act on the dust? Does the dust expel the nose? or does the nose expel the dust? Some months ago I read in the papers of a boa-constrictor swallowing a bed-blanket. The voracious reptile was two or three days in getting the article into its stomach. But after retaining it some four weeks, and finding no progress made in the work of digesting it, the animal, after a struggle of two or three days, succeeded in ejecting it. Did the bed-blanket act on the serpent, or did the serpent act on the bed-blanket? "The action of alcohol has yet to be shown," say Lallemand and Perrin. "That medicines do act," say all the Materia Medicas, "we know, but exactly how they act is entirely unknown." I dispute both propositions. They do not act at all. Why should alcohol act in the human stomach any more than it acts in the demijohn, or in the apothecary's shop? Does change of place change its nature? What would you think of the astronomer who should undertake to calculate the problems of his science on the primary premises that the sun revolves around the earth once in twenty-four hours? Would you not expect he would make bad work in calculating the tides, predicting the eclipses, managing the comets, and explaining the revolutions of the planets? Yet such was once the opinion of astronomers, and appearances proved it. They had the experience of all preceding ages and sages, and the evidence of their own senses, in favour of the theory-could they not see with their own eyes, that the sun arose in the east every fair morning, and set in the west each succeeding evening? And could they not feel with their own feet, that the earth, in relation to the sun, stood still? The logic was good, but the premise was wrong. They had mistaken an optical illusion for a law of nature. But when they came to apply the law of gravitation to the phenomena, they soon discovered that "appearances are sometimes deceitful." Medical philosophers are now in a predicament similar to that of the ancient astronomers. They have not recognised the controlling law of vitality. They have undertaken to explain the problems of life on chemical and mechanical principles. They might as well undertake to demonstrate the principle of music by the laws of conic sections. They have brought living and dead matter into contact, and placed the action on the wrong side.

Mr. MUDGE, Mayor of Bodmin, read his paper "On the Medical Profession in relation to Abstinence and Prohibition," which was much applauded.

Mr. L. M. BENNETT, M.R.C.S., Winterton, read a paper entitled "Alcohol Not Needed as a Medicine."

Dr. LEES announced a valuable paper from Mr. HIGGINBOTTOM, F.R.S., of Nottingham, and read a portion of it bearing on the immediate subject of discussion, which was warmly cheered. He also read the short and valuable testimony of Dr. COLLENETTE, of Guernsey, against alcohol as a medicine. Discussion now took place. Mr. S. FOTHERGILL, of Plymouth, said Dr. Macculloch had ably exposed a current fallacy in the admirable paper he had read to the Convention. In a late number of the "Medico-Chirurgical Review," a writer, supposed to be Dr. Chambers, while admitting that the primary action of alcohol is to destroy vitality, proved the strange perverseness with which the faculty clung to the use of alcohol, by the insertion of a most extraordinary theory to the effect that, as health consists in the even balance of all the functions, alcohol serves to restore and maintain that balance, by reducing the more vigorous organs to a par with the weaker ones-very much as if a man who had lost one leg should have the other cut off, just to restore the balance! The same writer further states that though alcohol does not so stimulate even as to enable them to accomplish more work in a given time, as generally supposed, it soothes the nervous system, and deadens it to a sense of the mischief of overwork. It thus enables men, with a sort of fascinating enjoyment, to kill themselves off in double quick time, doing twice the work they ought to do in a given period, but soothed by alcohol into a state of happy unconsciousness of the fact. And this is offered as a gain to society-a very questionable gain forsooth! Mr. DAVIES, of Swansea, in speaking against alcohol as a medicine, gave his experience to refute the popular theory.

Mr. GEORGE SMART, of Brighton, feared the greatest injury to the Temperance cause was the attempt of the medical faculty to degrade its advocates to the practice of drinking intoxicating liquors.

The Rev. Dr. BURNS suggested that a book be written recommending the nonalcoholic treatment. The general public were at the mercy of the alcoholic doctors, and Teetotalers ought to be fortified in their opinions by the publication of a scientific work on the subject. (Cheers.)

Dr. NORMAN KERR, of Glasgow, was not prepared to go so far as some of the papers. Medicines were poisons for the most part, and if alcohol were admitted to be a poison, that did not incapacitate it from being a medicine. Where large drug-shops were not at hand, cases would occur where the medical man must resort to alcohol, in the absence of agencies equally suitable, but inaccessible. He thought the suggestion of Dr. Burns a happy one, and as a medical man would welcome the publication of such a book to guide him and others in the treatment of the sick by non-alcoholic medicines.

