Alcohol: its action on the human organism / by a committee originally appointed by the Central control board (Liquor traffic) and later reconstituted by the Medical research council.

  • Great Britain. Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic). Advisory committee.
Date:
1938
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alcohol: its action on the human organism / by a committee originally appointed by the Central control board (Liquor traffic) and later reconstituted by the Medical research council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lesser degree has actually been related in recent work to some of the pathological conditions occurring in chronic alcoholism (pp. 110 and 113). Fruits and germinated grains are as a rule rich sources of vitamin C, the vitamin pre- venting scurvy. It might be deduced that since the alcohol of all alcoholic beverages originates in the action of yeast on malted liquors or sugary fruit juices, that these beverages must also be a good source of the vitamins of yeast. . This, however, is not true. Harden and Zilva* were unable to find any vitamins in the beers analysed by them. South- gatet found a small amount of the anti-beri-beri (B) vitamin in the beers he examined. It is interesting to note that malt contains this B vitamin in quite a considerable concentration but it is used up by the yeast during the subsequent fermentation and so beer contains little or none of the vitamin.+ Vitamin C has not been found in any of the English beers examined so far. Fresh fruit juices and steeped or germinated barley do contain this anti-scurvy factor but their fermented products (wines and beers) do not.* Southgatet found no evidence for the presence in beers of the important fat soluble vitamins A and D. Hence it is fair to say that alcoholic beverages are not significant sources of any of the known vitamins. Summary It will be useful now to summarise the conclusions which seem to be justified by the evidence discussed in this chapter, and to consider their practical bearings. (1) Alcohol is completely and rapidly absorbed from the stomach and intestine, and distributed by the circulating blood to the different organs of the body. The rate of its absorption is modified by a number of conditions, being * Harden and Zilva: J. Inst. Brew., 1918, 24, 197. t Southgate: Biochem. J., 1924, 18, 769.