The much disputed question as to whether alcohol is a food or not, is really of little or no practical importance.

It is quite true, as might be expected, from its close relation to sugar and the readiness, for instance, with which it will burn in an alcohol lamp or stove, that alcohol, in small amounts, is capable of being burned in the body, thus giving it energy.

This may give it a certain limited value in some forms of sickness, as, for instance, in certain fevers and infections, when the stomach does not seem to be able to digest food.

But here it acts as a medicine rather than as a true food and, like all other medicines, should be used only under skilled medical advice and control.

For practical purposes, any trifling food value it may have is more than offset by its later poisonous and disturbing effects and, secondly, by its enormous expensiveness.
The greatest amount of alcohol that could be consumed in the body at all safely would barely supply one-tenth of the total fuel value needed; and if any one were to attempt to supply the body with energy by the use of alcohol, he would be blind drunk before he had taken one-third of the amount required.