e fancies to be 'support.'
Beef-tea, arrowroot and _port wine_ are prescribed. Let it be
kept in mind that the pure wine of the grape is discarded in
favor of alcoholic wine. Our question is, What effect will the
alcohol in this wine have on that process by which the food is
to prove really nourishing, and so to be that support which is
the only hope for this child? Will it help her? or will it so
hinder the necessary change in the food as to kill her, unless
she has sufficient strength left to get above its influence?
These are surely important questions. Neither of them can be set
at rest by the fact that she recovers; for she _may_ have
strength enough, as many have had, to survive even a serious
error in her treatment.

"What light, then, does true science throw on these important
questions? All who know anything on the subject are aware that
alcohol, instead of dissolving _food_, or aiding in its
dissolution, is one of the most powerful agents in preventing
that dissolution. On what principle, then, is it possible that
its being mixed with the materials of food, in this case, can
aid in their dissolution, so that they may more easily be
changed into the fresh blood required to sustain and recover
life in this child?"

He then refers to the experiments with gastric juice in vials, and
proceeds:--

"Here, then, is indisputable evidence that alcohol effectually
_prevents_ that process which is known as digestion, and which
is essential to food's being of any use to support life in man.
On what principle can the physician explain his introduction of
it into the stomach of a child whose thread of life is
attenuated to the slenderest hair?

"We urge the chemical truth that the alcohol, given to promote
support, is of such a nature as to prevent that which would
nourish, from effecting the end so much to be desired, and for
which true food is adapted."

The pure, unfermented juice of the grape, free from chemical
preservatives, is now used by many physicians where the miserable
concoction of drugs and alcohol, known as port wine, was once considered
essential. Unfermented grape juice contains all the nutriment of the
grape, without any of the poison, alcohol. After being opened it should
be kept in a cool place, or it will ferment and produce alcohol. Fruit
juices are very grateful to a fever