Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/118

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110
ALCOHOL AS A MEDICINE.
 

creased when it is present in the body. The quantity of carbonic acid exhaled by the breath is proportionately diminished with the decline of animal heat.

Arctic explorers learned by experience what science discovered by experiment. Dr. Hayes, the explorer, says :—

"While fresh animal food, and especially fat, is absolutely essential to the inhabitants and travelers in Arctic countries, alcohol, in almost any shape, is not only completely useless, but positively injurious."

Lieutenant Johnson, who accompanied Nansen upon his northern expedition, said, when interviewed by a reporter of the London Daily News :—

"The common opinion that alcohol becomes in some way a necessity in cold countries is entirely a mistaken one. This has been conclusively proved by the expedition. In making up his list of the Fram's equipments, Nansen did not include any spirits, with the exception of some spirits of wine for lamps and stoves."

In the list of stores taken upon the long sledging expedition after leaving the Fram no liquors are mentioned. See Farthest North, by Nansen. The omission of spirits was not because of any "temperance fanaticism," but because the experience of former Arctic expeditions had shown clearly that men freeze more readily after partaking of alcohol than when they totally abstain from it.

That wine is not a fuel-food was shown conclusively in the Franco-Prussian war during the siege