For that purpose it was necessary to
eliminate the odor, and this was accomplished by introducing the
beverages into the organism by a stomach pump. When by this method
sometimes water and sometimes diluted alcohol was given without the
knowledge of the subject, the usual effects of small doses of alcohol
did not arise. But another point is far more important. We may take it
for granted that alcohol reduces the ability for achievement as soon
as such very small doses are exceeded. But from the standpoint of
economic life we have no right to consider a reduction of the
psychical ability to produce work as identical with a decrease in the
economic value of the personality. Such a view would be right if the
influence necessarily set in at the beginning of the working period.
But if, for instance, a moderate quantity of beer is introduced into
the organism after the closing of the working day, it would certainly
produce an artificial reduction of the psychical ability, and yet this
decrease of psychophysical activity might be advantageous to the total
economic achievement of the workingman in the course of the week or
the year. To be sure the glass of beer in the evening paralyzes
certain inhibitory centres of the brain and therefore puts the mind
out of gear, but such a way of expressing it may easily be misleading,
as it suggests too much that a real injury is done. From the point of
view of scientific psychology, we must acknowledge that such a
paralyzing effect in certain parts of the psychophysical system sets
in with every act of attention and reaches its climax in sleep, which
surely does no harm to the mind.
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