f the secretory epithelium)?
Have we not, in fact, a cumulative action of two substances,
either of which alone would do damage, but not in the same
proportion as do the two when acting together.

"Now let us see what we may learn from a series of experiments
carried out by Dr. Abbott, working in the Laboratory of Hygiene
of the University of Pennsylvania, under the auspices of the
committee of fifty, to investigate the Alcohol Question.

"These are his conclusions:--

1. "That the normal vital resistance of rabbits to infection by
streptococcus pyogenes is markedly diminished through the
influence of alcohol when given daily to the stage of acute
intoxication. 2. That a similar, though by no means so
conspicuous, diminution of resistance to infection and
intoxication by the bacillus coli communis also occurs in
rabbits subjected to the same influences.

"Throughout these experiments, with few exceptions, it will be
seen that the alcoholized animals not only showed the effects of
the inoculations earlier than did the non-alcoholized rabbits,
but in the case of the streptococcus inoculations, the lesions
produced (formation of miliary abscesses) were much more
pronounced than are those that usually follow inoculations with
this organism.

"With regard to the predisposing influence of the alcohol, one
is constrained to believe that it is in most cases the result of
structural alterations consequent upon its direct action on the
tissues, though in a number of animals no such alterations could
be made out by microscopic examinations. I am inclined, however,
to the belief, in the light of the work of Berkley and
Friedenwald, done under the direction of Professor Welch, in the
pathological laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University, that a
closer study of the tissues of these animals would have revealed
in all of them structural changes of such a nature as to
indicate disturbances of important vital functions of sufficient
gravity fully to account for the loss of normal resistance.

"Following up Dr. Abbott's experiments, Dr. Delearde, working in
Calmette's laboratory in the _Institut Pasteur_ at Lille, made a
series of observations which are, from many points of view, of
very great interest and importance as he attacks it from an
entirely new standpoint, one that