rfect internal
metamorphosis or oxidation, such as uric acid, oxalates, casts,
leucocytes, albumen and potassium, with less of the normal
products, as urea and salts of sodium.

"During the past year I have met with three cases in which the
regular daily use of alcoholic drinks for several months, in
quantities not sufficient to produce intoxication, had so
altered the blood, and the renal function, that the urine
contained both casts and albumen, and some degree of oedema
was observable in the face and extremities. These changes were
so marked as to justify a diagnosis of incipient nephritis, or
Bright's disease. Yet after totally abstaining from the use of
alcoholic drinks and remedies, and taking such vasomotor tonics
as strychnine and digitalis, with a regulated diet and fresh
air, they completely recovered.

"When it is remembered that in diphtheria, pneumonia and typhoid
fever, the acute diseases in which a large part of the
profession administer most freely alcoholic remedies, the
function of the kidney is altered in almost the same direction
as are found to take place under the influence of alcohol, it
should certainly cause every practitioner to pause and
critically review the pathological basis on which he has been
prescribing. An anaesthetic, like alcohol, may certainly render a
patient with diphtheria, pneumonia or typhoid fever more quiet,
and cause him to say he feels better, but if it at the same time
diminishes the internal distribution of oxygen, retards the
oxidation and elimination of waste and toxic products through
the kidneys and lungs, and lessens vasomotor force, it cannot
fail to protract the duration of disease, and increase the
ratio of mortality."--Dr. N. S. Davis, _A. M. T. A. Quarterly_,
April, 1894.

Dr. J. H. Kellogg, by a series of carefully executed experiments,
conclusively demonstrated that alcohol hinders the elimination of
poisonous matter by the kidneys. This property of alcohol is one of the
objections which he sees to its use as a medicine. He says:--

"Water applied externally stimulates elimination by the pores of
the skin, and employed freely internally by water drinking, and
enemas to be retained for absorption, aids liver and kidney
activity. If the patient dies it is because his liver and
kidneys have failed to destroy and elimina