thrown into the head, and so in Wall Street, we have our men on the watch to tell us whether the currency is in a healthy or unhealthy state. The slightest alteration is felt there, because the currency there is accumulated, and so in the brain the slightest injury of the blood is felt first, because here is accumulated the currency of the system.

14. Most poisons and medicines act in the human system according to a law of local affinity, by which their chief force is expended on particular organs, and sometimes on particular spots of particular organs.

15. All science is agreed that the local affinity of alcohol, like that of opium, prussic acid, hashish, belladonna, etc., is for the brain.

16. The brain is the organ of the mind, and the temple and instrument of conduct and character.

17. What disorganizes brain disorganizes mind and character, and whatever disorganizes mind and character disorganizes society.

18. The local affinity of alcohol for the brain, therefore, exempts it, in its relations to Government, from the list of articles that have no such affinity, and gives to Government the right, in self-defence, to interfere by the prohibitory regulation of its sale as a beverage.

19. It is not sufficient to prove that alcohol is not a poison to overthrow the scientific basis of its prohibitory laws.

20. Intemperance and cerebral injury are so related that even moderate indulgence is inseparably connected with intellectual and moral disintonement.

21. In this circumstance, and in the inerasibility of the scars produced by the local affinity of alcohol for the brain, the principle of total abstinence finds its justification by science.

Nothing in science is less questioned than the law of local affinities, by which different substances taken into the system exert their chief effect at particular localities. Lead, for example, fastens first upon the muscles of the wrist, producing what is known among painters and white-lead manufacturers as a wrist-drop. Manganese seizes upon the liver, iodine upon the lymphatic glands, chromate of potash upon the lining membrane of the eyelids, mercury upon the salivary glands and mouth. Oil of tobacco paralyzes the heart. Arsenic inflames the mucous membranes of the alimentary passages. Strychnine takes effect upon the spinal cord. Now, as all chemists admit, the local affinity of alcohol is for the brain. Dr. Lewis describes a case in which the alcohol could not be detected in the fluid of the brain cavities, nor, indeed, in any part of the body, but was obtained by distillation from the substance of the brain itself. Dr. Percy distilled alcohol in large quantities from the substance of the brains of animals killed by it, when only small quantities could be found in the blood or other parts of the systems of the same animals. Dr. Kirk mentions a case in which the brain liquid of a man who died in intoxication smelt very strongly of whisky, and when some of it was taken in a spoon, and a candle put beneath it, the flame burned with a lambent blue flame. But brain is the organ of the mind. Dr. Bucknell (Habitual Drinking) quotes Forbes Winslow as having testified before a Committee of Parliament that the liquid dipped from the brain of an habitual inebriate can thus be burned. Whatever is a disorganizer of the brain is a disorganizer of mind, and whatever is a disorganizer of mind is a disorganizer of society. It is from this point of view that the right of Government to prevent the manufacture of madmen and paupers can be best seen. I care not what men make of the famous recent experiments of Lallemand, Perrin, and Duroy, of France, by which half of the medical profession, including Dr. Carpenter, has been carried over to the support of the propositions that alcohol is eliminated from the system in totality and in nature; is never transformed and never destroyed in the organism; is not food; and is essentially a poison. I care not, on the other hand, what men make of the proposition Mr. Lewes defends, that alcohol may be a negative food. The local affinity of alcohol for the brain! This is a great fact. It is a fact uncontroverted. It is a fact sufficient. It is a fact to be heeded even in legislation.

Among the well known authorities on the influence of alcohol on the human brain, Dr. W. B. Carpenter and Dr. B. W. Richardson, of England, are now in entire accord with Prof. Youmans and Dr. W. E. Greenfield, of the United States, in recommending total abstinence. Dr. Richardson's Cantor lectures have been followed by a volume on "Total Abstinence," and he gives to Dr. Carpenter's views on this subject his full assent and final adhesion, having learned at last, he says, "how solemnly right they are." In 1869 Dr. Richardson began to abstain from wine, by limiting his use of it to festal occasions, but still more recently he has abandoned its use altogether.

The graduates of Amherst College met at the Parker House, in Boston, some years ago, and, although a wine glass was placed at the side of each plate, not one of them was filled. Niagara itself, a recent traveler in the United States says, is not as worthy of description to Englishmen as the pure array of goblets with ice-water at the usual dinners at hotels. Mrs. Hayes has expelled intoxicating beverages from the Presidential mansion.

The latest investigators of the influence of alcohol on the brain are Schulinus, Anstie, Dupré, Labottin, and Binz. The latter in a series of remarkable articles published in the Practitioner, in 1876, maintains that a portion of every dose of alcohol is burned in the system, and yet he considers the use of alcohol in health as entirely superfluous. The experimenters agree with the majority of physicians that, in the army and navy, and for use among healthy persons, alcohol, even as a ration strictly limited to a moderate quantity, is physiologically useless and generally harmful.

Upon different portions of the brain the action of alcohol can be distinctly traced by medical science and even by common observation. The brain, it will be remembered, is divided into three parts. The upper, which comprises the larger part, and which is supposed to be the seat of the intellectual and moral faculties, is called the cerebrum. Below that, in the back part of the organ, is another mass, called the cerebellum, parts of which are believed to control the contractions of the muscles in portions of the body. Still lower is the medulla oblongata, which presides over the nerves of respiration. Now the action of alcohol can be distinctly marked upon the different parts of the brain. The moral and intellectual faculties are first jarred out of order in the progress of intoxication. The tippler laughs and sings, is talkative and jocose, coarse or eloquent to almost any degree according to his temperament. The cerebrum is first affected. His judgment becomes weak; he is incapable of making a good bargain, or of defending his own rights intelligently, but he does not yet stagger; he is as yet only a moderate drinker. The effect of moderate drinking, however, is to weaken the judgment and to destroy the best powers of the will and intellect. But he takes another glass, and the cerebellum which governs several of the motions of the body is affected, and now he begins to stagger. He loses all control of his muscles, and plunges headlong against post and pavement. One more glass and the medulla oblongata is poisoned. This organ controls the nerves which order the movements of the lungs, and now occurs that hard breathing and snoring which is seen in dead drunkenness. This stoppage is caused by impure blood so poisoning the medulla oblongata that it can no longer perform its duties. The cerebrum and cerebellum now