of food
while it remains in the stomach.

Dr. Figg, of Edinburgh, fed two dogs with roast mutton; to one of them
he gave 1-1/2 ounces of spirit. Three hours later he killed both dogs.
The dog without liquor had digested the mutton; the other had not
digested his at all. Similar experiments have been made repeatedly with
like result.

The elements of our food which the stomach can digest depend upon the
pepsin of the gastric juice for their transformation. Alcohol diminishes
the secretions of the gastric juice, unless given in very minute
quantities, and kills and precipitates its pepsin. It also coagulates
both albumen and fibrine, converting them into a solid substance, thus
rendering them unfit for the action of the solvent principles of the
gastric juice. Hence, any considerable quantity of alcohol taken into
the stomach must for the time retard the function of digestion.

Many experiments have been made with gastric juice in vials, one, having
alcohol added, the other, not having alcohol. The meat in the vials
without alcohol, in time dissolved till it bore the appearance of soup;
in the vials to which alcohol was added the meat remained practically
unchanged. In the latter a deposit of pepsin was found at the bottom,
the alcohol having precipitated it. Dr. Henry Munroe, of England, one of
the experimenters in this line of research, says:--

"Alcohol, even in a diluted form, has the peculiar power of
interfering with the ordinary process of digestion.

"As long as alcohol remains in the stomach in any degree of
concentration, the process of digestion is arrested, and is not
continued until enough gastric juice is thrown out to overcome
its effects."--_Tracy's Physiology_, page 90.

In _The Human Body_, Dr. Newell Martin says:--

"A vast number of persons suffer from alcoholic dyspepsia
without knowing its cause; people who were never drunk in their
lives and consider themselves very temperate. Abstinence from
alcohol, the cause of the trouble, is the true remedy."

Sir B. W. Richardson:--

"The common idea that alcohol acts as an aid to digestion is
without foundation. Experiments on the artificial digestion of
food, in which the natural process is closely imitated, show
that the presence of alcohol in the solvents employed interferes
with and weakens the efficacy of the solvents. It is also one of
the most definite of facts that persons who