Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/122

114 as already stated. Physiologists of the present day very generally agree that the capacity of the blood to receive oxygen from the lungs, and convey it to the systemic capillaries and various tissues, depends chiefly on its hemoglobin (red coloring matter), protein, or albuminous and saline elements.

"Both experimental and clinical facts in abundance show that alcohol at all ordinary temperatures displays a much stronger affinity for these elements of the blood and tissues, than it does for oxygen. And when present in the blood, it rapidly attracts both water and hemoglobin from the corpuscular and albuminoid elements of that fluid, and thereby diminishes its reception and distribution of oxygen. We are thus enabled to see clearly how the alcohol diminishes the oxygenation and decarbonization of the blood, and retards all tissue changes both of nutrition and waste without itself under-going oxidation with evolution of heat. Consequently, instead of acting as a shield or conservator of the tissues by simply combining with the oxygen, the alcohol directly impairs the properties and functions of the most highly vitalized elements of the blood itself, and thereby not only retards tissue waste but also equally retards the highest grades of nutrition, and favors only sclerotic, fatty and molecular degenerations, as we see everywhere resulting from its continued use. Can an agent displaying such properties and effects be called a food, either direct or indirect, without a total disregard for the proper meaning of words?"

In another place he says :—

Dr. Ezra M. Hunt says in Alcohol as Food and as Medicine, page 37 :—