the stomach from wambling, and the heart from swelling; it
keepeth the hands from shivering, the sinews from shrinking, the
veins from crumbling, the bones from aching, and the marrow from
soaking."

Being a medicine, which very rapidly creates a craving for itself, the
demand for it became enormous, and, as time advanced, people began
prescribing it for themselves, until its use both as medicine and
beverage became almost general.

If the medical profession is responsible for the wide-spread belief that
alcoholics are of service to mankind both as food and medicine, it
should not be forgotten that it is to members of the same profession the
world is indebted for the correction of these errors. All down through
the centuries there have been physicians who doubted and opposed its
claims to merit. It remained for the medical science of the latter half
of the nineteenth century to clearly demonstrate with nicely adjusted
chemical apparatus and appliances the wisdom of these doubts.

The scientific study of the effects of alcohol upon the human body began
about sixty years ago. The first American investigator was Dr. Nathan S.
Davis, of Chicago, who was the founder of the American Medical
Association. During the months of May, June, July, September and
October, 1848, Dr. Davis published in the _Annalist_, a monthly medical
journal of New York City, a series of articles controverting the
universal opinion that alcoholic drinks are warming, strengthening and
nourishing. In 1850 he executed an extensive series of experiments to
determine the effects of a diet exclusively carbonaceous (starch), one
exclusively nitrogenous (albumen), and alcohol (brandy and wine), on the
temperature of the living body; on the quantity of carbonic acid
exhaled; and on the circulation of the blood. The results of these
investigations were embodied in a paper read before the American Medical
Association in May, 1851. They showed that alcohol, instead of
increasing animal heat, and promoting nutrition and strength, actually
produced directly opposite effects, reducing temperature, the amount of
carbonic acid exhaled, and the muscular strength. So opposed were these
conclusions to the generally accepted teachings of the day that the
Association did not refer the paper to the committee of publication. It
was published later in the _Northwestern Medical and Surgical Journal_.

In 1854 Dr. Davis published one of the most remarkable of the