The principal varieties of spirits, as already mentioned, are rum, brandy, whisky, and gin. It is needless to enter into any detail of the history of these fluids. Brandy kills soonest; it takes most rapidly to the head, and, more readily than the others, tinges the face to a crimson or livid hue. Rum is probably the next in point of fatality; and, after that, whisky and gin. The superior diuretic qualities of the two latter, and the less luscious sources from which they are procured, may possibly account for such differences. I am, at the same time, aware that some persons entertain a different idea of the relative danger of these liquors: some, for instance, conceive that gin is more rapidly fatal than any of them; but it is to be remembered, that it, more than any other ardent spirit, is liable to adulteration. That, from this circumstance, more lives may be lost by its use, I do not deny. In speaking of gin, however, and comparing its effects with those of the rest of the class to which it belongs, I must be understood to speak of it in its pure condition, and not in that detestable state of sophistication in which such vast quantities of it are drunk in London and elsewhere. When pure, I have no hesitation in affirming that it is decidedly more wholesome than either brandy or rum; and that the popular belief of its greater tendency to produce dropsy, is quite unfounded. An experiment has lately been made for the purpose of ascertaining the comparative powers of gin, brandy, and rum, upon the human body, which is not less remarkable for the inconsequent conclusions deduced from it, than for the ignorance it displays in confounding dead animal matter with the living fibre. It was made as follows:—