According to several authors, whom we have already quoted (de Quervain,[318] Hertoghe[319]), alcohol has a great influence on the thyroid, and in chronic alcoholism the thyroid is found to be degenerated. Footnote 318: Semaine Médicale, 1905. Footnote 319: Loc. cit. If it can be admitted that drunkenness is caused by the toxic products of the thyroid, due to the alcohol acting on the thyroid and causing its hypersecretion, we can also explain the mystery why persons bitten by poisonous snakes can also, in the same way, take very large quantities of alcohol without showing its effects, even when they have previously been quite unaccustomed to it. Snake poison, as do all poisons, creates a hyperactivity of the thyroid which results in the throwing off of a large amount of colloid substance. Exhaustion follows this hyperactivity, and in this condition, as in convalescence from infectious diseases, and in severe diabetes, where there is also a similar exhaustion of the thyroid after a previous hyperactivity, a large quantity of alcohol can be taken, merely because of the fact that when the thyroid is devoid of its colloid, a condition of hyperactivity, which is the cause of drunkenness, cannot easily be provoked, unless enormous doses are given. We must, therefore, in cases of snake poisoning give greatly increased doses of alcohol in order to again provoke an increased activity of the thyroid, and thus cause the eventual destruction of the harmful toxalbumins of the snake poison. If women, in a state of convalescence after pneumonia, or with severe diabetes, and unaccustomed to taking spirits, can stand large quantities of alcohol without exhibiting any signs of excitation, it is very probably due to the circumstance that the thyroid has already thrown off its available amount of colloid, is exhausted, and the doses given are not yet sufficient to produce a fresh secretion, and thus the symptoms of drunkenness do not develop. The result of these observations is that a degenerated thyroid cannot easily provoke a condition of drunkenness, which may also explain the curious coincidence that frequently chronic alcoholics, even after large quantities of alcohol, do not present typical symptoms of drunkenness; in fact, sometimes so few of such signs are visible that, if a crime is committed under such influences, it is difficult to prove they were really intoxicated at the time, as they present no visible signs of such a condition.