So the chemist helped him out of this difficulty and got him into worse trouble by distilling the wine. The more volatile part that came over first contained the flavor and most of the alcohol. In this way he could get liquors like brandy and whisky, rum and gin, containing from thirty to eighty per cent. of alcohol. This was the origin of the modern liquor problem. The wine of the ancients was strong enough to knock out Noah and put the companions of Socrates under the table, but it was not until distilled liquors came in that alcoholism became chronic, epidemic and ruinous to whole populations.
But the chemist later tried to undo the ruin he had quite inadvertently wrought by introducing alcohol into the world. One of his most successful measures was the production of cheap and pure sugar which, as we have seen, has become a large factor in the dietary of civilized countries. As a country sobers up it takes to sugar as a "self-starter" to provide the energy needed for the strenuous life. A five o'clock candy is a better restorative than a five o'clock highball or even a five o'clock tea, for it is a true nutrient instead of a mere stimulant. It is a matter of common observation that those who like sweets usually do not like alcohol. Women, for instance, are apt to eat candy but do not commonly take to alcoholic beverages. Look around you at a banquet table and you will generally find that those who turn down their wine glasses generally take two lumps in their demi-tasses. We often hear it said that whenever a candy store opens up a saloon in the same block closes up. Our grandmothers used to warn their daughters: "Don't marry a man who does not want sugar in his tea. He is likely to take to drink." So, young man, when next you give a box of candy to your best girl and she offers you some, don't decline it. Eat it and pretend to like it, at least, for it is quite possible that she looked into a physiology and is trying you out. You never can tell what girls are up to.
In the army and navy ration the same change has taken place as in the popular dietary. The ration of rum has been mostly replaced by an equivalent amount of candy or marmalade. Instead of the tippling trooper of former days we have "the chocolate soldier." No previous war in history has been fought so largely on sugar and so little on alcohol as the last one. When the war reduced the supply and increased the demand we all felt the sugar famine and it became a mark of patriotism to refuse candy and to drink coffee unsweetened. This, however, is not, as some think, the mere curtailment of a superfluous or harmful luxury, the sacrifice of a pleasant sensation. It is a real deprivation and a serious loss to national nutrition. For there is no reason to think the constantly rising curve of sugar consumption has yet reached its maximum or optimum. Individuals overeat, but not the population as a whole. According to experiments of the Department of Agriculture men doing heavy labor may add three-quarters of a pound of sugar to their daily diet without any deleterious effects. This is at the rate of 275 pounds a year, which is three times the average consumption of England and America. But the Department does not state how much a girl doing nothing ought to eat between meals.
Of the 2500 to 3500 calories of energy required to keep a man going for a day the best source of supply is the carbohydrates, that is, the sugars and starches. The fats are more concentrated but are more expensive and less easily assimilable. The proteins are also more expensive and their decomposition products are more apt to clog up the system. Common sugar is almost an ideal food. Cheap, clean, white, portable, imperishable, unadulterated, pleasant-tasting, germ-free, highly nutritious, completely soluble, altogether digestible, easily assimilable, requires no cooking and leaves no residue. Its only fault is its perfection. It is so pure that a man cannot live on it. Four square lumps give one hundred calories of energy. But twenty-five or thirty-five times that amount would not constitute a day's ration, in fact one would ultimately starve on such fare. It would be like supplying an army with an abundance of powder but neglecting to provide any bullets, clothing or food. To make sugar the sole food is impossible. To make it the main food is unwise. It is quite proper for man to separate out the distinct ingredients of natural products—to extract the butter from the milk, the casein from the cheese, the sugar from the cane—but he must not forget to combine them again at each meal with the other essential foodstuffs in their proper proportion.
THE RIVAL SUGARS The sugar beet of the north has become a close rival of the sugar cane of the south
INTERIOR OF A SUGAR MILL SHOWING THE MACHINERY FOR CRUSHING CANE TO EXTRACT THE JUICE