Alcohol with meals which contain meat tends to the production of an increased amount of uric acid. Alcohol taken before meals on an empty stomach causes sudden vasodilatation after absorption. It goes quickly to the liver, irritates it, and little by little causes congestions of the liver, so that sooner or later sclerosis of this organ develops. Alcohol probably causes arteriosclerosis not by its action per se, but indirectly by causing gastro-intestinal indigestion and insufficiency of the liver, as a result of which more toxins circulate in the blood, tending to produce arteriosclerosis. Sooner or later these irritants cause kidney irritation, and chronic interstitial nephritis may develop. just which process becomes the farthest advanced and finally kills the patient is an individual proposition and cannot be foretold. The finale may be cirrhosis of the liver, uremia, arteriosclerosis, apoplexy or myocarditis with dilatation or coronary disease. While small, more or less undiluted closes of alcohol, as whisky or brandy, may cause quick stimulation of the heart by reflex irritation of the esophagus and stomach, vasodilatation occurs as soon as the alcohol is absorbed, and if large closes are absorbed, vasomotor paresis may occur, temporarily at least. During acute fever processes with an increased pulse rate, provided shock or collapse is not present, small or medium-sized doses of alcohol, by dilating the peripheral blood vessels and increasing the peripheral circulation, may relieve the tension of the heart and slow the pulse by the equalization of the circulation. Some of this action may be due to the narcotic effect of alcohol on the cerebrum. Alcohol may thus in many instances act for good. Overdoses, as shown by cerebral excitation, flushing of the face and increased pulse rate, will do harm; in fact, many a patient with a serious illness, as typhoid fever or pneumonia, is made delirious by alcohol. Large doses of alcohol in shock or collapse are contraindicated. Chronic overuse of alcohol may cause chronic myocarditis and fatty degeneration of the heart, with later weakening of the heart muscle and dilatation. In acute alcohol poisoning the pulse may become very rapid and weak, and the patient may die of heart failure. This is often seen in delirium tremens. The administration in this condition of enormous doses of digitalis by the stomach is inexcusable, and the reason that such patients survive such digitalis poisoning is that the stomach does not absorb during this cardiac prostration.