animals were awake lying on their sides. The sight of other dogs, however, roused them at all times from their apathetic condition, and they endeavoured, even in their weakened state, to attack and bite them, The powers of the animals diminished more and more as the administration of the alcohol was persevered in, and the sensibility of the skin, especially that of the ears, was remarkably lessened. The appetite now fell off rapidly; but the irritability towards other dogs continued unabated to the last. No diminution of the deposit of fat beneath the skin was observed; it had even rather increased at the period of death, which in all three occurred about the eighth month.'

We further learn from Dr Huss's recent work on the Endemic Diseases of Sweden, that the returns from the militia-enlistments prove the youth of Sweden to be rapidly degenerating both in height and vigour, the number of exceptions for being under the standard and for general debility having greatly increased during the last ten years; and that the increase of crime, suicide, and insanity, is also too decided to admit of any doubt as to its connection with the increasing intemperance of the people.

What candid man, with such facts as these before him, can refuse to admit that alcohol is a poison, not the less certain and virulent because its evil effects do not immediately develop themselves? We defy the advocates of bitter ale, or of any other alcoholic beverage, to point to a single substance in common use among mankind as an article of food or drink, whose tendency to pervert the normal operations of the system is to be compared for a moment with that of alcohol. And we challenge them to give any kind of proof, such as that afforded to the contrary by the experiments and observations of Professor Huss, that the performance of any one physiological action in a healthy subject, is in the least degree promoted by the administration of alcohol in any quantity whatever.

There is one consequence of the habitual moderate' use of alcoholic liquors which has not been enough considered hitherto, either by the scientific physiologist, by the medical practitioner, or by the public in general, but which a careful examination of the circumstances which favour the spread of that class of diseases, now termed Zymotic* in the Registrar-General's Reports, has forced upon our attention. In order to explain our view of it, we must first advert to certain physiological doctrines, which we hold to be of fundamental importance.

The act of Respiration (as we hope that all our readers know), is subsidiary to a process of combustion-using that word in its most extended sense-which is constantly taking place within the body; atmospheric oxygen being introduced into the blood

* This term is derived from the Greek wors, fermentation; and is applied to that class of diseases in which (according to the pathological doctrines now generally received) the morbid action is the result of a change in the whole mass of the blood, excited by the introduction of a poison into its current, by a process having an analogy to fermentation. Of this kind are Cholera, the various kinds of Fever, epidemic Dysentery, Diarrhoea, etc.

through the lungs, and carbonic acid and watery vapour being given off through the same channel; just as in a lamp or furnace, atmospheric oxygen enters below the flame, and carbonic acid and watery vapour are discharged through the chimney or vent. Now the purposes which this process is destined to fulfil in the living animal body are manifold; but we shall fix our attention on one group of actions alone. The peculiar vital activity of the nervous and muscular systems, which manifests itself in sensation, motion, etc., is entirely dependent upon the constant supply of oxygen through the blood, and upon the chemical changes in those tissues to which this is subservient; and in proportion to the degree of activity which they are called upon to put forth, are the amount of oxygen that is required for consumption, and the amount of the components of those tissues that are reduced to the state of dead or effete matter, and which can serve no other purpose in the living economy than to maintain its temperature by undergoing combustion. Now if any cause should obstruct the perfect performance of this process of oxidation, the effete matter, instead of being removed from the blood in a fully oxidized condition, as fast as it is set free, is only partially removed, and it thus tends to accumulate in the circulating current, or is discharged in some lower form of oxidation; just as when a lamp or a furnace smokes, from being supplied with oxygen in an insufficient degree to effect perfect combustion.* And among other evidences of this fact, which the experience of every one will enable him to recognise, is the offensive odour which proceeds from the persons of those who have been for some time pent-up in illventilated apartments, and which helps, with the accumulated carbonic acid of the respiration, to contaminate the whole atmosphere.

Thus, then, we may liken the body to a manufactory in which various operations are going on, that involve the production of matters too noxious to be kept in it; for the consumption of these a furnace is provided, which, when in full operation, burns them off as fast as they are produced, and gives them back to the atmosphere in the form of its ordinary constituents; and the heat which is thus generated serves to warm the manufactory. But if the access of air to the furnace be limited, or more of the offensive fuel be brought to it than it can thoroughly consume, then the offensive matter is either got rid of by an imperfect combustion, the products of which have not lost their noxious character, or it accumulates within the building, to the great discomfort and injury of all exposed to its effluvia.

* It is a very curious and important confirmation of this view, that acids have been recently detected in certain animal excretions, which are closely analogous to, and one of them actually identical with, those mingled with soot in the smoke of badly-constructed furnaces.

Now all the investigations which have been lately made into the causes which determine the extension and fatality of Zymotic diseases, concur in this conclusion: that there is no single influence which is so detrimental as insufficient supply of air. And this we can readily understand, when it is borne in mind, that the peculiar ferments, which appear to constitute the poisons of these diseases, will not usually act upon perfectly healthy blood, but require the presence of a certain fermentable matter; just as yeast will scarcely excite any action in a solution of pure sugar, but produces its conversion into alcohol through the medium of the albuminous constituent of the grain, which is readily excited by it to change. And we may be quite certain that no substances whatever can be so appropriate to receive and develop Zymotic poisons, as animal matter that is already in a state of putrescent change. The localising influence of open sewers or collections of decaying animal or vegetable matter of any kind, in determining the visits of cholera or fever to particular spots, is now so generally admitted, as not to stand in need of any further proof. And when matter of the very same kind is pent-up within the living body, and contaminates the current of its vivifying fluid, for whose purification such elaborate contrivances are provided, we cannot be surprised that it should determine the full influence of the Zymotic poison upon the unfortunate individual whose system is thus predisposed to its development. It is a remarkable fact, not generally known, that a considerable proportion of the survivors of that fearful night in the 'Black Hole of Calcutta,' which was immediately fatal to 123 out of 146, were soon afterwards cut off by 'putrid fever,' obviously in consequence of the contamination of their blood by insufficient aeration. And ample proof is afforded, by the history of recent epidemics, that the same effect is produced by the same cause, in however slight a degree it may operate, provided that its operation be protracted through a sufficiently lengthened period; for the noxious matter accumulates within the body when its proper outlet is closed, until at last it makes its presence severely felt, by affording the condition requisite for the development of a poison within the body, which would otherwise have passed it by unharmed.

