42 Man's Food and Dietetics. 



moderate quantities, appear to encourage the appetite and 

 promote digestion ; but taken excessively, they destroy the 

 appetite, and impair the digestive powers. Alcohol he conceived 

 to be useful when given in medicinal doses — for example, after 

 an acute illness of two or three weeks, when emaciation is often 

 extreme, and more especially when digestion is interfered with. 

 In continued fevers, too, it is often absolutely necessary to 

 give wine or other alcoholic beverages, in order to afford to 

 the organisation the elements for heat generation by organic 

 combustion, and to retard the process of destructive loss of 

 tissue. But there is no denying the fact that the habitual 

 use of stimulants to any extent produces premature decay and 

 early death. 



Mr. Robert Young, C.E., then gave a description of some 

 geological observations made by him in connection with the 

 excavations for the Greencastle Waterworks, and exhibited a 

 number of specimens. 



