ease, but the most common kind arose
from the heart being too fat. Excess of fat debilitated the
heart and injured its working, just as a piece of wax attached
to a tuning fork would impair its usefulness. In such cases he
dieted his patients in order to reduce their weight. Every dose
of brandy taken for heart disease increased the evil. The moment
brandy was taken for heart disease, or any other chronic
complaint of a similar kind, the disease was increased. If
doctors recommended alcohol to their patients, he had been asked
what abstainers should do. In such cases, as had been suggested,
he thought the patients might ask what the alcohol was to do for
them, and if the reply was not satisfactory, they should get
another doctor."

Dr. T. D. Crothers, of Hartford, Conn., has deduced some valuable facts
from his experiments with the sphygmograph, upon the action of the
heart. He has found by repeated experiments that while alcohol
apparently increases the force and volume of the heart's action, the
irregular tracings of the sphygmograph show that the real vital force
is diminished, and hence its apparent stimulating power is deceptive.

Dr. C. W. Chapman, of the National Hospital for Diseases of the Heart,
wrote in the _Lancet_:--

"The very thing (alcohol) which they supposed had kept their
heart going was responsible for many of its difficulties."

Of cases of palpitation and irregularity caused by business anxieties or
indigestion, he said:--

"To give alcohol is only to add fuel to the fire."

HEART FAILURE:--"In cases of cardiac weakness, the thing needed
is not simply an increased rate of movement of the heart, or an
increased volume of the pulse, but an increased movement of the
blood current throughout the entire system. In the application
of any agent for the purpose of affording relief in a condition
of this kind, the peripheral heart as well as the central organ
must be taken into consideration. In fact, the whole circulatory
system must be regarded as one. The heart and the arteries are
composed of essentially the same kind of tissue, and have
practically the same functions. The arteries as well as the
heart are capable of contracting.

"Both the heart and the arteries are controlled by excitory and
inhibitory nerves. These two classes of nerves are kindred in
structure and in origin, the v