Now what has all this to do-we fancy our readers exclaiming -with the question of the merits or demerits of Bitter Ale? Go on with us a little further, and you shall see. It is one of the properties of Alcohol, that it so readily undergoes combustion when exposed under the requisite conditions to the contact of oxygen, as to prevent the oxygenation of other substances whose affinity for oxygen is less. Thus if, whilst our furnace-fire is doing its duty in effectually consuming all the noxious products of our manufactory, we pour some alcohol on the flame,-the

supply of air not being increased, this new combustible product will secure to itself all the oxygen admitted into the furnace, so that, until it is burned away, these will remain unconsumed or only partially oxidized; the very same consequences being thus produced, so far as it is in itself concerned, as if the draught of the furnace had been checked, so that it had been made to give forth a foul and offensive smoke.

If we turn again from our hypothetical furnace to the actual body of man, we find the very same principle to hold good; for there is ample evidence derived from experiments and observation, that the presence of alcohol in the blood, by its own greediness for oxygen, checks the normal oxygenation of the effete matters, whose free and constant separation is necessary for the maintenance of the purity of the blood, and consequently for securing the system from the liability to disease. This is shown alike by the effect of the introduction of poisonous doses of alcohol into the circulation, which has been found to prevent the conversion of venous blood into arterial by the respiratory process; so that, whilst the animal survives, the dark venous current is propelled through the arteries, with little or no advantage from its exposure to the air in the lungs, save in the partial removal of the alcohol, which, if life be sufficiently prolonged, will be all burned off in this manner, leaving the blood charged with impurities:-and it is not less certainly indicated by the absolute diminution in the quantity of carbonic acid that is found in the air expired after the moderate use of alcoholic liquors, the chief combustive product of alcohol (in virtue of its large proportion of hydrogen) being watery vapour. Hence we may state with confidence, that the tendency of the habitual use of alcoholic liquors is to induce a state of the blood exactly resembling that which is brought about by imperfect ventilation, bad sewerage, noxious emanations, etc., namely, to contaminate it with the refuse generated in the body itself, whose due elimination is checked no less effectually by the presence of alcohol in the circulation, than it is by constantly shutting up the doors and windows of our apartments, or by heaping together a mass of putrifying rubbish in our cellars, or by damming-up our sewers, and causing them to overflow into our kitchens, or by any other similarly approved means of causing the fever-germs to take root and flourish in our systems.

But it may be said that we are proving too much; that the consequences we have predicted do not occur, and that our whole series of assertions, is but an ingenious hypothesis, which experience, so far from justifying, tends to demolish. Wait a little, candid reader, and you shall see. We are quite content

that the truth of our statements should be most rigorously tested by the best evidence that can be brought to bear upon it; and if our opponents, the moderate drinkers, can upset this, we will be condemned to drink bitter ale-much as we dislike it, on gustative, as well as on economic grounds-for the rest of our lives.

We have said that it is the tendency of the habitual 'moderate' use of alcoholic liquors to deteriorate the blood by obstructing its due purification. Now, in cold and even in temperate climates, this tendency may never produce any serious results, if the quantity of alcohol employed be no more than the respiratory process can get rid of, without leaving unconsumed some of the effete products of the body itself. For there is a marvellous power of self-adjustment in the animal body, which regulates the rate of the combustive action, in accordance with the amount of heat which it may be necessary to generate, in order to keep up the temperature of the body to its proper standard. Thus it has been found by experiment, that the quantity of carbonic acid set free by small warm-blooded animals, when the external temperature is near the freezing-point, is twice or even three times that which is given off by the same animals in an atmosphere nearly as warm as their own bodies. This is as if there were in our manufactory-furnace a selfregulating damper (such as has been contrived for hot-houses and conservatories), which should diminish the amount of heat produced when the external temperature is high, by partly cutting off the supply of air to the fire; the consequence of which is, that if the same quantity of fuel be still thrown in, some of it must go off imperfectly consumed; and if alcohol were then poured in, a still larger proportion of the other combustible materials must be kept from undergoing due oxidation. Hence, if our previous position be correct, it is the experience of hot climates which is the best fitted to bring to the test the truth of our doctrine. For it is where the respiratory process is barely active enough to carry off the ordinary waste' of the system, and where any extraordinary exertion, by producing increased 'waste' which is not duly carried off, renders the system peculiarly liable to the attacks of zymotic disease,* that we might anticipate the most serious results from the habitual introduction into the blood, of an agent whose presence tends still more to diminish the influence of the respiratory process upon the economy; and it is where the causes of zymotic disease exist in their greatest intensity, that we might

* It is well known to all Indian medical officers, that it is while on a march, and for some little time afterwards, that soldiers are most susceptible of the attacks of cholera, fever, dysentery, etc.