Speaking honestly, I cannot, by any argument yet presented to me, admit the alcohols by any sign that should distinguish them from other chemical substances of the paralysing narcotic class. When it is physiologically understood that what is called stimulation or excitement is, in absolute fact, a relaxation, a partial paralysis, of one of the most important mechanisms in the animal body, the minute, resisting, compensating circulation, we grasp quickly the error in respect to the action of stimulants in which we have been educated, and obtain a clear solution of the well-known experience that all excitement, all passion, leaves, after its departure, lowness of heart, depression of mind, sadness of spirit. We learn, then, in respect to alcohol, that the temporary excitement it produces is at the expense of the animal force, and that the ideas of its being necessary to resort to it, that it may lift up the forces of the animal body into true and firm and even activity, or that it may add something useful to the living tissues, are errors as solemn as they are widely disseminated. In the scientific education of the people no fact is more deserving of special comment than this fact, that excitement is wasted force, the running down of the animal mechanism before it has served out its time of motion. It will be said that alcohol cheers the weary, and that to take a little wine for the stomach's sake is one of the lessons that comes from the deep recesses of human nature. I am not so obstinate as to deny this argument, There are times in the life of man when the heart is oppressed, when the resistance to its motion is excessive, and when blood flows languidly to the centres of life, nervous and muscular. In these moments alcohol cheers. It lets loose the heart from its oppression; it lets flow a brisker current of blood into the failing organs; it aids nutritive changes, and altogether is of temporary service to man. So far, alcohol may be good, and if its use could be limited to this one action, this one purpose, it would be amongst the most excellent of the gifts of science to mankind. Unhappily, the border line between this use and the abuse of it, the temptation to extend beyond the use, the habit to apply the use when it is not wanted as readily as when it is wanted, overbalance, in the multitude of men, the temporary value that attaches truly to alcohol as a physiological agent. Hence alcohol becomes a dangerous instrument even in the hands of the strong and wise, a murderous instrument in the hands of the foolish and weak. Used too frequently, used too excessively, this agent, which in moderation cheers the failing body, relaxes its vessels too extremely; spoils vital organs; makes the force of the circulation slow, imperfect, irregular; suggests the call for more stimulation; tempts to renewal of the evil, and ruins the mechanism of the healthy animal before its hour for ruin, by natural decay, should be at all near.