Much as opinions may differ, however, respecting the value of alcohol as an article of diet in health, or in a condition of slightly impaired health and vigour, there can be no doubt that in the hands of the physician alcohol is one of the most valuable drugs he possesses. In the period of depression and "resolution" of acute pneumonia, in syncope, in the sudden enfeeblement of the heart from fright, accidents, or loss of blood, in ischaemia of the blood vessels of the brain, in acute fevers when the heart must be supported, in collapse, and in certain degenerative nervous and cutaneous diseases, alcohol is invaluable, and there is no drug in the pharmacopoeia which can take its place. But even in these cases it must be used with caution and under medical advice, and it may be accepted as an axiom that small doses frequently repeated are always more efficacious and less dangerous than large doses at long intervals. The pulse is to the physician and to the intelligent nurse watching beside a patient in a state of profound depression, the indication of the amount and the frequency of the dose of alcohol to be administered. I have within my own experience seen, more than once, a patient pulled through the imminently fatal exhaustion of acute pneumonia during the period of the rapid fall of temperature, by minute and oft-repeated doses of brandy, given immediately the pulse was felt to flag; and I have seen similar cases die for the want of the use of alcohol at this critical time. In the debility of convalescence, "a little wine," recommended by St. Paul to Timothy " for the stomach's sake," may promote digestion if taken just before meals: but this is again a matter for the physician to decide.

The evil effects of alcohol when taken in excess are notorious, and I need not enlarge upon them here. It is the abuse of alcohol which fills our hospitals, our prisons, our lunatic asylums, and our workhouses; it is the fertile parent of vice and crime, the foster-mother of pauperism, and the constant generator of chronic poverty. But besides the evils which can be traced directly to dram-drinking, tippling and excess, who can gauge the number of cases in which the bread-winner dies from acute disease, from which the alcoholic habit deprives him of the power to rally; the children are born with degenerate constitutions; the will power for good is weakened, and character and happiness destroyed? It is not to be wondered at that, seeing the evils wrought by abuse, the use of alcohol is condemned, and the cry is raised: " Come out of the unclean thing, touch not, taste not, handle not". But the conventual and monastic view is not that of human life. The wise man is he who can enjoy all the good gifts of this world while keeping his body in subjection, his mind pure, and his life undefiled. To acquire property is not to be a thief, to be a husband is not to be a profligate, and to drink wine is not to be a drunkard. "Be ye temperate in all things," is the dictum both of the philosopher and of the prophet.