influence in this country, and Drs. Yeomans, Carpenter, and Lees, in England, in portraying the effects of alcohol on the human system. Other weighty names, in all the stages of the movement, must be omitted, of gentlemen on both continents, of the highest scientific eminence, who have unequivocally declared that alcohol is a pernicious, destructive poison in any healthy human body.

Notwithstanding the varied and most convincing demonstrations of the truth of this position, by the best medical scientists, some of the old notions so gratifying to the lovers of alcoholic beverages are still clung to with great tenacity. The utility of alcohol is advocated on the ground that it imparts strength and warmth to the body, is a sedative to the nervous system, and is an article of food, or, at least, that it aids in assimilating food. These are the principal virtues claimed for it.

It does not come within the purpose of the author to enter upon an original discussion of the questions involved in this investigation, but to present some of the weightiest testimonies which demonstrate, not only the inutility, but the deleterious and destructive effects of alcohol in a healthy body.

TESTIMONY OF DR. THOMAS SEWALL.

We give herewith Dr. Sewall's celebrated diagrams of the stomach. These diagrams were taken from drawings made from actual dissections in 1842 by Dr. Sewall. Perfect correspondence in all cases is not claimed, as probably no two cases present exactly the same appearance, owing to some natural variations; but they truthfully represent the ravages of alcohol from its first introduction into a healthy stomach to its fatal results. Before these representations were submitted to the public, in 1842, they were indorsed by several celebrated

surgeons.

Dr. Warren said:

Temperate drinking, as defined by Dr. Sewall, has a tendency to alter the condition of the mucous membrane of the stomach, and to give origin to that state of it which is represented in Dr. Sewall's Plate No. 2.

Dr. Mott said:

It is my full conviction that the pernicious practice of even temperate drinking, as set forth by Dr. Sewall, cannot be too severely reprobated. By whomsoever this is practiced, it will be found to be the beginning of that sad derangement of the mucous membrane represented in Plate No. 2, which will, soon or later, lead to the most disastrous results.

Dr. Horner expressed the hope that "the wide circulation of the plates will deter the rising generation from the dangerous practice of even temperate drinking."

Dr. Sewall thus describes the plates:

Figure 1 represents the mucous coats of the stomach in a healthy state, which in color is slightly reddish, tinged with yellow.

Figure 2 represents a part of the internal portion of the stomach of a temperate drinker, a man who takes his grog daily, but moderately, the effect of which is to distend the blood-vessels of the inner surface of the stomach; or, in other words, produce a degree of inflammation which makes the blood-vessels visible.

Figure 3 represents the stomach of an habitual drunkard-a hard drinker. It was drawn from life, or, rather, from death, of one who had been such for many years, and the stomach resembled what are called rum blossoms, which are sometimes seen upon the face of the hard drinker.

Figure 4 represents the inner coat of the stomach ulcerated, as the result of alcoholic inflammation.

Figure 5 is the drawing of the stomach of a drunkard who died immediately after a long debauch. It shows a high degree of inflammation, and the color is changed to a livid red.

The last of these plates represents the internal coat of the stomach of a drunkard who had died with the delirium tremens. The fearful effects of the alcoholic poison, as thus shown in color, are indescribable in words. In some places the coats of the stomach seem even to be in an incipient state of mortification.

TESTIMONY OF DR. W. B. CARPENTER.

In the year 1850 there appeared in London a remarkable book, a prize essay on "The Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Liquors, in Health and Disease," by Wm. B. Carpenter, M.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Examiner in Physiology in the University of London, and Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in University

College. The conditions stipulated by the gentleman offering the prize of one hundred guineas were the following:

1. What are the effects, corporeal and mental, of alcoholic liquors on the healthy human system?

2. Does physiology or experience teach us that alcoholic liquors should form part of the ordinary sustenance of man, particularly under circumstances of exposure to severe labor or to extremes of temperature? Or, on the other hand, is there reason for believing that such use of them is not sanctioned by the principles of science, or the results of practical observation?

3. Are there any special modifications of the bodily or mental condition of man. short of actual disease, in which the occasional or habitual use of alcoholic liquors may be necessary or beneficial?

4. Is the employment of alcoholic liquors necessary in the practice of medicine? If so, in what diseases, or in what forms and stages of disease, is the use of them necessary or beneficial?

The adjudicators were Dr. John Forbes, F.R.S., physician to the Queen's household, Prince Albert, and the Duke of Cambridge; Dr. G. L. Roupell, F.R.S., physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital; and Dr. W. A. Guy, M.B., Cantab. Professor of Forensic Medicine, King's College, London.

The propositions successfully maintained in Dr. Carpenter's book are thus stated by himself:

In the first place. That from a scientific examination of the modus operandi of alcohol upon the human body, when taken in a poisonous dose, or to such an extent as to produce intoxication, we may fairly draw inferences with regard to the specific effects which it is likely to produce when repeatedly taken in excess, but not to an immediately fatal amount.

Secondly. That the consequences of the excessive use of alcoholic liquors, as proved by the experience of the medical profession, and universally admitted by medical writers, being precisely such as the study of its effects in poisonous and immediately fatal doses would lead us to anticipate, we are further justified in expecting that the habitual use of smaller quantities of these liquors, if sufficiently prolonged, will ultimately be attend in a lar

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