it less alluring, it would not lure to excess; were it less potent, it would not leap into such flames of fiery exaltation."

Prof. J. F. W. Johnson, in his Chemistry of Common Life,* one of the most useful works of that distinguished chemist, says:

"It is ascertained of ardent spirits, First. That they directly warm the body, and, by the changes they undergo in the blood, supply a portion of that carbonic acid and watery vapor which, as a necessity of life, are constantly being given off by the lungs. They so far, therefore, supply the place of food—of the fat and starch for example—which we usually eat. Hence a schnapps, in Germany, with a slice of lean dried meat, make a mixture like that of the starch and gluten in our bread, which is capable of feeding the body. So we either add sugar to milk, or take spirits along with it, (old man's milk,) for the purpose of adjusting the proportions of the ingredients more suitably to the constitution, or to the circumstances in which it is to be consumed.

"Second. That they diminish the absolute amount of matter usually given off by the lungs and the kidneys. They thus lessen, as tea and coffee do, the natural waste of the fat and tissues, and they necessarily diminish in an equal degree the quantity of ordinary food which is necessary to keep up the weight of the body. In other words, they have the property of making a given weight of food go further in sustaining the strength and bulk of the body. And, in addition to the saving of material thus effected, they ease and

* Vol. i., p. 349.

lighten the labor of the digestive organs, which, when the stomach is weak, is often a most valuable result.

"Hence fermented liquors, if otherwise suitable to the constitution, exercise a beneficial influence upon old people, and other weakly persons whose fat and tissues have begun to waste. *** This lessening in weight or substance is one of the most usual consequences of the approach of old age. It is a common symptom of the decline of life. Weak alcoholic drinks arrest or retard, and thus diminish the daily amount of this loss of substance. *** Hence poets have called wine the milk of the old,' and scientific philosophy owns the propriety of the term. If it does not nourish the old so directly as milk nourishes the young, yet it certainly does aid in supporting and filling up their failing frames. And it is one of the happy consequences of a temperate youth and manhood, that this spirituous milk. does not fail in its good effects when the weight of years begins to press upon us."

And now, with especial reference to alcohol both as food and as stimulus, the latest, and certainly one of the ablest, scientific authorities, is the recent work on "Stimulants and Narcotics" by Dr. Francis E. Anstie, lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics, and formerly on Toxicology, at Westminster.

Dr. Anstie says:

"If anything deserves the name of a food, assuredly oxygen does, for it is the most necessary element in every process of life. It is highly suggestive, then, to find that

that very same quiet and perfect action of the vital functions, without undue waste, without hurry, without pain, without excessive material growth, is precisely what we produce, when we produce any useful effect, by the administration of stimulants, though, as might be expected, our artificial means are weak and uncertain in their operation, compared with the great natural stimulus of life." (p. 145.)

"A stimulus promotes or restores some natural action, and is no more liable to be followed by morbid depression than is the revivifying influence of food. And if it be sought to distinguish foods by the peculiar characteristic of being transformed in the body, then I answer that this is the worst definition of food that can be given, since water, which is not transformed in the body at all, is nevertheless, the most necessary element of nutrition, seeing that human life cannot only not be maintained without it, but may subsist for weeks on water as its only pabulum besides the atmosphere and tissues." (p. 149.)

"Alcohol taken alone or with the addition alone of small quantities of water, will prolong life greatly beyond the period at which it must cease if no nourishment or water only had been given; that in acute diseases it has repeatedly supported not only life, but even the bulk of the body during many days of abstinence from common foods; and that, in a few instances persons have supported themselves almost solely on alcohol and inconsiderable quantities of water for years."

"We may be at a loss to explain the chemistry of its action on the body, but we may safely say that it acts as a food." (p. 138.)

"Another grand argument against the propriety of comparing stimulants with true foods has always been that

stimulus is invariably followed by reaction. *** It is not true that stimulus is of itself provocative of subsequent depression; but there are circumstances in which this might easily appear to be the case. For instance, when the superabundant mental energy of a man whose physical frame is weak, induces him to make violent and continued physical efforts, he is apt to find, at the end of a short spurt' of exertion, that his energy is exhausted. But here the exhaustion is no recoil from a state of stimulation. * * And the case of drunkenness, that is, of alcoholic narcotism— affords another excellent example of the fallacy we are considering. The narcotic dose of alcohol, is alone responsible for the symptoms of depressive reaction. Had a merely stimulant dose been administered, no depression would have occurred, any more than depression results from such a gentle stimulus of the muscular system as is implied in a healthy man taking a walk of three or four miles. What depression is there, as an after consequence, of a glass or two of wine taken at dinner, or of a glass of beer taken at lunch, by a healthy man? What reaction from a teaspoonful of sal-volatile swallowed by a person who feels somewhat faint? What recoil from the stimulus of heat, applied in a hot bath, or of oxygen administered by Marshall Hall's process, to a half-drowned man? Absolutely none whatever." (pp. 146-7.)

Doctor Brinton* says in his Treatise on Food and Digestion:

"From good wine, in moderate quantities, there is no reaction whatever. That teetotalism is com

*Treatise on Food and Digestion, by William Brinton, M. D., Physician to St. Thomas' Hospital. (English.)

F. R. S.,

patible with health, it needs no elaborate facts to establish; but if we take the customary life of those constituting the masses of our inhabitants of towns, we shall find reason to wait before we assume that this result will extend to our population at large. And, in respect to experience, it is singular how few healthy teetotallers are to be met with in our ordinary inhabitants of cities. Glancing back over the many years during which this question has been forced upon the author by his professional duties, he may estimate that he has sedulously examined not less than 50,000 to 70,000 persons, including many thousands in perfect health. Wishing, and even expecting to find it otherwise, he is obliged to confess that he has hitherto met with but very few perfectly healthy middle-aged persons, successfully pursuing any arduous metropolitan calling under teetotal habits. On the other hand, he has known many total abstainers, whose apparently sound constitutions have given way with unusual and frightful rapidity when attacked by a casual sickness."

The emphasis of this opinion will be more fully appreciated, if one will but examine Dr. Brinton's book "On Diseases of the Stomach," which exhibits him in a most cautious and conservative light, in the remedial prescription of alcoholic drinks.

I come now very briefly to consider certain recent experiments upon which the prohibitionists mainly rely, to control the scientific opinions to which I have already alluded. I mean those of MM. Lallemand, Perrin, and Duroy. These inge