The philosophy of eating. By Albert J. Bellows, M.D.

PROFESSOR CARPENTER'S OPINION.

223

them together as heat-producing articles of food; and
that idea has since been adopted by many, 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