sistance of the living body to
infection, we see excellent reasons why the liberal use of alcohol in
the treatment of such infectious diseases as diphtheria, typhoid fever
and pneumonia, under the supposition that it was a cardiac tonic, has
resulted in so great a mortality as from thirty to sixty per cent.

Dr. A. Pearce Gould, a London hospital surgeon of the first rank, has
made special study of the surgery of the blood-vessels, and of the
chest. He was one of the earliest to practice and advocate the careful
removal of the axillary glands in all operations for cancer of the
breast.

He is a strong believer in the value of total abstinence as promoting
robust health of body and mind. He regards the value of alcohol in
disease as exceedingly small, and prescribes it only very rarely. He
thinks that alcohol increases the activity of cancer and other malignant
growths, an opinion which is of great importance from one with such
exceptional opportunities for observation in these complaints.

Dr. N. S. Davis in the _American Medical Temperance Quarterly_ of
January, 1895, gives reports of cases which came under his observation
as a consulting physician, where the use of alcoholics throughout an
extended illness favored the continuance of delirium, or mild mental
disorder, after convalescence was established. In each case the
withdrawal of the alcohol was followed by a cessation of the mental
delusion.

One of these cases may be taken as an example:--

"The third case was that of a woman over sixty years of age, who
had suffered from a mild grade of fever and protracted
diarrhoea, somewhat resembling a mild grade of enteric typhoid
fever.

"As she became much reduced in strength during the latter part
of her diarrhoea, her friends began to give her wine, and
sometimes stronger alcoholic drink, under the popular delusion
that these could strengthen her. Her mind soon became wandering,
and she was troubled with illusions, which were attributed to
her weakness, and the so-called stimulants were increased. But
the mental disorder increased also, and continued after the
fever and diarrhoea had ceased, until the question was raised
concerning the propriety of her removal to an asylum for the
insane.

"Being consulted at that time, and listening to an accurate
history of the case, I suggested that the anaesthetic effect of
the alcohol on the cerebral hem