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Show AlcohoT Causes Experts to Disagree. Dr. .Forel's statement made daring the anti-akohol anti-akohol congress at Bremen that alcohol has no food value whatever, is another case which causes the layman to reflect upon the tendency of experts to disagree. Dr. Forel made his statement as the result re-sult of experiments extending over three years. As the Chicago Chronicle says the celebrated experiments experi-ments with "the man in the glass cage" about a year ago were held to hare demonstrated that alcohol alco-hol in small quantities has a distinct food value.' These experiments were pointed to by the defenders of alcohol as conclusive proof that it had a distinct value aside from its stimulating qualities. Dr. Forel's pronouncement tangles the whole matter up once more and leaves the dispute where it was before. be-fore. After all, however, the question does not deserve de-serve half the attention that has been given to it. In point of fact it is a side issue of small importance. impor-tance. For if it be admitted that alcohol has a food value it certainly will be conceded that many other substances are greatly to be preferred as foods substances which impart nourishment without entailing en-tailing any of. the deleterious effects of alcohol. That is to say, there are many foods, both solid and liquid, which are far more valuable than alcohol and which do not carry with them the possibility of sorrow, suffering and disgrace. Indeed, even the stimulant value of alcohol is no longer generally conceded by the medical profession. In the language lan-guage of a well-known Chicago physician, "There is nothing, that alcohol will do as a stimulant and tonic that strychnine will do not twice as well and without any of the evil results which follow the use of alcohol. No man need delude himself with the notion that he needs whisky as a medicine." Alcohol, Alco-hol, therefore, must be relegated to the class of substances which man uses at his peril. It has no quality which is not found in other substances which are innocuous. |