e in its use. Its effect, when it reaches the
circulation, is thus described by Dr. Richardson:

"As it passes through the circulation of the lungs it is exposed to the
air, and some little of it, raised into vapor by the natural heat, is
thrown off in expiration. If the quantity of it be large, this loss may
be considerable, and the odor of the spirit may be detected in the
expired breath. If the quantity be small, the loss will be comparatively
little, as the spirit will be held in solution by the water in the
blood. After it has passed through the lungs, and has been driven by the
left heart over the arterial circuit, it passes into what is called the
minute circulation, or the structural circulation of the organism. The
arteries here extend into very small vessels, which are called
arterioles, and from these infinitely small vessels spring the equally
minute radicals or roots of the veins, which are ultimately to become
the great rivers bearing the blood back to the heart. In its passage
through this minute circulation the alcohol finds its way to every
organ. To this brain, to these muscles, to these secreting or excreting
organs, nay, even into this bony structure itself, it moves with the
blood. In some of these parts which are not excreting, it remains for a
time diffused, and in those parts where there is a large percentage of
water, it remains longer than in other parts. From some organs which
have an open tube for conveying fluids away, as the liver and kidneys,
it is thrown out or eliminated, and in this way a portion of it is
ultimately removed from the body. The rest passing round and round with
the circulation, is probably decomposed and carried off in new forms of
matter.

"When we know the course which the alcohol takes in its passage through
the body, from the period of its absorption to that of its elimination,
we are the better able to judge what physical changes it induces in the
different organs and structures with which it comes in contact. It
first reaches the blood; but, as a rule, the quantity of it that enters
is insufficient to produce any material effect on that fluid. If,
however, the dose taken be poisonous or semi-poisonous, then even the
blood, rich as it is in water--and it contains seven hundred and ninety
parts in a thousand--is affected. The alcohol is diffused through this
water, and there it comes in contact with the other constituent parts,
with the fibrine, that plastic substanc