Moreover, when it is taken with an ordinary supply of food, it is found that, for every ounce of alcohol burned in the body, a similar amount of the other food is prevented from being consumed, and probably goes to waste, owing to the harmful effects of alcohol upon digestion. Therefore, to talk of alcohol as a food is really absurd. The Effect of Alcohol on Digestion. It has been urged by some that alcohol increases the appetite, and enables one to digest larger amounts of food. The early experiments seemed to support this claim by showing that alcohol, well diluted, and in moderate amounts, increased appetite and the flow of the gastric juice. When the experiments were carried a little further, however, it was clearly shown that its presence in the stomach and intestines, in such amounts as would result from a glass of beer, or one or two glasses of claret-wine with a meal, interfered with the later stages of digestion, so that the later harmful effects overbalanced any earlier good effects. Its Effect on the Temperature of the Body. Another claim urged in its favor was that it warmed the body and protected it against cold. It ought to have been easy for any one with a sense of humor to judge the value of this claim by the fact that it was equally highly commended by its users as a means of keeping them cool in hot weather. Its supposed effects in the case of both heat and cold were due to the same fact: it deadened the nerves for a time to whatever sense of discomfort one might then be suffering from, but made no change whatever in the condition of the body that caused the discomfort. Any drug which has this deadening effect on the nerves is called a narcotic; and it is in this class that alcohol belongs, together with the stronger narcotics, _opium_, _chloroform_, _ether_, and _chloral_. In fact, it was quickly found in the bitter school of experience that alcohol, though producing an apparent glow of warmth for the time, instead of increasing our power to resist cold, rapidly and markedly lessens it; so that those who drink heavily are much more likely to die from cold and exposure than those who let alcohol alone. Nowadays, Arctic explorers, explorers in the tropics, officers of armies upon forced marches, and those who have to train themselves for the most severe strains on their powers of endurance, all bear testimony to the fact that the use of alcohol is harmful instead of helpful under these conditions, and that it is not for a moment to be compared to real foods, like meat, sugar, or fat.