The last paper on the list was a short one by Dr. LEES, "On Continental Intemperance in its Connection with Insanity and Suicide"-exploding by statistics the fallacy that wine countries were sober countries. This paper was read by Mr. FRANK WRIGHT, of Kensington.

The time for re-assembling the Convention having arrived,

Dr. FIGG, of Bo'ness, moved the following resolution:

1. "That the recent experiments and discoveries of physiological science, confirming observation and experience in all climates, have clearly demonstrated that alcohol has no dietetic value, but that its use as a beverage, in any form or to any extent, is injurious both to the body and the mind of man."

Mr. BENNETT seconded the resolution.

In reply to a question, Mr. MUDGE said that at the Bodmin Lunatic Asylum the annual medical visitors ordered drink to be supplied as a diet. The visiting committee declined, and said if alcohol were to be used at all, it must be included in the medicines. Accordingly, every patient who was ordered alcohol was inspected weekly to see whether he required the beverage. Notwithstanding the lukewarmness of some in connection with the institution, the rule had worked well, and there was less alcohol used there than in any medical institution in the kingdom.

The resolution was carried unanimously.

Dr. NORMAN KERR, of Glasgow, moved the following resolution:

2. "That the progress of medical science and experiment has exploded many theories on which the prescription of alcohol has been heretofore based, and has demonstrated, not only its non-dietetic character, but also its non-medicinal virtue, in a large range of disease; that the scientific, as distinguished from the empirical application of remedies, requires that their specific properties and reactions should be understood-conditions never yet fulfilled in regard to alcohol. This Convention therefore earnestly calls upon the members of the honourable profession of medicine, not only to respect their own reputation as a body, but to bear in mind their grave moral and social responsibilities in prescribing so questionable, so dangerous, and so abused an article. The Convention would also press upon the friends of Temperance the duty of insisting that alcohol, whenever prescribed under the plea of a supposed, or the justification of a real necessity, should be dispensed, like other drugs, not by the publican, but by the apothecary."

As a medical man, he had always adopted the rule, when prescribing alcohol, to mix something with it which would render it nauseous; he feared this was not scientific, but at any rate it absolved his soul from the danger of making alcohol palatable to those who had discontinued its practice. (Cheers.)

MOSES FRANKS, Esq., surgeon, of Heckington, heartily seconded the resolution, which was put and carried unanimously.

The Rev. Mr. BROSSER suggested that the medical men present should address themselves to the difficulty where an aged person was often said to be kept alive by alcohol.

The Rev. Mr. EDWARDS wished to know when a person was to be considered aged? He was near eighty years of age, and had not taken alcohol for the last twenty-six years. He hoped he was not so aged as to require alcohol. (Laughter.)

A small paper handed in, inquiring what was to be done in cases of indigestion arising from defective action of the heart, was ably replied to by Dr. FIGG.

SECTION VI.

ECONOMICAL AND STATISTICAL.

The Cost of Sixty Years' National Drinking. By the
REV. D. BURNS, London.

SIXT

IXTY years, from the year 1801 to 1860 inclusive, forms the period which we propose in this paper to include in our view of the cost incurred by the use of intoxicating liquors. It is the money cost of which we shall treat; one item only, and that not the saddest, is the long bill of costs which the British and Irish people have paid for their last sixty years' drinking. This cost is direct and indirect. By direct, we denote the cost of purchasing intoxicating drinks; by indirect, the cost of providing for the consequences of their use.

I. DIRECT COST.

66

The late Mr. G. R. Porter, in his paper on Self-imposed Taxation," read before the British Association in 1850, calculated the amount spent on intoxicating liquors as follows:-On the authority of distillers the sums paid for British spirits were believed to be three times the total of the duty paid; the same calculation was considered applicable to rum, while brandy was supposed to cost the consumer twice the amount of the customs receipts. This computation allows for the quantities sold in excess of the Government returns produced by extensive dilutions, and it also comprehends all the cost of illicit spirits which never saw an exciseman's face. In the early part of this century the spirits illicitly made and sold were supposed to exceed the amount coming legally into the market.

