ISSN:
1439-6327
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Medicine
Notes:
Summary The rate of disappearance of alcohol from the human body was studied during 3 hours immediately following ingestion of 30 and 50 cc. of alcohol, with the subject (a man) at rest during the entire time or working and resting for different lengths of time. The work lasted 1/2 hour, 1 hour, or 2 hours, and immediately followed the ingestion of alcohol or was preceded by a 1-hour rest period. The rates of work (performed on a bicycle ergometer) were 275, 415, and 550 kg./m. per minute. The muscular work did not appreciably alter the concentration of alcohol in urine, in blood, or in expired air (as shown by measurements of the amounts eliminated per liter of ventilating air current of the respiration apparatus and by estimations of the amounts eliminated per liter of expired air), and the alcohol eliminated per liter of carbon dioxide exhaled was not changed. The amount of alcohol in the ventilating air current was highest in the first 15-minute period after ingestion and gradually decreased to a very low level in the 3 hours, under conditions both of rest and of work. When the subject was working, the amounts eliminated in the 15-minute periods were greater than when he was at rest and were greater the severer the work, due to the increased total ventilation of the lungs, but after the work ceased the period values approached those found in the same time interval after ingestion in the rest experiments. The total amount of alcohol eliminated in the ventilating air current during 3 hours after ingestion was doubled or more than doubled by 2 hours' work at 275 and 415 kg./m. per minute. The percentage of the total amount ingested that was eliminated in the ventilating air current was from 0.4 to 0.7 in the rest experiments and from 0.9 to 1.6 in the work experiments. The total amount eliminated in the urine and the expired air was from 0.8 to 1.6 per cent in the rest experiments and from 1.1 to 2.1 per cent in the work experiments. The disappearance of alcohol through these paths plays only a small rÔle in reducing the amount of alcohol in the body.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02011256
