26. Mr. Darwin tried a great many experiments with various poisons, and found that the plants were affected in much the same way by ether and chloroform, and also by nicotine, the poisonous oil of tobacco.  Sugar, milk, and other foods had no such effect.  This does not look much as though alcohol would help digestion; does it?

27.  Effects of Alcohol on Digestion.—­Dr. Roberts, a very eminent English scientist, made many experiments, a few years ago, to ascertain positively about the effect of alcohol upon digestion.  He concluded that alcohol, even in small doses, delays digestion.  This is quite contrary to the belief of very many people, who suppose that wine, cider, or stronger liquors aid digestion.  The use of alcohol in the form of beer or other alcoholic drinks is often a cause of serious disease of the stomach and other digestive organs.

28.  Effects of Alcohol on Animal Heat.—­A large part of the food we eat is used in keeping our bodies warm.  Most of the starch, sugar, and fat in our food serves the body as a sort of fuel.  It is by this means that the body is kept always at about the same temperature, which is just a little less than one hundred degrees.  This is why we need more food in very cold weather than in very warm weather.

29. When a person takes alcohol, it is found that instead of being made warmer by it, he is not so warm as before.  He feels warmer, but if his temperature be ascertained by means of a thermometer placed in his mouth, it is found that he is really colder.  The more alcohol a person takes the colder he becomes.  If alcohol were good food would we expect this to be the case?  It is probably true that the alcohol does make a little heat, but at the same time it causes us to lose much more heat than it makes.  The outside of the body is not so warm as the inside.  This is because the warm blood in the blood-vessels of the skin is cooled more rapidly than the blood in the interior of the body.  The effect of alcohol is to cause the blood-vessels of the outside of the body to become much enlarged.  This is why the face becomes flushed.  A larger amount of warm blood is brought from the inside of the body to the outside, where it is cooled very rapidly; and thus the body loses heat, instead of gaining it, under the influence of alcohol.  This is not true of any proper food substance.

30.  Alcohol in the Polar Regions.—­Experience teaches the same thing as science respecting the effect of alcohol.  Captain Ross, Dr. Kane, Captain Parry, Captain Hall, Lieutenant Greely, and many other famous explorers who have spent long months amid the ice and snow and intense cold of the countries near the North Pole, all say that alcohol does not warm a man when he is cold, and does not keep him from getting cold.  Indeed, alcohol is considered so dangerous in these cold regions that no Arctic explorer at the present time could be induced to use it.  The Hudson Bay Company do not allow the men who work for them to use any kind of alcoholic liquors.  Alcohol is a great deceiver, is it not?  It makes a man think he is warmer, when he is really colder.  Many men are frozen to death while drunk.