em, the conservative vital force, recognizing it as an
enemy, at once makes an effort through the living matter to rid
the system of the offender;--the heart increases in action and
new strength seems to appear. Now, right here is where the great
mass of people and a large number of physicians are deluded.
They mistake the extra effort of the vital force to preserve the
body against harmful agencies for an actual increase in strength
as the result of the agent given; we wonder that they can be so
blind as not to see the reaction which invariably occurs soon
after the administration of their so-called stimulant."

Dr. F. R. Lees, of England:--

"All poisons lessen vitality and deteriorate the ultimate tissue
in which force is reposited. Alcohol is an agent, the sole,
perpetual and inevitable effects of which are to avert blood
development, to retain waste matter, to irritate mucous and
other tissues, to thicken normal juices, to impede digestion, to
deaden nervous sensibility, to lower animal heat, to kill
molecular life, _and to waste, through the excitement it creates
in heart and head, the grand controlling forces of the nerves
and brain_."

If alcohol is a destroyer of bodily force, as any ordinary observer of
drinking men can readily see, it is a problem beyond solving, how it is
going to give force to, or sustain vitality in, the patient hovering
between life and death. Too often has it been the means of hastening
into eternity those who, but for its mistaken use, might have recovered
from the illness affecting them.

_Food gives heat to the body._

Alcohol does not, but really robs the body of its natural warmth. This
finding of science was received with the utmost incredulity when first
presented to the medical world, but the invention of the clinical
thermometer settled it beyond controversy. It is now believed by all but
a very few of those who have knowledge of the physiological effects of
alcohol. While Dr. N. S. Davis, of Chicago, was the first to demonstrate
this fact, it was Dr. B. W. Richardson, of England, who succeeded in
putting it prominently before the attention of physicians.

The normal temperature of the human body is a little over 98 degrees by
Fahrenheit's thermometer. If the temperature is found to be much above
or below 98 degrees the person is considered out of health; indeed by
this condition alone physicians are