self, entire, was before me within three minutes
after the death. It exhaled the odor of spirit most distinctly, and its
membranes and minute structures were vascular in the extreme. It looked
as if it had been recently injected with vermilion. The white matter of
the cerebrum, studded with red points, could scarcely be distinguished,
when it was incised, by its natural whiteness; and the pia-mater, or
internal vascular membrane covering the brain, resembled a delicate web
of coagulated red blood, so tensely were its fine vessels engorged.

"I should add that this condition extended through both the larger and
the smaller brain, the cerebrum and cerebellum, but was not so marked in
the medulla or commencing portion of the spinal cord."

THE SPINAL CORD AND NERVES.

"The action of alcohol continued beyond the first stage, the function of
the spinal cord is influenced. Through this part of the nervous system
we are accustomed, in health, to perform automatic acts of a mechanical
kind, which proceed systematically even when we are thinking or speaking
on other subjects. Thus a skilled workman will continue his mechanical
work perfectly, while his mind is bent on some other subject; and thus
we all perform various acts in a purely automatic way, without calling
in the aid of the higher centres, except something more than ordinary
occurs to demand their service, upon which we think before we perform.
Under alcohol, as the spinal centres become influenced, these pure
automatic acts cease to be correctly carried on. That the hand may reach
any object, or the foot be correctly planted, the higher intellectual
centre must be invoked to make the proceeding secure. There follows
quickly upon this a deficient power of co-ordination of muscular
movement. The nervous control of certain of the muscles is lost, and the
nervous stimulus is more or less enfeebled. The muscles of the lower lip
in the human subject usually fail first of all, then the muscles of the
lower limbs, and it is worthy of remark that the extensor muscles give
way earlier than the flexors. The muscles themselves, by this time, are
also failing in power; they respond more feebly than is natural to the
nervous stimulus; they, too, are coming under the depressing influence
of the paralyzing agent, their structure is temporarily deranged, and
their contractile power reduced.

"This modification of the animal functions under alcohol, marks the
second degree of its