_Alcohol._--This drug is a muscle relaxant, and sufficient doses might, by relieving spasm, relax a muscularly contracted os uteri and relieve post-partum pains. Alcohol dilates the blood-vessels both in the abdomen and on the surface of the body. It may thus either relieve uterine bleeding by lowering the blood-pressure and causing more blood to go to other parts, or increase uterine bleeding by relieving arterial and muscle spasm. Alcohol is also a habit-forming narcotic (Hayden’s Viburnum Compound is advertised as “free from all narcotics”!) and when habitually used by either males or females tends to impair the capacity to produce normal offspring. Even if the manufacturer’s “formula” be accepted, Hayden’s Viburnum Compound contains no therapeutically active ingredient except alcohol and aromatics. The recommended dose of this preparation is “... two teaspoonfuls in six of boiling hot water or milk and one teaspoonful of sugar, every fifteen or twenty minutes until relief is obtained.” “Frequently after taking the Viburnum Compound the patient will sleep soundly for several hours from the sudden cessation of pain; in such cases she should never be awakened through any fear of oversleeping, as Hayden’s Viburnum Compound does not contain any narcotic whatever, nor does it leave any disagreeable after-effects, and it may be given to a child when necessary without any special caution.” Read the foregoing and then remember that it means that one teaspoonful of alcohol (the equivalent of two teaspoonfuls of whisky) is to be given in hot water, every fifteen or twenty minutes until relief is obtained and the patient is asleep. Why not use plain language and say “until she is drunk”? The thoughtful physician would consider it decidedly unwise to give alcohol to a young girl, to a prospective mother, or to a young mother, except under extraordinary circumstances. He would know that the menstrual pains for which this preparation is recommended are likely to be recurrent, and that the repeated taking of alcohol for recurrent pain is fraught with danger--the danger of initiating the alcohol habit. If, however, a physician does elect to give alcohol as a drug, he must let the conditions that govern each individual case determine whether it is not better to give it as whisky, or to disguise it in a prescription of his own. Above all the physician should be conscious that he is giving the drug, alcohol; and this is not the case when he prescribes a ready-made nostrum. If he writes a prescription containing whisky or other alcoholic he will take measures to avert the dangers inseparable from the use of this drug. CONCLUSIONS 1. Even if the manufacturer’s formula for Hayden’s Viburnum Compound be accepted, it is apparent that any therapeutic activity the preparation may have is due essentially to the alcohol and aromatics.