The action of both is practically the same. In ordinary doses they quiet restlessness, produce muscular weakness, flushing of the face, dryness of the tongue, wide dilatation of the pupils, and frequently cause sleep. These effects should be noticed and reported. These medicines are mostly given to patients who are continually restless, violent, and sleepless, and the object is to bring quiet, repose, and sleep. Large doses may produce coma, very heavy breathing, and great muscular weakness; the pulse however is full and strong, but if it should fail, the physician should be at once sent for. _Alcohol and Stimulants._--It is the alcohol in liquors that intoxicate, and it is that part, also, of liquor that stimulates when given as a medicine. Whiskey, brandy, and gin are about one half alcohol. The dose is a tablespoonful, in water, and not repeated oftener than two or three times. Wines are about one fifth alcohol, beers and cider about one twentieth. Liquors containing alcohol are never to be given to patients as a beverage, but always as a medicine, and, except in emergencies, never without a physician's order. Do not give them in emergencies, without a good reason for so doing, and not simply because you feel you must do something, for in some emergencies they may do a great deal of harm, and perhaps, a fatal injury. Alcohol is mostly given to stimulate the action of the heart. A stimulant is something "that arouses or excites to action." It is given (in the doses just mentioned) in accidents, when the heart is very weak, the pulse almost or quite imperceptible, the face pale and pinched, and the extremities cold. In continued sickness, with exhaustion, stimulants are sometimes left with the attendant to give, with directions about the size of the dose and its frequency. If it quiet the patient, strengthen the heart and pulse, it is doing good; but if restlessness comes on, the face becomes flushed, or if the pulse is made more rapid and feeble, it is probably doing harm, and should be discontinued, and the physician informed. _Dry and Moist Heat._--In applying heat, either dry or moist, to the insane, care must always be used to protect the skin from being blistered. This happens very easily when it is applied directly to old, feeble, paralyzed, or paretic patients, and also to those who are too demented to complain if they are being burned. Burns are very serious accidents among this class of patients, and may, if they extend over a large surface, even though not deep, heal with difficulty, and even prove fatal. Dry heat is applied by means of rubber bags filled with hot water, hot-sand bags, bricks, or soapstones, and by the lamp bath. Moist heat by hot baths, fomentations, turpentine stupes, and poultices.