"In labour of the head, alcohol stimulates the brain to an increase of function under the mental power, and so effects a concentrated cerebral exhaustion, without being able to afford compensating nutrition or repair. ....There is the same common fallacy here as in the case of manual labour. The stimulus is felt--to do good. 'I could not do my work without it.' But at what cost are you doing your work? Premature and permanent exhaustion of the muscles is bad enough; but premature and permanent exhaustion of brain is infinitely worse. And when you come to a point where work must cease or the stimulus be taken, do not hesitate as to the right alternative. Don't call for your pate ale, your brandy, or your wine. Shut your book, close your eyes, and go to sleep: or change your occupation, so as to give a thorough shift to your brain; and then, after a time, spent, as the case may be, either in repose or recreation, you will find yourself fit to resume your former task of thought without loss or detriment.... Look to the mental workers under alcohol. Take the best of them. Would not their genius have burned not only with a steadier and more enduring flame, but also with a less sickly and noxious vapour to the moral health of all around them, had they been free from the unnatural and unneeded stimulus? Take Burns, for example. Alcohol did not make his genius, or even brighten it.... Genius may have its poetical and imaginative powers stored up into fitful paroxysms by alcohol, no doubt: the control of will being gone or going, the mind is left to take ideas as they come, and they may come brilliantly for a time. But, at best, the man is but a revolving light. At one time a flash will dazzle you; at another, the darkness is as that of midnight; the alternating gloom being always longer than the period of light, and all the more intense by reason of the other's brightness. While imagination sparkles, reason is depressed. And, therefore, let the true student eschew the bottle's deceitful aid. He will think all the harder, all the clearer, and all the longer!" _Alcohol: its Place and Power_. 866, p. 122. MR. R. A. PROCTOR, F. R. S.