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.