who were being exposed to the inhibition, not of the
streptococcus pyogenes, but to the infections of malarial and
typho-malaria fever. And, as many were attacked with sickness,
it was thought by some of those in authority that if the
soldiers were given a specified ration of alcoholic liquor two
or three times a day, it might enable them to resist the morbid
influences to which they were exposed. The proposed ration was
accordingly ordered, and Dr. Hamilton informs us that the
soldiers taking the liquor ration succumbed to the morbific
influences surrounding them so much more rapidly than before,
that in less than sixty days the order was countermanded, and
the liquor ration stopped. And that eminent surgeon and
sanitarian added, with peculiar emphasis, that he wished never
to see the same experiment tried again."

Dr. J. J. Ridge, of London, has learned through his experiments that
alcohol not only hinders the leucocytes in their war upon disease germs,
but also tends to the multiplication of germs. Of this he says:--

"The antagonism of alcohol to the fundamental functions of life
is further exhibited by its action on the cellular elements of
living tissues and the free cells or leucocytes of the blood.
Dr. Lionel Beale long ago pointed out how it affected the
protoplasm of cells, and diminished the movements of amoebae,
to which leucocytes are apparently analogous.

"But while alcohol is thus injurious to living protoplasm, or
_constructive protoplasm_ as it may be called, that which builds
up, and forms all kinds of structures, and living beings of all
higher types, I accidentally discovered that in minute
quantities, under about one per cent., and even in such almost
incredible amounts as 1 part in 100,000, (1/10 millilitre in 10
litres) it favors the growth and multiplication of many microbes
whose function is antagonistic to the protoplasm of organized
beings, and which may therefore be called _destructive
protoplasm_. We know that these microbes are kept at bay by the
vitality of the tissues; if this vitality is lowered they may
prevail: as soon as life departs they set to work, and
decomposition is the result. It is, therefore, not very
surprising that an agent, like alcohol, which, we have seen,
lowers the vitality of constructive protoplasm, should, on the
other han