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