Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ...unless that influence is counterbalanced by the indirect action exerted through the nervous system. If it protects protein, the question would be whether its effect is the same, or greater, or less than the effect of isodynamic amounts of the carbohydrates or fats. The questions, then, are: (1) Does alcohol by its oxidation tend directly to protect the protein of food or body material from consumption? (2) Does it by its indirect action tend to increase or decrease protein katabolism? (3) Under what circumstances does the first or the second of these actions actually obtain, and may they occur at the same time, and thus tend to counteract each other? (4) On the whole, can and does alcohol in moderate doses protect body protein, and, if so, how does it compare in this respect with isodynamic amounts of fats and carbohydrates? Experimental methods. Nitrogen balance.--It is the almost universal custom to strike a balance between the income of nitrogen in the food and the outgo of nitrogen in the feces and urine for a given period, and take this as a measure of the gain or loss of nitrogen in the body. The quantity of nitrogen gained or lost is multiplied by a given factor (generally 6.25), and the product is taken as the gain or loss of body protein.1 Numerous experimenters assume that the nitrogenous material thus measured is true proteid. Others recognizing the facts that not all of the nitrogen of either food or body material is in the form of proteid, and that multiplying the amount of nitrogen by any factor may fail to give the exact amount of either total nitrogenous material or total proteid, prefer the term protein to designate the nitrogenous material as thus estimated. So far as the gain or loss of nitrogenous material in the body...