Mr. Nisbet mentions the case of a man who lived for seven months entirely on spirit and water. At Wavertree, a young man afflicted with heart-disease lived for five years principally, and for two years solely, on brandy. His allowance was at first six ounces, afterward a pint, _per diem_. His weight was not materially decreased, when, at the end of the five years, he died of his disease. But the next case is still more remarkable. Dr. Inman had a lady-patient, about twenty-five years old, plump, active and florid, but somewhat deficient in power of endurance. "This lady had two large and healthy children in succession, whom she successfully nursed. On each occasion she became much exhausted, the appetite wholly failed, and she was compelled to live solely on bitter ale and brandy and water; on this regimen she kept up her good looks, her activity and her nursing, and went on this way for about twelve months; the nervous system was by this time thoroughly exhausted, _yet there was no emaciation_, nor was there entire prostration of muscular power."[33] [33] Anstie, op. cit. p. 388. For the accuracy of this statement there is to be had the testimony of Dr. Inman, the attendant physician, as well as that "of the lady's husband, of mutual friends occasionally residing in the house with her, of her mother, of her sisters, and of her nurse." We have apparently no alternative but to believe it; and if it is true, it is certainly decisive. It is nothing less than an _experimentum crucis_. The suggestion that this lady might have kept up her normal activity while nursing children, for a whole year, with no aliment except her own tissues and the water and vegetable matter contained in her ale and brandy, is too absurd to need refutation. The thing is an utter impossibility. Moreover, not being emaciated at the end of the year, she had probably been consuming her own tissues but very little. Her weight, her muscular activity, and the natural heat of her body, could have been sustained by nothing but the alcohol; which thus appears as a true food, at once nourishing, strength-giving, and heat-producing.