The quantity of alcohol consumed by some sportsmen who are eminent in their respective sports would often both astonish and alarm the layman. There is a very simple pathological reason which explains the fact. Oxygen is needed for the destruction of alcohol, as for the destruction of most poisons. Hence it follows that the athlete can get rid of his quota of alcohol without _immediate_ deteriorating results. Last year I was at Oxford during eights’ week, the time of strict training. The stroke of a college boat, by no means an abstemious man at ordinary times, had been compelled to forego his usual potations. But there came what is known as a “port night,” an evening when the crew were allowed to drink a certain quantity of port. The stroke exceeded this quantity, went back to his rooms, became thoroughly intoxicated and had to be helped to bed. Next day his boat made a bump. A strong man--an athlete--can and very often does drink far more than an ordinary man without any apparent loss of power _at the time_. Because there is no apparent deterioration the subject imagines that none is taking place, and the ordinary non-athletic person will find it difficult to realize that when I say that many fine sportsmen drink too much, I am speaking literal truth. How often do we not observe that a sportsman has a brilliant and public career for a time and then suddenly disappears from the first rank--“drops out,” and is no more heard of? His sporting life is brilliant but it is short. Yet there is no natural reason why the athlete’s athletic life should be a short one. Muscles and tissues do not easily wear out from continuous and careful action. Any doctor will admit as much. Indeed, an alert and healthy brain with correct muscular co-ordination and with due action of the reflexes is built up, stimulated, and sustained by hard and interesting physical exercise. Nevertheless, in too many cases the athlete unconsciously shortens his sporting career by the too free use of alcohol. He of all people can least afford to overstep the bounds of strict moderation, yet the comradeship of sport, its jolly social side brings with it great temptations, and temptations which are daily increasing. We can get a very clear idea of the toxic influence of the least alcoholic excess upon the sportsman by observing the psychology of the really confirmed inebriate. In a chronic inebriate, loss of spontaneity is the most marked characteristic. Such an one has to _think_ of his walking--a thing he never had to do in his temperate days. He feels safer walking with a stick, he develops an agoraphobia, or dread of open spaces. There is a distinct falling off in the accuracy of the purposive movements.