2. _The Mumps_ are an inflammation of the parotid and submaxillary glands (see p. 159). The disease is generally epidemic, and is believed to be contagious; the patient should therefore be carefully secluded for the sake of others as well as himself. The swelling may be allowed to take its course. Relief from pain is often experienced by applying flannels wrung out of hot water. Great care should be used not to check the inflammation, and, on first going out after recovery, not to take cold. ALCOHOLIC DRINKS AND NARCOTICS. 1. ALCOHOL (Continued from p. 147). RELATION OF ALCOHOL TO THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS.--_Is Alcohol a Food?_ To answer this question, let us make a comparison. If you receive into your stomach a piece of bread or beef, Nature welcomes its presence. The juices of the system at once take hold of it, dissolve it, and transform it for the uses of the body. A million tiny fingers (lacteals and veins) reach out to grasp it, work it over, and carry it into the circulation. The blood bears it onward wherever it is needed to mend or to build "The house you live in." Soon, it is no longer bread or beef; it is flesh on your arm; its chemical energy is imparted to you, and it becomes your strength. If, on the other hand, you take into your stomach a little alcohol, it receives no such welcome. Nature treats it as a poison, and seeks to rid herself of the intruder as soon as possible. [Footnote: Food is digested, alcohol is not. Food warms the blood, directly or indirectly; alcohol lowers the temperature. Food nourishes the body, in the sense of assimilating itself to the tissues; alcohol does not. Food makes blood; alcohol never does anything more innocent than mixing with it. Food feeds the blood cells; alcohol destroys them. Food excites, in health, to normal action only; alcohol tends to inflammation and disease. Food gives force to the body; alcohol excites reaction and wastes force, in the first place, and in the second, as a true narcotic, represses vital action and corresponding nutrition.--If alcohol does not act like food, neither does it behave like water. Water is the subtle but innocent vehicle of circulation, which dissolves the solid food, holds in play the chemical and vital reactions of the tissues, conveys the nutritive solutions from cell to cell, from tube to tube, and carries off and expels the effete matter. Water neither irritates tissue, wastes force, nor suppresses vital action: whereas alcohol does all three. Alcohol hardens solid tissue, thickens the blood, narcotizes the nerves, and in every conceivable direction antagonizes the operation and function of water--LEES.] The juices of the system will flow from every pore to dilute and weaken it, and to prevent its shriveling up the delicate membranes with which it comes in contact. The veins will take it up and bear it rapidly through the system. Every organ of elimination, all the scavengers of the body--