Question

Read this excerpt from First Book in Physiology and Hygiene, written in 1887 by J. H. Kellogg. If you should put a little alcohol into your eye, the eye would become very red. When men take strong liquors into their stomachs, the delicate membrane lining the stomach becomes red in the same way. Perhaps you will ask how do we know that alcohol has such an effect upon the stomach. More than sixty years ago there lived in Michigan a man named Alexis St. Martin. One day he was, by accident, shot in such a way that a large opening was made right through the skin and flesh and into the stomach. The good doctor who attended him took such excellent care of him that he got well. But when he recovered, the hole in his stomach remained, so that the doctor could look in and see just what was going on. St. Martin sometimes drank whiskey, and when he did, the doctor often looked into his stomach to see what the effect was, and he noticed that the inside of the stomach looked very red and inflamed. If St. Martin continued to drink whiskey for several days, the lining of the stomach looked very red and raw like a sore eye. A sore stomach cannot digest food well, and so the whole body becomes sick and weak. What would you think of a man who should keep his eyes always sore and inflamed and finally destroy his eyesight by putting pepper or alcohol or some other irritating substance into them every day? Is it not equally foolish and wicked to injure the stomach and destroy one's digestion by the use of alcoholic drinks? Alcohol, even when it is not very strong, not only hurts the lining of the stomach, but injures the gastric juice, so that it cannot digest the food well. Question 21 of 22 What is the implied main idea of the passage? Consuming alcohol in moderation helps digestion. Consuming alcohol is destructive to the digestive system. Consuming alcohol helps heal gunshot wounds. Consuming alcohol results in bad vision.

Answer 1

Consuming alcohol is destructive to the digestive system.

Almost immediately, the passage compares an alcohol doused stomach to an alcohol doused eye, which informs the reader of hos alcohol is damaging. The author goes on to explain an anecdote of a doctor in which the theory was tested and found true.