ommon to the use of so-called
felicity-producing drugs.

"Is it not evident, then, that in combating the use of alcohol
we are attacking only one member of a numerous family of enemies
to human life and happiness, every one of which must be
exterminated before the evil of intemperance will be up-rooted?"

Among the most popular drugs for self-prescription at the present time
are the coal-tar products. Of these Dr. N. S. Davis has said:--

"Only a few years since, the profession were taught to regard
the degree of pyrexia, or heat, as the chief element of danger
in all the acute general diseases. Consequently, to control the
pyrexia became the leading object of treatment; and whatever
would do this promptly, and at the same time allay pain and
promote rest, found favor at the bedside of the patient.

"It was soon ascertained that antipyrin, antifebrin, phenacetin
and other analogous products, if given in sufficient doses,
would reduce the heat, and allay the pains with great certainty
and promptness, not only in continued fevers, but also in
rheumatism, influenza, or la grippe, etc.; and thus their use
soon became popular with both the profession and the public. No
one, however, undertook to first ascertain by strictly
scientific appliances the actual pathological processes causing
the pyrexia in each form of disease, or even to determine
whether in any given case the increased heat was the result of
increased heat production, or diminished heat dissipation.
Neither were any of the remedies subjected to such experimental
investigation as to determine their influence on the elements of
the blood, the internal distribution of oxygen, the metabolism
of the tissues, or on the activity of the eliminations.
Consequently their exhibition was wholly empirical, and the one
that subdued the pyrexia most promptly was given the preference.
Yet we all know that the pyrexia invariably returned as soon as
the effects of each dose were exhausted, and in a few years the
results showed that while the antipyretics served to keep down
the pyrexia, and give each case the appearance of doing well,
the average duration of the cases, and their mortality, were
both increased.

"Step by step experimental therapeutic investigations have
proved that the whole class of coal-tar antipyretics reduce