"If chloroform is a narcotic, alcohol is a narcotic. If chloroform is an anaesthetic, alcohol is an anaesthetic. If one is essentially a depressing agent, so is the other. Their strong resemblance no one can question. The chief difference is that the alcoholic narcosis is longer continued, and its secondary effects are more severe." In closing his summary of the changes in scientific knowledge of this drug he says:-- "We said it was a direct heart exciter. We now know it is a direct heart depressor. We said, and nearly all the text-books still say, it is a direct cardiac stimulant. We know from most conclusive experiments it is a direct _cardiac paralyzant_." The following is taken from one of the many excellent papers upon alcohol written by that Nestor among physicians, Dr. N. S. Davis:-- "Alcoholics are very generally prescribed in that weakness of the heart sometimes met with in low forms of fever and in the advanced stage of other acute diseases. It is claimed that these agents are capable of strengthening and sustaining the action of the heart under the circumstances just named, and also under the first depressing influence of severe shock. "There is nothing in the ascertained physiological action of alcohol on the human system, as developed by a wide range of experimental investigation, to sustain this claim. I have used the sphygmograph and every other available means for testing experimentally the effects of alcohol upon the action of the heart and blood-vessels generally, but have failed in every instance to get proof of any increased force of cardiac action.