Dr. A. Baer, member of the Royal Sanitary Council, and chief physician at the prisons of Berlin and Ploetzensee near Berlin has, within a few months, published a valuable work on alcoholism. He says, “Beer is of all drinks best adapted for a stimulating beverage of general consumption. It combines with the refreshing, animating and thirst-quenching elements, distinct nutritive qualities, mainly due to the abundant presence of certain salts, and thus becomes one of the very best substitutes for extract of meat. The greater number of characteristic principles of the one are found in the other, but the decided nervous animation experienced after drinking beer is chiefly due to the large portion of phosphate of potassa, which _Mitcherlich_ says forms 20 parts in 100 of beer ashes, and which, according to Ranke, constitutes the principal active ingredient in meat broth. To the presence of this salt, beer owes its strengthening influence during convalescence and in cases of general debility, and its marked tendency to produce corpulency, as shown in beer-drinkers. In addition to this the bitter principle of the hops has a tonic power of marked value in assisting digestion while the modicum of alcohol has a stimulating and animating effect on the brain. On the whole, beer as a beverage cannot be excelled, as it possesses a number of qualities which jointly have a most salutary effect upon the human organism.” In a report presented a short time ago to the Industrial Society of Mulhouse the well-known Dr. Schoellamer thus speaks of beer: “Beer is one of the best drinks that we can recommend, its consumption being most wholesome. Good beer ought to be regarded as an excellent drink, capable in itself of replacing all other fermented drinks. Thus its moderate consumption must be strongly recommended. If its price is high a great obstacle is placed in the way of a natural consumption. “Beer contains from two to eight per cent. of alcohol, a dose of carbonic acid equal to three or four times its volume; when it is exposed to the air it loses all its gas. It contains besides azote and phosphates; for example, a liter of good beer, made exclusively with hops and barley, contains 0.80 gr. of azote, which corresponds to 5.26 grains of albuminoid matters. There are again from 0.60 gr. to 0.80 gr. of phosphoric acid, that is as much as in 530 grammes of meat or 220 grammes of bread. The solid extract of beer contains salts favorable to nutrition, etc. It is on these accounts that beer may be considered a beverage of the first order.