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Buzz, the title of Stephen Braun’s book on alcohol and caffeine (Oxford
University Press, New York, $25, ISBN 0 19 509289 9), is what they give
us. And nearly everyone drinks them. Except for water, the world’s most popular
drinks contain one or the other. Braun follows the fate of both in the body. He
has an easy, humorous style, and quotes authorities from Shakespeare to Zippy
the Pinhead. The reader will be impressed—and possibly left a little
queasy—by the description of how the human chemical engineering plant
deals with poisons. You might need a drink to recover. Braun is not against
that, but balks at the idea that “another little drink won’t do us any
harm”.