I 
10 
THE ALCOHOL PROBLEM 
THE INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON PHYSICAL 
EFFICIENCY. 
The effect of alcohol on physical efficiency has been 
investigated by a number of different methods, many 
of them involving the use of elaborate scientific 
apparatus, but for the most part I shall confine myself 
to describing the results obtained in comparatively 
simple muscular movements with which everyone is 
conversant. The most obvious of these is walking, 
and an exact series of experiments on the speed of 
walking and climbing was made by Professor Durig,* 
of Vienna. Durig walked regularly for 2 month up a 
slight incline followed by a climb up a steep ascent to 
the summit of the Bilken Pass, and after he had got 
into training he found that he took 50 minutes over the 
slight incline, and 2 hours 40 minutes over the steep 
ascent. He then made a number of observations, in 
which he took the moderate dose of alcohol (30 c.c.) 
above mentioned. He drank it, diluted with 6 ozs 
of water, along with his early morning tea and a scrap 
of bread. It produced no subjective sensations or 
disinclination to climb; yet Durig found that the slight 
incline took him 60 minutes instead of the previous 
50, and the steep ascent 3 hours 5 minutes instead of 
the previous 2 hours 40 minutes. Not only was his 
speed diminished by the alcohol, but Durig found, 
from observations made with an apparatus carried on 
his back, that he expended g per cent. more bodily 
energy over the work. He was inclined to attribute 
his deterioration in performance to the lack of skill 
with which he directed his movements, and he felt as 
%* Durig, Pfliiger's Archiv, vol. cxiii., p. 341, 1906.