Pardon me if I dwell a moment on this proposition, which was not made clear by science until a a few years ago. You say that moderate drinking quickens the pulse and adds ruddiness to the countenance, and that, therefore, you have some reason to believe that it is a source of health. I can hardly pardon myself for not having here a set of the chemical substances that partially paralyze the small nerves. I have a list of them before me, and it includes ether and the whole series of nitrites, and especially the nitrite of amyl. If I had the latter substance here, I might, by lifting it to the nostrils, produce this flushing of the face that you call a sign of health in moderate drinking. There are five or six chemical agents that produce paralysis of the vessels of the minute circulation, and among them is alcohol. A blush is produced by a slight paralysis of the small nerves in the interlacing ends of the arteries and veins. If I had ether here, and could turn it on the back of my hand and evaporate it, I could partially freeze the skin, and then, removing the ether, you would see a blush come to the back of the hand. That is because the little nerves that help constrict and keep up the proper tone of the circulating organs, are temporarily paralyzed. A permanent blush in the face of a drunkard indicates a permanent injury to the blood vessels by alcohol. The varicose vein is often produced in this way by the paralysis of some of the nerves that are connected with the fine parts of the circulatory organs. When the face blushes permanently in the drunkard the injury revealed is not a local one, but is inflicted on every organ throughout the whole system. After moderate drinking you feel the heart beating faster, to be sure, but it beats more rapidly because of the paralysis of the delicate nerves connected with the arteries, and because of the consequent arterial relaxation. The blood meets with less resistance in passing through the relaxed circulatory organs, and so, with no additional force in the heart, that organ beats more rapidly. It beats faster simply because it has less force to overcome. The quickened pulse is a proof of disease and not of health. (_See_ Dr. Richardson, Cantor Lectures on Alcohol.) 12. Alcohol injures the blood by changing the color and chemical composition of its corpuscles.