ed in certain crystalline bodies, which can be isolated,
and used in minute and convenient forms, and that they can be
held in aqueous solutions. Alcohol is no longer needed to hold
the active principles of opium, Peruvian bark or other
indispensable drugs. As regards the vegetable tonics so called,
the best among them is the columbo (Radix columbo) and this
readily yields its bitter principle to water, as does quassia,
gentian, senna, rhubarb and most other valuable substances. A
careful survey of the contents of a well-appointed modern
pharmacy leads to the conclusion that there is no one
indispensable medicinal preparation which requires alcohol as a
free constituent.

"The catalogue of modern remedies is almost endless, and many of
them hold alcohol in some form; but every intelligent physician
knows that 90 per cent. of these alleged remedies have little or
no intrinsic value. The nostrums of the quack, the bitters,
elixirs, cordials, extracts, etc. nearly all contain alcohol,
and this is the ingredient which aids their sale. The whole
unclean list might, with advantage to mankind, be thrown to the
fishes.

"The chemist, more particularly the pharmaceutical chemist, may
inquire how he is to conduct his processes without alcohol. It
is from the pharmaceutical laboratory we derive some of the most
important substances used in medicines and the arts. Among them
may be named ether, chloroform and chloral hydrate, three of the
most indispensable agents known to science, and the employment
of alcohol is essential to their production. Alcohol is a
laboratory product; it is a chemical agent which belongs to the
laboratory; it is the handmaid of the chemist, and, so long as
it exists, should be retained within the walls of the
laboratory. In the manufacture of most of the important products
in which alcohol is either directly or indirectly used, its
production may be made simultaneous with the production of the
agent desired. In the manufacture of ether and chloroform, the
apparatus for alcohol may be made a part of the devices from
which the ultimate agents, ether and chloroform, result.
Fermentation and distillation may be conducted at one end, and
the anaesthetics received at the other. It is true that in a
chemical laboratory alcohol is an agent very convenient in a