small* and frequently repeated, with the effect of producing and maintaining the first or stimulant effect, so long as this may be required. And from what has already been said, it will be readily understood that the stimulant power of this agent is exerted on the nervous system and on the circulation, but mainly and primarily on the former.

I. When a man becomes faint, for example, from fear, pain, or sudden injury, and it is desirable to rouse him from the state of shock in which he is found, what more suitable than ammonia- a pure stimulant? or brandy

a stimulant-narcotic? The dose of the latter must be moderate, however; as, when speaking of the poisons, we have seen how a large amount of alcohol rapidly swallowed by the strongest and healthiest of men may produce shock, or depression of the nervous power, of the most formidable kind. And it is only by skilful repetitions of this moderate dose sometimes even minute that the rousing effect on the nervous system is produced and maintained, until reaction has fairly set in, and the state of shock has passed away.

II. In certain fevers such as typhus- there is marked and dangerous tendency to nervous depression; under which, if unchecked, the vital functions become faint, and are apt to cease. Practitioners have in con sequence learnt, in certain cases, and still more in certain epidemics, to anticipate and oppose this evil, by an

There are exceptional cases- - such as those of flooding, or other great loss of blood-where the exhaustion is so great that very considerable quantities of alcoholics are required in order to arouse the system, and prevent fatal sinking.

early and judicious use of stimulants. What! wine and

Then is the time to There is nothing in

Often it

brandy in fever! Most certainly. see the use and value of alcohol. nature without its use. Scorpions, snakes, fleas, bugs, and such like unpleasant and apparently unprofitable specimens of zoology, may sometimes puzzle the ordinary observer who would define their exact use in society; yet, bewildered though he be, he may rest satisfied of this, that their operations are beneficial, sometimes and somehow. And so of alcohol. is most noxious; and looking at the wide-spread mischief that it is ever working around them, superficial observers may be tempted to think that it is only evil, and evil continually. But in this, as in other things, the saying of the wise man comes true, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." While standing at the bedside of a fever case urgent, yet doing well under wine the ship in a terrible sea, yet obeying the helm in its every turn, and steering steadily I have often wished to have a tippler or a drunkard on one side of me, with a "fanatical teetotaller" on the other, in order that I might have the pleasure of saying, "There, gentlemen, there is a glorious example of the true use of wine." The man is taking a tablespoonful of sherry, every hour, or every two hours or a somewhat larger allowance of claret, or a smaller proportion of brandy,—the form and dose of the alcohol varying to meet the varying phases of the disease and at every. ; dose you can almost see far more truly than you can see grass growing in a warm summer shower, after long drought-health returning to the

otherwise sinking frame:- the cheek less flushed, the skin more cool, the eye more steady and clear, the pulse less frequent and more strong, the tongue more moist and clean, the breathing easier, the sensations all more comfortable. What is the alcohol doing? Not feeding the man in reality, as one might be apt to suppose; but stimulating the nervous system; spurring the nerves and nerve-centres, and keeping them awake, when otherwise they would go to sleep, and leave the vital functions, first to flag, and then to fail utterly-going to sleep too. The nervous power is kept active, and this excites the vital force to work also. "But the vital strength," you will object, "must be soon used up in this way-exhausted." There is a risk of that, no doubt; but better to run that risk, than let all perish at once without an effort. And by and by the stomach will be enabled to receive some food again, and to digest it too; whereby the vital strength will be sustained and replenished, so as to meet the strain. The steamship in the storm- - to take up our illustration once more—

has

put a limited supply of coal; and a vigilant production of steam, to work the engines, as she labors in the sea, will tend ultimately to exhaustion of the store no doubt; but still the only chance of safety lies in "cracking on," with the hope that thereby she may be enabled to reach some friendly shelter, to both "coal and water" for the rest of her way.

as

Is there no other stimulant that will do as well suitable, and more safe? Ammonia, for example? Experience says, No. Ammonia is wanted sometimes, besides. But we must have the alcohol, probably,

among other reasons, because of the heat-producing power which it so manifestly exercises by its oxidation, or burning in the lungs, and which, though in health apt to be injurious, as we shall more fully see, may in this extremity be at least expedient.

Of course the beneficial effect will be most marked in those who, when in health, are least in the habit of taking alcohol in their ordinary beverages. In such persons each spoonful tells with a vigorous stroke on the virgin nervous centres; whereas, in the "seasoned" organism much of the alcohol will be wasted in bringing up the nerves to their ordinary "par," and even then the stimulant effect cannot be expected to prove so successful. Slight touches of the whip are sufficient to keep the fresh horse up to his traces; but the scourge must be laid heavily on the jaded hack, and withal there will be infinitely less power in the pull that follows.

While water-drinking can never render people more susceptible of such disease, it is satisfactory to know, and important to remember, that it makes them much more impressed by the needed remedies when the disease has come.

And another point falls to be considered here. The law of tolerance. If disease render my system needful of a certain remedy, or class of remedies - however powerful they may be in themselves, or however noxious, even, under other circumstances. that disease will give my system, at the same time, the power of bearing that remedy, or class of remedies, with comparative impunity. I have inflammation of my lungs, and I

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take a grain of tartar-emetic, which affords me relief; and I may go on, taking grain after grain, every two hours or so, without feeling myself made sick, but, on the contrary, feeling myself made better. But if I have no inflammation of the lungs, and take that remedy in like dose, I shall be made very sick in the space of half an hour, or less; and if I attempt to persevere, the symptoms will become those of poisoning. Or I have lock-jaw; I am given a large dose of Indian hemp or bang," and this is repeated frequently, with the effect of certainly palliating, and mayhap curing the cruel malady. But give me the same dose in health, and I shall probably be thrown into a trance, with restless tossings and troublous visions, awaking in terror and exhaustion; and were I to repeat the dosings as in tetanus, I should run great risk of perishing by ǹarcotism. And so it is here. The necessity for the remedy engenders a power of bearing it; and it seems at the same time to give a fixed and favorable bias to the working of the remedy. Without shock or fever, or other depressing agency at work on my nervous system, spoonful after spoonful, or glass after glass of the alcoholic stimulant, in constant and frequent succession, perhaps for days, would certainly pass the stimulant action and merge it in the sedative; I should become intoxicated, and consequently exhausted-my nervous system grievously depressed. But in the trough of the fever such dosing goes on without one sign of drunkenness; the brain, on the contrary, growing clearer and clearer in all its functions. Nay, it is even perhaps wrong to speak of wine and brandy, when judiciously