Sir James Paget appears as a champion of moderation in the _Contemporary_ controversy on the Alcohol Question. He says that the presumption in favour of moderation is strengthened by comparing those of our race who do not and those who do habitually use alcoholic drinks. “As to working power, whether bodily or mental, there can be no question that the advantage is on the side of those who use alcoholic drinks. And it is advantage of this kind which is most to be desired. Longevity is not the only or the best test of the value of the things on which we live. It may be only a long old age, or a long course of years of idleness or dulness, useless alike to the individual and the race. That which is most to be desired is a national power and will for good working and good thinking, and a long duration of the period of life fittest for these; and facts show that these are more nearly attained by the people that drink alcohol than by those who do not.” Sir James Paget holds or has held appointments too numerous to mention. After a long and honourable career as Assistant-Surgeon and Surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s, he became Consulting Surgeon. As a member of the Council of the College of Surgeons and for some years President, and also as a member of the Senate, and for some years Vice-Chancellor of London University, he has exercised powerful influence on the improvement of medical education and on medical politics generally. He is Surgeon to the Prince of Wales and Serjeant Surgeon-Extraordinary to the Queen. A baronetcy was conferred upon him in August 1871, and he has received honorary distinctions in abundance from both British and foreign universities. In 1882 in his Bradshawe lecture, “On some Rare and New Diseases,” Sir James Paget remarked on the increase in the number of real students, which he has had a large share in creating. “I have been often made happy by the contrast which I have seen while working at the new edition of the catalogue of the pathological specimens in the College of Surgeons’ museum. While I was writing the last edition, between thirty and forty years ago, scarcely a student ever entered the museum. Hour after hour I sat alone; I seemed to be working for no one but myself, or for nothing but the general propriety that a museum ought to have a catalogue, though no one might ever care to study with it. Now, and for some years past, a day rarely passes without many pupils and others being at work in every part of the museum.”