Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/77

Rh than they are when alcohol is not present in the blood. Even a teaspoonful of alcohol to a ½ gallon of water hinders natural growth. If liquor is given to puppies it keeps them small. Young growing-cells are most affected by it, because they are most tender. There are growing-cells in adults as well as in children, for people are growing and changing all through their lives.

Hence, when alcohol is administered in sickness the cells are hindered in the full performance of their function of taking up food for the building up of tissue, and as a consequence, the patient's body is really robbed of nutriment by the agent which is supposed to be " keeping up his strength."Truly, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."

That alcohol interferes with the passage of waste matter from the body is generally conceded. Indeed this is claimed by the advocates of its medicinal use as one of its virtues; the fact that less waste passes from the body being urged as evidence that there is less waste, that in some way alcohol preserves tissue from being used up in the natural way. Those who speak thus seem to think that they know better than the Creator how the body should be treated. He made the body so that in health, work, waste and repair should be equal to one another.

Dr. Ezra M. Hunt says in Alcohol as a Food and as a Medicine:—