The Philosophy of Eating (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 Excerpt: ...perhaps most chemists, and some physiologists; but I have endeavored to show (pages 37-41) that the same combination of elements may be, and are, nutritious or poisonous as they are or are not organized by the process which Nature has provided; and that while sugar is a valuable principle in food, alcohol contains no power of sustaining life, but, on the other hand, produces in the human system "evil, and only evil, and that continually;" and this I shall endeavor to prove. Professor Carpenter, of the London University, has published a book on physiology, which as late as 1860 has been republished in Philadelphia, edited by Professor Francis Guerney Smith. From that Physiology, which is now the standard work in this country and England, I copy these words: --"It may be safely affirmed that alcohol cannot answer any one purpose for which the use of water is required in the system, but, on the other hand, it tends to antagonize many of those purposes." "Alcoholic liquids cannot supply anything which is essential to the due nutrition of the system." "The action of alcohol upon the living body is essentially that of a stimulus, increasing, for a time, the vital activity of the body, but being followed by a corresponding depression of power, which is the more prolonged and severe in proportion as the previous excitement has been greater." The U. S. Dispensatory, compiled by Professor Wood, of Philadelphia, the standard work on thai subject in the United States, also expresses similai opinions on the character and effects of alcohol. Professor Bigelow's Materia Medica, the standard work when I was a member of Harvard School, expresses a similar opinion. All agree that alcohol is ai stimulus which, literally, means a goad, a ...