Effects of Prolonged Alcohol Ingestion on the Liver of the Rat under Conditions of Controlled Adequate Dietary Intake *

For over a century clinicians and pathologists have recognized a relationship between over-indulgence in alcohol and the occurrence of cirrhosis, but attempts to demonstrate a direct hepatotoxic effect of ethyl alcohol or to produce alcoholic cirrhosis experimentally in animals have generally been unsuccessful. Moreover, as the result of recent studies on the hepatic effects of dietary deficiency, alcohol has been relegated to a secondary role in the pathogenesis of cirrhosis.