[26] So decisive is the paralyzing power of a narcotic dose of alcohol upon the stomach in some cases, that we have seen a drunken man vomit scarcely altered food which, it appeared, had been eaten fourteen hours before. The sum and substance of the above argument is that, as the narcotic dose of alcohol prevents the digestion of other food, it will also prevent the digestion of itself.
[27] In typhoid and typhus the "poison-line" of alcohol is shifted, so that large quantities may be taken without risk of narcosis. Women, in this condition, have been known to consume 36 oz. of brandy (containing 18 oz. of alcohol) per diem.
[28] It is not certain, however, that alcoholic drinks, as usually taken, materially retard the waste of tissue. These drinks contain but from 2 to 50 per cent of alcohol; the remainder being chiefly water, which is a great accelerator of waste. The weight-sustaining power of brandy, or especially of wine and ale, can, therefore, perhaps be hardly accounted for without admitting a true food-action.
[29] Dalton, Human Physiology, p. 363.
[30] Payen, Substances Alimentaires, p. 482.
[31] The liquid food may be taken in the shape of free water, or of water contained in the tissues of succulent vegetables. See Pereira, Treatise on Food and Diet, p. 277.
[32] Physiological Memoirs, Philadelphia, 1863, p. 48.
[33] Anstie, op. cit. p. 388.
[34] Brinton, Treatise on Food and Digestion; and Cornhill Magazine, Sept. 1862; cited in the pamphlet of Gov. Andrew, above-mentioned.
[35] Liebig, Letters on Chemistry, p. 454.