ause, and more than one woman suffering from puerperal fever
has been done to death by the administration of this substance,
which, not being _convenienter naturae, is contra naturam_."

J. S. Cain, M. D., in an able paper, read at the Nashville Academy of
Medicine, on "Rational Suggestions in the Treatment of Typhoid Fever,"
dissents from the practice, which still obtains largely in the medical
profession, of administering alcoholic liquors, in the belief that they
are "stimulants, conservators of force and even nutrients," and says:--

"After a careful and thoughtful study of this subject, I have
reluctantly, and against firm early convictions, been forced to
the conclusion that these theories with regard to the beneficial
effects of alcohol in disease are wholly fallacious. The only
rational conclusion at which I can arrive is that the agent is
ever, and under all circumstances, a depressor of temperature;
that it arrests the physiological interchange of carbonic acid
gas and oxygen in the tissues, as well as in the air vesicles of
the lungs; that it impedes the elimination of tissue waste, and
causes the accumulation of this refuse in the system; that it is
lethal anaesthetic in all quantities; that it is not stimulant in
the true sense, and never exerts that influence; and that it
supplies no element to the diseased and vitiated system
calculated to antagonize disease, repair waste, or invigorate
lowered vital forces, and therefore for these purposes is not
called for in the rational treatment of typhoid fever."

At the annual meeting of the American Medical Association held in
Atlanta, Georgia, in 1896, Dr. G. B. Garber, of Dunkirk, Ind., read a
paper upon "Alcohol in Typhoid Fever" from which a few points are here
taken:--

"The fact that the mortality from typhoid fever seems to be
gradually lowering is no doubt due in great measure to the
non-use of alcohol in the treatment of the disease. Hardly a
week passes that some of our journals do not report a series of
cases treated without the aid of alcohol in any form. I used
alcohol in the treatment of the disease until two years ago,
when I became alarmed at the mortality; so I changed my plan,
and in 1894 I treated thirty-seven well marked cases of varying
degrees of intensity. I had two fatal cases, and in both of them
I had used alcohol. In 1895 I