ys smoke and clog up the stove, and may explode and
kill some one. So alcohol in the body burns quickly and forms poisons.
It always harms the body and may destroy life at once.

=118. Alcohol and the lungs.=--If you run a long race, your lungs will
need a great deal of air. If you take strong drink, the alcohol will
use up much of the air, and you will not have enough to use on your
run. So you will feel short of breath, and will surely lose the race.
You cannot drink and be long-winded.

Two drinks of whisky will use up as much air as the body uses in an
hour. It would be easy to smother a person with strong drink. Drunken
persons are really smothered; they often die because of the failure of
their breathing, even while their heart is able to beat well.

Alcohol often causes the lungs to become thickened. Then air cannot
easily pass through their sides, and a person suffers from shortness
of breath. Sometimes these persons cannot lie down at all, but must
sit up to catch their breath.

=119. Drinking and taking cold.=--A strong, healthy man can stand a
great deal of cold and wet. If he breathes deeply in his work, all the
cells of his body get plenty of air, and if he eats good food, the
cells get plenty to eat. Then it will take a great deal to harm them.
But alcohol hinders the digestion of their food, and also takes away
their air. So the cells are both starved and smothered, and are easily
hurt. Then a little cold and wet may do great harm to his body, for a
drinker cannot stand bad weather or hard work so well as he could if
he should leave drink alone.

Men often drink to keep themselves from taking cold. The alcohol
really makes them more liable to take cold. It causes the blood to
flow near the surface of the skin; there it is easily cooled, and the
drinker soon becomes chilled; then he feels colder than ever. The cold
harms the cells of his body, and then the white blood cells cannot
easily fight disease germs. For this reason a drinker easily takes
cold and other diseases.

=120. Alcohol lessens the warmth of the body.=--Alcohol causes the
blood tubes in the skin to become larger. Then more blood will touch
the cool air, and the body will become cooler. But because more warm
blood flows through the skin, a man feels warmer. But he is really
colder. Alcohol makes men less able to stand the cold. Travelers in
cold lands know this and do not use it.

=121. How tobacco affects breathing.=--We would not l