and it has even been used in fevers as an
anti-pyretic. So uniform has been the testimony of physicians in Europe
and this country as to the cooling effects of alcohol, that Dr. Wood
says, in his Materia Medica, "that it does not seem worth while to
occupy space with a discussion of the subject." Liebermeister, one of
the most learned contributors to Zeimssen's Cyclopaedia of the Practice
of Medicine, 1875, says: "I long since convinced myself, by direct
experiments, that alcohol, even in comparatively large doses, does not
elevate the temperature of the body in either well or sick people." So
well had this become known to Arctic voyagers, that, even before
physiologists had demonstrated the fact that alcohol reduced, instead of
increasing, the temperature of the body, they had learned that spirits
lessened their power to withstand extreme cold. "In the Northern
regions," says Edward Smith, "it was proved that the entire exclusion of
spirits was necessary, in order to retain heat under these unfavorable
conditions."

ALCOHOL DOES NOT GIVE STRENGTH.

If alcohol does not contain tissue-building material, nor give heat to
the body, it cannot possibly add to its strength. "Every kind of power
an animal can generate," says Dr. G. Budd, F.R.S., "the mechanical power
of the muscles, the chemical (or digestive) power of the stomach, the
intellectual power of the brain--accumulates _through the nutrition of
the organ_ on which it depends." Dr. F.R. Lees, of Edinburgh, after
discussing the question, and educing evidence, remarks: "From the very
nature of things, it will now be seen how _impossible_ it is that
alcohol can be strengthening food of either kind. Since it cannot become
a _part_ of the body, it cannot consequently contribute to its cohesive,
organic strength, or fixed power; and, since it comes out of the body
just as it went in, it cannot, by its decomposition, generate
_heat_-force."

Sir Benjamin Brodie says: "Stimulants do not create nervous power; they
merely enable you, as it were, to _use up_ that which is left, and then
they leave you more in need of rest than before."

Baron Liebig, so far back as 1843, in his "Animal Chemistry," pointed
out the fallacy of alcohol generating power. He says: "The circulation
will appear accelerated at the expense of the force available for
voluntary motion, but without the production of a greater amount of
mechanical force." In his later "Letters," he again says: "Wine i