turbances of vital processes against which they contend are more grave.

But it is brought out very strongly that alcohol does not impart force, or enable extra work to be done without injury to the body. If taken during exertion it rather entails more weariness in the end by blunting the sensation for a time to the wear of the tissues, which consequently go on being worn out in a reckless manner. Its only legitimate employment during labour is just before the end-say during the last mile or two of a hard march-when its inmediate anæsthetic effects will not have time to be worked off before repose is afforded, or when the atmospheric influences are peculiarly depressing.

Physiologists cannot too strongly impress these facts upon the public, for it is doubtless from the bad results of its employment during work that the moderate consumption of alcohol has acquired its evil fame. It is quite true that we frequently meet with most respectable persons, both male and female, who have never been drunk in their lives, yet have lapsed into a condition of alcoholism by taking extremely small doses of stimulant between meals, to enable them, as they say, to bear up against their work. The same quantities added together and consumed once a day after work would probably have secured them a good night's refreshing rest and an appetite for the morrow. And it is quite true that these people have more difficulty than drunkards have in surrendering their habits and substituting temperance; and, indeed, for them a total abstinence from alcohol for many months is usually the only course which prudence can recommend.

Dr. Parkes has not bounded his inquiries to the establishment of the principle that alcohol is of little service as a stimulant for obtaining the full safe amount of labour from the animal frame; he has sought for something to take its place by really doing what it professes to do. Is there no better way of supplying in a convenient form what may renew the strength during exertion without entailing future injury? A few years ago our military neighbours would have promptly answered," Bouillon." But the kettle and the can are terrible impediments to rapid movement, and the delays arising from cooking appear to have contributed in no slight degree to the unhappy termination of the Franco-German war. What is wanted is something of small bulk and easy carriage, facile of digestion when mixed with hot or cold water, agreeable to the senses, and not quickly spoilt, and which would not supersede the usual food, but rather increase the appetite for it when the opportunity for meals is afforded.

Dr. Parkes considers that he has found this desideratum in

the meat extracts to which manufacturing industry is now turning its earnest attention. In order to test this opinion he made experiments on three intelligent soldiers, whom he caused to march in "heavy marching order"-that is carrying weight to the amount of fifty-one pounds-twenty miles a day for six days, taking, in addition to their usual rations, on two days rum, on two days meat extract, and on two days coffee, all in moderate quantities. These several stimulants were given at 12.30 and 2.30 during the march, and at the end of the experiments the men were asked to state their candid opinion of their relative value in imparting force. All three awarded the palm to the meat extract under ordinary circumstances; "it does not put a spurt into you for a few miles only, but has a lasting effect; if I were ordered for continuous marching, and had my choice, I would certainly take the meat extract.' At the same time it was thought that during wet weather the rum was more warming, and the coffee quenched thirst best, and gave a more comfortable feeling than the other two. No decided effect of the rum, extract, or coffee, could be traced in the pulse and temperature; the exercise appeared to over-ride all other conditions; and if the hearts had got quickened by the stimulants they had resumed the pace natural during exercise by the time of observation.

Apropos of this last matter Dr. Parkes gives a table, showing the remarkable effect on the heart of taking off the accoutrements and lying down for only sixty seconds. In one of the men who was weakly and evidently overtasked by the exertion, the pulse fell on the average no less than 43 beats in the minute; in another it fell 39 beats, and in a third 16 beats. The observation accords with the experience of professional pedestrians of the high value of even the shortest period of untrammelled rest at frequent intervals. To take off the clothes and be rubbed down in the horizontal posture seems to make them as fresh as at the commencement of the walk.

We must not limit the sustaining value of nutritive substances to animal food in a rapidly absorbable form. Purely vegetable matter, of mixed starchy and nitrogenous nature, may be so prepared as to be readily absorbed even by a frame exhausted during labour, and in this state seems capable of acting as an extraordinary supply during extraordinary demand. Here is an experiment in the leisure and ease of peace, instead of under the cruel pressure of military necessities. In the summer of 1872 a remarkable feat was performed by those warriors against time and space, the civil engineers. It was necessary to shift the rails on upwards of 500 miles of permanent way on the Great Western line from the broad to the narrow gauge,

and there was only a fortnight to do it in. The work to be got through was enormous, for the Great Western is one of the few English lines whose rails are held down by bolts screwed into nuts. All these had to be unscrewed and replaced after moving the heavy rail two feet, a very different operation to prizing out a spike, shifting a rail a few inches, and hammering in a spike again. About 3000 men were employed, and they worked double time, sometimes from four in the morning till nine at night. Gallantly they won the day, not a soul was sick, sorry, or drunk, and all was ready for a down train due on Saturday evening, June 20th. Now, what does the reader guess was the extraordinary support of this wonderful spurt of muscular energy? -weak SKILLY! To spare every ounce of strength, the men were hutted along the line, and brought with them bacon, bread, cheese, cocoa, &c., to provide their usual meals at usual times, but no beer, spirits, or alcoholic drink in any form. A pound and a half of oatmeal and half a pound of sugar were allowed to each man daily, and to every gang of twenty-one a cook was told off. The first thing done in the morning was to breakfast, and then the cook and his caldron started along the line till water was found convenient, and a fireplace of stones was built and the pot boiled. Oatmeal was then sprinkled into it with sugar, and thoroughly well boiled until their gruel was made. As soon as the shout for drink was heard, buckets were filled and carried round with small pannikins to convey it to the panting mouths. The men liked it exceedingly, and learned by experience the importance of having it well cooked. How Hippocrates would rejoice to see the precious oatmeal gruel, which he thought so unique a specific for tiding fever-smitten patients over their dangers, employed to shield the Herculean frames of British engineers against the equal dangers of fierce toil. With what racy aphorisms he would regale the cooks, telling them that more than 2000 years ago he had written a treatise on the use of this article, had repelled with scorn the foolish contempt of the public for simple things, and had thought this despised gruel of such paramount importance, that he, the companion of kings, statesmen, and philosophers, would spend his time in telling them how to make it good, how to boil it till it would swell no longer (so that it might not swell any more in the stomach), how to strain it and settle it. And this valuable bit of cookery (the only one in his works) the world has been reading all this time, and is only just beginning to profit by. It was as clear to him as it is to our advanced physiologists that excessive muscular exertion produces the same effects as continued fever (ἐς πυρετὸν καθίσταται μακρότερον), its chief dangers lying in rise of temperature and arrested cutaneous action; and

