But it is by no means certain that alcohol is not transformed within the body. It is neither certain nor probable. Mr. Parton relies upon the experiments of Messrs. Lallemand, Duroy, and Perrin, who in 1860 thought they had demonstrated that _all_ the alcohol taken into the system comes out again, _as_ alcohol, through the lungs, skin and kidneys. By applying the very delicate chromic acid test, these gentlemen appeared to prove that appreciable quantities of alcohol always begin to be excreted very soon after the dose has been received by the stomach, and continue to pass off for many hours. "They failed, after repeated attempts, to discover the intermediate compounds into which alcohol had been represented as transforming itself before its final change; and, on the other hand, they detected _unchanged_ alcohol everywhere in the body hours after it had been taken; they found the substance in the blood, and in all the tissues, but especially in the brain and the nervous centres generally, and in the liver."[21] Mr. Parton has, it would appear, read their book, and he is fully persuaded by it that "if you take into your system an ounce of alcohol, the whole ounce leaves the system within forty-eight hours, just as good alcohol as it went in." These experiments, moreover, "produced the remarkable effect of causing the editor of a leading periodical to confess to the public that he was not infallible." The _Westminster Review_, it seems, in 1861, retracted the opinions which it had expressed in 1855, "concerning the _rôle_ of alcohol in the animal body." The _Westminster Review_ has now an opportunity to retract its recantations; for in 1863, these experiments were subjected to a searching criticism by M. Baudot, which resulted in thoroughly invalidating the conclusions supposed to flow from them.[22] The case is an interesting one, as showing afresh the utter impossibility of getting at the truth concerning alcohol, without paying attention to the difference in the behaviour of large and small quantities. [21] Anstie, op. cit., p. 359. [22] Baudot, _De la Destruction de l'Alcool dans l'Organisme, Union Médicale_, Nov. et Déc., 1863. See also the elaborate criticism in Anstie, op. cit., pp. 358-370.