uld be aided rather
than hindered by the administration of any nerve irritant. There
never will come a time when the laws of health can be evaded.
Nor is there any vicarious atonement. The full penalty of
disobedience will invariably be exacted. The hunt for a panacea
is as sure to be disappointing in the future as it has been in
the past."

A writer in the _Brooklyn Citizen_ says:--

"Few people are aware of the extent of a peculiar kind of
dissipation known as ginger-drinking. The article used is the
essence of ginger, such as is put up in the several proprietary
preparations known to the trade, or the alcohol extract
ordinarily sold over the druggist's counter. Having once
acquired a liking for it, the victim becomes as much a slave to
his appetite as the opium eater or the votary of cocaine. In its
effect it is much the most injurious of all such practices, for
in the course of time it destroys the coating of the stomach,
and dooms its victim to a slow and agonizing death.

"The druggist who told me about the thing says that as ginger
essence contains about one hundred per cent. alcohol, and whisky
less than fifty per cent., the former is therefore twice as
intoxicating. In fact, this is the reason why it is used by
hardened old topers whose stomachs are no longer capable of
intoxicating stimulation from whisky. They need the more
powerful agency of the pure alcohol in the ginger extract. He
told me that he had two regular customers, one a woman, who had
ginger on several occasions for stomachic pains. The relief it
afforded her was so grateful that she took it upon any
recurrence of her trouble. She found, too, that the slight
exhilaration of the alcohol banished mental depression. In this
way she got to using it regularly, and finally to such excess
that she was often grossly intoxicated. Large doses produce a
quiet stupor; additional doses induce a profound lethargic
slumber, which lasts in some cases for twenty-four hours. His
other customer was a peddler, who came at a certain hour every
morning, bought a four-ounce bottle and drank its contents by
noon. The man craved the stuff so ardently that he was unable to
go about his business until he set the machinery of his stomach
in operation, and started the circulation of the blood by means
of the fiery draugh