[26] So decisive is the paralyzing power of a narcotic dose of alcohol upon the stomach in some cases, that we have seen a drunken man vomit scarcely altered food which, it appeared, had been eaten fourteen hours before. The sum and substance of the above argument is that, as the narcotic dose of alcohol prevents the digestion of other food, it will also prevent the digestion of itself. A further criticism by M. Baudot, supported by renewed experiments, is still more decisive. M. Baudot justly observes that in order to substantiate their conclusions, Messrs. Lallemand, Duroy and Perrin should have at least been able, with their excessively delicate tests, to discover in the excretions _a large part_ of the alcohol which had been taken into the system. This, however, they never did. In all cases, the amount of alcohol recovered was very small, and bore but a trifling proportion to the amount which had been taken. According to these physiologists, the elimination always takes place chiefly through the kidneys. But M. Baudot, in a series of elaborate experiments, has proved that, unless the dose has been excessive, _no sensible amount of alcohol reappears in the kidney-excretions for more than twenty-four hours_. The quantity is so minute that the alcoometer is not in the least affected by it, and it requires the chromic acid test even to reveal its presence. Similar results have been obtained by experiments upon the breath. Finally, the gravest doubts have been thrown upon the trustworthiness of the chromic acid test relied on by Messrs. Lallemand, Duroy and Perrin. It is considered possible, by good chemical authority, that the reactions in the test-apparatus, which they attributed to the escaping alcohol, may equally well have been caused by some of the results of alcoholic transformation. For reasons above given, however, it is probable that in cases of narcosis some alcohol always escapes. When we reflect upon its absorbability and its ready solubility in water, it seems likely beforehand that a considerable quantity must escape. But all that these able Frenchmen can be said to have accomplished, is the demonstration of the fact that when you take into your system a greater quantity of alcohol than the system can manage, a part of it is expelled in the same state in which it entered. And this may be said of other kinds of food.