that; the one who has the alcohol will live the longest ; but we know now that, if human beings are supplied with suitable food, those . who take the least alcohol, cceteris paribus, live the loigest. So far we have used the term “alcohol” in a general way ; but pure alcohol is only known in the chemist’s laboratory. It has so great an affinity for water that it is only by the greatest care that the chemist can obtain it absolutely pure. He must distil it over and over again, and absorb the water with caustic potash before he can obtain the liquid he wants. Now this liquid is, absolute poison, if we can conceive it possible that any one would drink it. So energetically does it absorb water that, taken into the system, it would dry up the tissues and destroy life. In its commercial forms of brandy, rum, whisky, and gin, it appears as alcohol and water, flavored with certain others obtained from the ingredients of tho mash put into the still of the rectifier. The crude spirit is made from all sorts of things—from starch, from sugar, from potatoes (which chemically represent the same thing), and it can even be prepared from petroleum, which is simply a compound of hydrogen and carbon. This crude spirit is rectified and flavored to suit the public taste, and appears in bottles as so much “underproof.” Proof spirit may be taken to mean half water and half alcohol. This is, or should |be, ethylic alcohol; but there are several other alcohols, the chief of which is amylic, which forms the solvent used in the, varnishes and polishes of the cabinetmaker. In the case of malt liquors the alcohol they contain is obtained from sugar, and from the starch of the barley, which has been converted into sugar in the process known as malting. We have not space, however, 'to describe the chemistry of the subject here. Suffice it to say that, while alcoholic drinks to a certain extent act as stimulants, it is now known that they are really depressants and narcotics. As ordinarily imbibed, they act for a time as stimulants, so-called. Ti w ' accelerate the motions of the heart ar d the nerves; they cause a feel?.r. warmth at the surfse- ' is decreas®' 1 ■ : _ . ■■.j-.mi quickly mu co suw-oct'ent that'it is readily detected gV'sjf ' AH of a thermometer. As bodily heat) especially in this climate, is synonymous with vitality, it will be readily understood that anything which reduces it, without furnishing the requisite material for the reaction, must of necessity be useless as an article of food.