In the year 1900 Prof. Taav Laitinen, of the University of Helsingfors, Finland, published an account of experiments made upon 342 animals--dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, fowls and pigeons--to determine the effects of alcohol upon the resistance of the body to infectious diseases. He used as infecting agents, anthrax bacilli, tubercle bacilli, and diphtheria bacilli. The doses of alcohol given varied with the animal. For his "small dose" experiments he used the quantity of alcohol given as a food or as a medicine, or both, in a neighboring sanitorium. The alcohol employed was, as a rule, a 25 per cent. solution of ethyl alcohol in water. It was given either by esophageal catheter, or by dropping it into the mouth from a pipette. It was administered in several ways, and for varying times; sometimes in single large doses, at others in gradually increasing doses for months at a time, in order to produce here an acute, and there a chronic poisoning; in fact, he produced the conditions consequent upon steady, moderate drinking. His first conclusion from these experiments, most carefully carried out, is that alcohol, however given, induces in the animal body a markedly increased susceptibility to infectious diseases; and he maintains that his experiments indicate that the use of alcohol, at least in the treatment of anthrax, tuberculosis, and diphtheria, is not only useless but probably injurious. From a number of other experiments carried out with scrupulous care he comes to the same conclusion as Abbott, Welch, and others that the predisposing to disease of alcohol must be explained by its action in producing abnormal conditions--pathological changes in the alimentary canal, liver, kidneys, heart, and nervous system. He found that the alkalinity of the blood was slightly diminished, and the number of leucocytes somewhat decreased. He also draws attention to the fact that his experiments prove that pregnant animals and their offspring are markedly affected by the continued use of small doses of alcohol. He shows, too, that the temporary lowering of the body temperature by alcohol produces the most favorable condition for the invasion of disease germs. Since the publication of these experiments, and of others similar to them, the use of alcohol in diphtheria and tuberculosis has very largely ceased. Boards of health and charity organizations unite in warning against indulgence in alcoholic drinks as conducive to tuberculosis. At the International Congress on Alcoholism, held in London in July, 1909, Professor Laitinen delivered two lectures. The first was upon "The Influence of Alcohol on Immunity." The following is taken from this lecture:--