ent. alcohol, and 5 per cent. residue. This residue is composed
of sugar, tartaric, acetic and carbonic acids, salts of potassium and
sodium, tannic acid, and traces of an ethereal substance which gives the
peculiar or distinguishing flavor. The only one of these ingredients
possessing food value is sugar; this exists chiefly in what are called
sweet wines. Yet how many thousands of people spend money they can ill
afford for wines and beers to build up the failing strength of some
loved one! A costly delusion, and too often a fatal one!

"Distilled liquors, if unadulterated, contain literally nothing
but water and alcohol, except traces of juniper in gin, and the
flavor of the fermented material from which they have been
distilled."--_Influence of Alcohol_, by N. S. Davis, M. D.

It is the solemn duty of those to whom the people look for instruction
in matters of health to undeceive the toiling masses as to the
food-value of alcoholic liquids. Some of the medical profession are
faithful in this regard, but too many others are themselves deceived, or
care not for the destruction of the people.

IS ALCOHOL A STIMULANT?

A lady asked her family physician several years ago what he thought of
the views of those medical writers who class alcohol as a narcotic, and
not a stimulant. He answered with some heat, "Any one who says alcohol
is not a stimulant is either a fool or a knave!" He could not have been
aware that some of the most distinguished professors in American medical
colleges teach that alcohol is not, properly speaking, a stimulant, but
a narcotic.

The accepted definition of a stimulant in medical literature is some
agent capable of exciting or increasing _vital activity_ as a whole, or
the natural activity of some one structure or organ.

Dr. N. S. Davis has said repeatedly that both clinical and experimental
observations show that alcohol directly diminishes the functional
activity of all nerve structures, pre-eminently those of respiration and
circulation, thus decreasing the internal distribution of oxygen, which
is nature's own special exciter of all vital action.

"Consequently it is antagonistic to all true stimulants or
remedies capable of increasing vital activity. Instead,
therefore, of meriting the name of _stimulant_, alcohol should
be designated and used only as an anaesthetic and sedative, or
depressor of vital activity."

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