The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

38 Tie PIijsiolo,ical Eff~'cts of A l(olol.
proximately how much of each respiratory material must
be taken in the food in order, with the same consumption
of oxygen, to keep the body at the same temperature
during equal times"; and in this scale, placing fat and oil
at Ioo, as a standard, starch was placed at 240, cane
sugar at 249, grape sugar at 263, alcohol at 266; so that,
as a warmer of the body, the value of alcohol was but a
little over one-third that of fatty and oily substances, and
inferior to the sugar by whose destruction it was called
forth. "The effect of fat is the slowest in being produced, but it lasts much longer. Of all respiratory matters alcohol acts most rapidly;"* so that, besides the
effect being sooner spent, the greater affinity of alcohol
for oxygen was calculated to retard the removal, by oxidation, of those waste matters whose retention in the
blood is always attended with danger, if not positive injury to the health. It is obvious that this theory could
never justify the use -of alcohol so long as the other and
better kinds of respiratory food were procurable, as they
always are, and at less expense; but the theory itself,
after yielding unreasoning satisfaction to the opponents
of total abstinence, wvas scientifically assailed by the experiments of Drs. Lallemand and Perrin, and M. Duroy,
as recorded in their great prize treatise on the "Action of
Alcohol."t In this work, published in I86o, a minute account is given of numerous carefully conducted experiments, resulting in the discovery that alcohol is eliminated unchanged from the body by the various excretory
organs, for many hours after it has been consumed.
These experiments were repeated by Dr. Edward Smiith,
* See "Familiar Letters on Chemistry," by Justus von Liebig-Letters
xxvii. and xxix.
t See Appendix F.
$ That alcohol is present in the blood and brain for many hours after being
consumed, and in a quantity sufficient to kindle a flame, had been previously
shown by the researches of Mr. Hare, M.R.C.S., Dr. Ogston, Dr. Kiuk, and
especially by Dr. Percy, in his prize thesis on Alcohol, published in 183q.