46 MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



It had been earnestly espoused by the rest of his family ; 

 and he was led to deal with it from the scientific side. 

 Accordingly, in an article in the Medical Review, published 

 in 1847, Dr. Carpenter discussed the effects of alcoholic 

 drinks on the human system in health and disease. Two 

 years later he obtained a prize of one hundred guineas 

 for the best essay on the use and abuse of alcoholic liquors, 

 which was published in 1850. He himself practised total 

 abstinence, and trained his children to it, until repeated 

 illnesses in later years (especially one of many months' 

 duration in 1864-5) led him to take a moderate amount 

 of stimulant. But he always remained a hearty friend to 

 the Temperance cause. In an address on the "Physiology 

 of Alcoholics," delivered in 1882, in the Tremont Temple, 

 Boston, Massachusetts, at the request of Governor Long 

 and other leading men, he reaffirmed many of the 

 positions of his earlier essay. 



The five years during which Dr. Carpenter occupied the 

 editorial chair of the Medico-Chiriirgical Review, were per- 

 haps the busiest of all his busy life. His professional 

 appointments kept him constantly at work as a lecturer. 

 He poured out article after article in the Review. He was 

 carrying his physiological treatises through new editions, 

 into which so much fresh matter was absorbed that there 

 sometimes seemed but little of the original structure left. 

 And his natural history researches engaged his constant 

 attention. Brief holidays only could he allow himself 

 His day began at six, and often ended only at midnight, 

 an hour or two over the microscope in the evening forming 

 his only recreation, while his wife played or sang, or 

 beguiled him to join her in a duet. In this continued .strain 

 he had little time for family intercourse, and his corre- 

 spondence was reduced to the smallest dim.ensions. Every 

 now and then, however, the occurrence of some anniversary 



