Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/413

Rh "There is no evidence that the alcohol has merely hastened the excretion of urates normally present in the blood; the increased excretion means that a larger quantity has been in circulation, and although it is classed by Van Noorden among the substances easily excreted, still most physiologists would consider the presence in the blood of this larger quantity as undesirable. Certainly in pathological conditions it might be harmful.

"If we accept the origin of the increased quantity of uric acid to be in the impaired oxidative powers of the liver, the results of these experiments will have greater significance than can be attributed to uric acid alone. For the impaired function would affect other processes which are normally accomplished by that organ, and the possibilities for entrance into the general circulation of toxic substances, of intestinal putrefaction, for instance, would be increased. The liver performs a large number of oxidations and syntheses designed to keep toxic substances from reaching the body tissues, and if alcohol, in the moderate quantity which caused the increase in uric acid excretion, impairs its power in this respect, the prevalent ideas regarding the harmlessness of moderate drinking need revision."

Dr. Winfield S. Hall, professor of physiology at the Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, has interpreted these researches of Beebe and Hunt in a very striking way. He says that they prove that the oxidation of alcohol in the body is a protective oxidation, the same as the oxidation of any other poisonous substance by the liver. His views have such an important bearing upon the commonly accepted theory that alcohol is in some sense a food that they are given here, somewhat abbreviated, as a fitting finish to this chapter. Dr. Hall says:—

"The fact that alcohol is oxidized in the body has been generally misunderstood. The first impression naturally was;