This conclusion is further re-enforced by the numerous cases on record of persons who have lived actively for many years upon a diet of alcoholic liquor accompanied by a quantity of solid food notoriously inadequate to support life. The case of Cornaro is outdone by some of those quoted by Dr. Anstie, as having occurred under his own observation. Of twelve cases which are described in detail, the most remarkable is that of a man aged 83, whose diet for twenty years had consisted of one bottle of gin and one small fragment of toasted bread daily. This old fellow, says Dr. Anstie, "would have been of little service as a practical illustration of the bodily harm wrought by drinking, being in truth rather an unusually active and vigorous person for his time of life." Probably the old man was not narcotized by his daily bottle of gin; or he would, long before the twenty years had elapsed, have shown symptoms of nervous disease. In most of these cases of abnormal diet, there occurs after a while a general breaking down of the nerve-centres, shown in delirium tremens, epileptic fits, or a sudden stroke of paralysis. They are not quoted, therefore, as examples to be followed, but as very important items of evidence in favour of the opinion that alcohol is food. Taking all these considerations together, we believe it to be tolerably well made out that alcohol, whether changed within the body or not, is a true food, which nourishes, warms and strengthens. And Dr. Brinton, in the following passage, declares it to be, in many cases, a necessary food. "That teetotalism is compatible with health, it needs no elaborate facts to establish; but if we take the customary life of those constituting the masses of our inhabitants of towns, we shall find reason to wait before we assume that this result will extend to our population at large. And, in respect to experience, it is singular how few healthy teetotalers are to be met with in our ordinary inhabitants of cities. Glancing back over the many years during which this question has been forced upon the author by his professional duties, he may estimate that he has sedulously examined not less than 50,000 to 70,000 persons, including many thousands in perfect health. Wishing, and even expecting to find it otherwise, he is obliged to confess that he has hitherto met with but very few perfectly healthy middle-aged persons, successfully pursuing any arduous metropolitan calling under teetotal habits. On the other hand, he has known many total abstainers, whose apparently sound constitutions have given way with unusual and frightful rapidity when attacked by a casual sickness." "This," says an English reviewer of the French experiments, "is quite in accordance with what I have myself observed, and with what I can gather from other medical men; and it speaks volumes concerning the way in which we ought to regard alcohol. If, indeed, it be a fact that in a certain high state of