Taking one kind of wine with another, an average of 20s. per gallon is adopted as approaching to the fact, and under this estimate is comprised all the stuff made and vended as wine which never saw the light of any other sun than that which cheers our misty isle.

Ale and beer are supposed to have been sold at an average of 42s. the barrel, though it may be doubted whether this rate is high enough to allow for all that is gained by the retailer by means of the iron cow and the druggist's art. These things taken into account, we proceed to unfold what may not unjustly be styled the golden shame of Britain.

From 1801 to 1860 the excise and customs duties on ardent spirits realise the following amounts :

Taking the distillers' estimate, as used by Mr. Porter, the British people (i. e., of the three kingdoms) paid for the purchase of the liquors thus taxed the following sums:

During the same period the wines which paid duty and were retained for consumption were 365,408,301 imperial gallons, and at 20s. per gallon to the consumer (including all the other gallons they helped to produce), we have the wine account of sixty years placed, £365,408,301.

But the British have been most famous and infamous for beer drinking, and in sixty years there is proof of no fewer than 842,874,168 barrels of malt liquor having gone down the thirsty throats of the United Kingdom. Putting the retail price of each barrel at 42s., and including the duty paid on beer up to October, 1830 (about £90,000,000), the total cost of sixty years' beer bibbing will be £1859,614,364. Bringing these bewildering magnitudes into an aggregate, we have the following:

The cost of cider, perry, British wines, and other drinks not here included, will raise this tremendous total to at least three thousand six hundred millions of pounds sterling. This far exceeds the total of the national revenue during the same period, and is equal to an average expenditure of sixty millions per annum. It is equal to the declared value of all our exports to all parts of the world in the same period. It is four and a half times the amount of the national debt. It is ten times greater than the collective cost of constructing all the railroads at present open in the United Kingdom. It is ninety times the total investments in the savings' banks of the country. The sovereigns thus expended, if placed edge to edge (forty-one to a yard), would form a belt of gold fifty thousand miles in length, more than twice the circumference of the globe. If placed one upon another (fifteen to an inch) they would form 3,800 columns, each column a mile in height.

II. INDIRECT COST.

The cost of strong drinks does not cease when they have been purchased. They are bought to be consumed, and when consumed their effects on society entail pecuniary charges of a very burdensome description. These charges are legal and non-legal.

1st. Legal Charges. If alcoholic liquors produce crime, an army of officials must be employed in the detection, trial, and punishment of the criminals, who also require to be supported during their term of imprisonment. If they induce destitution and pauperism, the law of England gives a claim to relief, and makes legal provision for it. If they cause disease, hospitals and dispensaries are maintained to cure or investigate this disease. If they produce lunacy, public asylums are erected and officered for the lunatics so made. Nearly the whole of the expenses thus involved are borne by the public, and when it is ascertained that from three-fifths to three-fourths of these social evils are the consequences of social drinking, we have a financial account of formidable bulk to place at the door of the drinking, once universal, and still so prevalent in the nation. No official reports are extant of the amounts expended on pauperism, crime, and lunacy during the sixty years ending December, 1860, but the cost of pauperism cannot have been less than £400,000,000, and of crime and lunacy £150,000,000; a total of £550,000,000, of which £300,000,000 may be debited to the drinking customs of the nation.

2nd. Non-Legal Charges.-These include all the losses sustained in consequence of drinking habits; property to the value of many millions is yearly stolen by persons whom drink or drinking parents or companions have brought to a criminal condition. Work is neglected, wages lessened, business lost, capital destroyed or left unproductive, by the effects of drink on bodily health and moral conduct. All these results have a monetary measure, though any precise statistical calculation of that measure is out of the question. £20,000,000 per annum would be a moderate estimate for the total of all these losses thus occasioned. In sixty years the national loss from this source will have amounted to £1200,000,000.

The summary of the above statement is, then, as follows:

COST TO THE UNITED KINGDOM IN SIXTY YEARS BY STRONG DRINK.

Direct cost by purchase of liquors. . . . . . £3600,000,000
Indirect cost by legal charges

through liquor..

£300,000,000

By other losses.. 1200,000,000

1500,000,000

£5100,000,000

The annual average cost has thus stood at between eighty and ninety millions. We are sorry to state that, according to all probability, even this enormous average is below the cost which is now yearly borne by the British nation. With an estimate on this point our paper will conclude.