that its "antagonist" is nutriment capable of rapid absorption, dissolved in the most essential nutriment of all, water. And he would have suggested that after extraordinary exertion the best safeguards are a bath, wine, and a good dinner with dilute drinks, in the order here translated (ἐκ τοῦ λουτροῦ μαλακὸν οἶνον, δειπνεῖν ὡς πλείστα καὶ παντοδαπα σίτια καὶ ποτῷ ὑδαρεῖ).

Experiments on the use of the Cuca leaf by scientific persons are as yet too few and recent to justify a judgment on its final effect on the metamorphosis of the body and nervous system. The immediate action, according to the observations of Sir R. Christison on his own person, is to diminish in a very marked degree the excretion of solids, that is mainly of urea from the kidneys, and therefore to spare the wear and tear of the muscles. To guess what its contemporaneous effect on the nervous tissue is, requires a further analysis of the amount of phosphates lost. Its subjective influence is to remove in a remarkable way the sense of fatigue and to postpone the craving for food, without affecting the powers of digestion and sleep, at least when taken in the temperate fashion adopted by the venerable and prudent professor. Thus used it appears to offer a valuable contribution to the dietary of economic industry.

Preventive and curative medicine has become so entirely one that it is impossible to separate the consideration of the use of alcohol as an article of daily diet from that of its employment in therapeutics. The requirements of civilized industry and the action of disease agree in this, that they tend to exhaust the nervous system beyond the point which our instinctive sensations tell us is consistent with perfect health. If alcohol be a defence in the one case, as we think it is, it will be a defence in the other. If after labour it prevents the current of destructive assimilation from running on with a moulting faster than the exhausted forces can remedy by constructive renewal, then in disease it can do the same. In typhus, for example, when the flesh and blood are poisoned, it is probably better that renewal should be in abeyance, for it would be chaotic and unnatural. But we know by the amount of urea and phosphates in the urine and by the focal excretion, that the muscles and nerves are melting away as fast as if the bedridden patient were scaling Mont Blanc with nothing to eat. To a certain extent and at certain stages this happens in all diseases. Except real hypertrophy, there is probably no disease in which, if we knew exactly when to introduce it, alcohol would not be beneficial. Our ignorance stands in our way: though "fools will rush in " with their foaming tankards at all seasons, and then point with complacency to the cases in which they chance to be right;

"angels fear to tread" where they are conscious that harm may be done as well as good.

We would suggest as a guiding light to the administration of nutriment and of alcohol in disease the result of observation on the appropriate periods of their use in respect of active exertion. And we would call attention also to the forms in which they should be presented to the stomach. At the commencement and during the anabasis of the acute morbid symptoms it is probably possible to introduce with advantage food, and it is not desirable to check the moulting of the tissues, which are to a certain extent poisoned by the morbid process. Alcohol stays it for a time, to return with more injurious effect later, like rum taken by a tired man during his march. But when the moulting begins to damage the integrity of the nervous system and muscular fibre, of which (for example) a warning is given in typhus by tremor and delirium, then alcohol acts as a saving drag to the downward course. If its use is begun just at the right hour it inaugurates convalescence. A knowledge of the natural periods of febrile actions will come in well here, and with that it may be employed just at the crisis with great advantage. During convalescence also there are few cases where its use is not applicable. Again in chronic cases it may be used to protract life or strength till the local derangements are overcome by the general vitality of uninjured functions. It would infringe too much on these pages and the patience of the reader to offer many similar illustrations which are obvious to every pathologist.

It may be remarked that the rest afforded by alcohol may learn from the rest which nature gives, to be periodical. When periodical it is most effectual with least risk. Like sleep, it should come but once, or at most twice, in the twenty-four hours; and, like sleep, it should not be taken in snatches, but in a good and sufficient dose. Let not brandy be dribbled in by drops by the nurse when she is so disposed, but in one or two draughts daily.

As to form, let the stimulant be fairly dilute, and also agreeable, or else that gladdening of the heart, which contributes so much to its usefulness in health, is lost in disease. Diluteness is also a virtue in the nutriment, whether it be farinaceous, as Hippocrates preferred, or animal, as Dr. Graves taught. In the administration of this last-named article of diet periodicity is of no importance, and it is better that a continuous reception should be kept up in order that the favourable accidental times when the absorbents are pervious should not be passed over.

We are inclined to think that more advantage will accrue from the application to medicine of the knowledge gained from