§ 163. =Excretion of Alcohol.=--Alcohol, in the diluted form, is quickly absorbed by the blood-vessels of the stomach, &c., and circulates in the blood; but what becomes of it afterwards is by no means settled. I think there can be little doubt that the lungs are the main channels through which it is eliminated; with persons given up to habits of intemperance, the breath has constantly a very peculiar ethereal odour, probably dependent upon some highly volatile oxidised product of alcohol. Alcohol is eliminated in small proportion only by the kidneys. Thudichum, in an experiment[152] by which 4000 grms. of absolute alcohol were consumed by thirty-three men, could only find in the collected urine 10 grms. of alcohol. The numerous experiments by Dupré also establish the same truth, that but a fraction of the total alcohol absorbed is excreted by the kidneys. According to Lallemand, Perrin, and Duroy the content of the brain in alcohol is more than that of the other organs. I have found also that the brain after death has a wonderful attraction for alcohol, and yields it up at a water-heat very slowly and with difficulty. In one experiment, in which a finely-divided portion of brain, which had been soaking in alcohol for many weeks, was submitted to a steam heat of 100°, twenty-four hours’ consecutive heating failed to expel every trace of spirit. [152] See Thudichum’s _Pathology of the Urine_, London, 1877, in which both his own and Dr. Dupré’s experiments are summarised. It is probable that true alcoholates of the chemical constituents of the brain are formed. In the case of vegetable colloidal bodies, such, for example, as the pulp of cherries, a similar attraction has been observed, the fruit condensing, as it were, the alcohol in its own tissues, and the outer liquid being of less alcoholic strength than that which can be expressed from the steeped cherries. Alcohol is also excreted by the sweat, and minute fractions have been found in the fæces. § 164. =Toxicological Detection of Alcohol= (see “Foods,” pp. 406-419).--The living cells of the body produce minute quantities of alcohol, as also some of the bacteria normally inhabiting the small intestine produce small quantities of alcohol, and it is often found in traces in putrefying fluids. Hence, mere qualitative proofs of the presence of alcohol are insufficient on which to base an opinion as to whether alcohol had been taken during life or not, and it will be necessary to estimate the quantity accurately by some of the processes detailed in “Foods,” p. 409, _et seq._ In those cases in which alcohol is found in quantity in the stomach, there can, of course, be no difficulty; in others, the whole of the alcohol may have been absorbed, and chemical evidence, unless extremely definite, must be supplemented by other facts. 2. AMYLIC ALCOHOL.