TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 671 
blood pressure and improve the circulation. In addition to any direct action on 
the circulation, alcohol might prove of value in circulatory failure through its 
narcotic action in the same way as opium, over which it had the advantage of not 
inducing any embarrassment of the respiration. But, though it might be useful 
in therapeutics, it must not be considered as indispensable, and its use must 
be curtailed to the utmost limit. In some conditions, such as old age and debility, 
it might be justifiable to neglect its drawbacks, but 1t ought to be advised only 
with eyes open to the risks run and with the recognition that a drug was being 
prescribed. The laity were justified in regarding alcohol, not as a drug, but as 
an article of diet so long as the physicians ordered it in the casual way familiar to 
all, They could hardly be blamed for ignoring the evidence of danger presented 
daily if their scientific mentors adopted the ambiguous position of physicians who 
allowed it, not believing that it would do any good, but assuming that it would 
do no harm, and not hesitating to make that statement; and hence the medical 
profession could not complain if they were accused of indifference towards the 
greatest evil of their country and their age. 
Dr. WALLER urged that a note of warning ought to be uttered—namely, that 
one should not take the raw data of the laboratory and put them before the public 
until there had been complete analysis and strict debate. There were many forms 
of alcohol, and their effects on the nervous tissues differed. He then described 
experiments on isolated muscle with brandy diluted with water and the same spirit 
diluted with a 10 per cent. saline solution, and showed that the latter facilitated 
muscular contraction; he also mentioned other experiments with the dynamo- 
graph, showing that, while alcohol sometimes might have no effect on muscular 
contraction, it might have at the same time considerable effect on the dissipation 
of heat. 
Dr. Rrvzrs pointed out that there were two different problems—first, the 
determination of the effect, immediate or within a few hours, of a single dose of 
alcohol; and, secondly, the question whether the continuous taking of alcohol had 
any effect on the capacity for muscular and mental work. In experiments with 
the ergograph it had been found that it was necessary to eliminate certain disturb- 
ing factors, and chiefly the interest and sensory stimulation produced by the act 
of taking the alcohol. There was no increase in the amount of muscular work 
with doses of from 5 to 20 cc. of a pure alcohol when doses were given with such 
a disguise that the subject of the experiment was not aware that he was taking 
alcohol. 
Dr. Dixon drew attention to the statements as to alcohol being a poison from 
results of experiments on protoplasmic tissue. He could similarly prove that 
distilled water, beef-tea, and caffeine were poisons. It was possible to distil off 
ethyl-alcohol from the tissues of men and animals who had never had any alcohol; 
and alcohol was therefore an actual constituent of all forms of living matter. 
The most remarkable point about alcohol was its rapid absorption from the 
stomach, and during absorption it assisted in the absorption of other not easily 
absorbable substances, including ordinary articles of food. It was absorbed and 
oxidised exactly as starch and sugar, and these could be replaced by alcohol as 
an energy-producing substance. He had been for three years working at the 
action of ethyl-alcohol on the circulation, and he thought he had conclusively 
proved that the presence of small quantities of alcohol in the blood up to 0:2 per 
cent. increased the amount of work and the output of blood from the heart, 
especially when the heart was beating quickly or failing. This small quantity 
facilitated the work of the heart; but very curiously the type of action was 
changed entirely when the amount was increased to 0°5 per cent., when the work 
of the heart was not facilitated. The action of a small quantity of alcohol in 
giving the heart a readily assimilable form of food substance was exactly similar 
to that of sugar, which was normally oxidised to alcohol. It was very likely that 
ordinary sugar in the body was not burned off directly into carbonie acid gas and 
water, but that it passed through a series of ferment changes of which alcohol was 
one, and that that was one reason why alcohol was found in the brain, liver, 
and tissues of the body. The fact that alcohol depressed the mental functions 
