The children have already learned that alcohol keeps meat from decaying, or going to pieces.  We explain that food in the stomach must go to pieces to prepare it to make blood; when mixed with alcohol, it is preserved, and the gastric juice cannot melt or dissolve it.  Thus the stomach is hindered from doing its work until it gets rid of the alcohol.

A true story we have read will help you to remember how troublesome alcohol is to the stomach.  Some men in Edinburgh were paid their wages, one Saturday, soon after they had eaten their dinner.  They got drunk and remained so till the next day at noon.  When they became sober they had a headache and were so ill that they sent for a doctor; he gave them some medicine which brought up their Saturday’s dinner just as it had gone down into the stomach.  The poor stomach could do nothing with dinner mixed with whiskey or rum, because these liquors are half alcohol.

You have already learned that the stomach hurries to drive out the alcohol into the liver; the liver sends it with the blood into the heart; the heart pours it into the lungs; the lungs breathe it out through the nose and mouth, and tell that some kind of alcoholic liquor has been taken into the stomach.

Remember, that the alcohol which comes out in the breath is a part of that which went into the mouth.  It could not be changed.  It did nothing but mischief in its journey, which shows that it is not food, but poison.  God, who created the body, has not given any part of it power to change alcohol into blood.

People sometimes take ale or wine because they think it gives them an appetite.  This is a great mistake.  When any alcoholic liquor goes into the stomach, there is such hard work to get it out that the pain of hunger is not felt; when it is out, the stomach is tired and does not tell the brain that it is hungry.  When alcohol is poured into it, day after day, it loses its desire for good, wholesome food, and wants more and more alcoholic liquor.  It has an appetite for alcohol.

Alcohol makes the stomach sore and full of disease; people who take much of it in liquors always suffer much from dyspepsia.

So, if the stomach could speak, it would say:  “Don’t pour any alcohol into me, though you mix it and call it ale, cider, wine, or any other name that makes folks think it will do me no harm.  You cannot deceive me.  I know alcohol as soon as it comes down, and it always makes me suffer.”

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BLACKBOARD OUTLINE.

ALCOHOL—­
      Burns or inflames the coats of the stomach. 
      Spoils the gastric juice. 
      Makes the food hard to be dissolved. 
      Makes the stomach tired and weak. 
      Takes away the appetite for wholesome food. 
      Makes an appetite for alcoholic liquors. 
      Causes disease in the stomach and other digestive organs.

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