156 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
singular alcohol called mercaptan, or sulphur alcohol, in which 
the element sulphur replaces the element oxygen of common 
alcohol. Certain of these other alcohols — those above named 
particularly — I have made, also, subject of physiological study ; 
and the report of their action would afford scope for an article 
that could not, I think, fail to he of interest to scientific readers 
whose tastes lean towards physiological research. But, as it 
will he simplest to begin with the alcohol that is best known, 
and for good or for evil is most potent in the world in our time, 
1 confine, on this occasion, myself to it — ethylic or common 
alcohol . 
Ethylic alcohol will enter the animal body by any channel 
through which it can be administered. It may be introduced 
by the stomach, by the connective tissue beneath the skin, into 
which it can be readily injected, and by the inhalation of its 
vapour by the lungs. This last method of administration is, 
however, the most difficult, the quantity required for the pro- 
duction of an effect being considerable, and the time required 
very long. The animals most susceptible to the action of 
alcohol- vapour are pigeons ; but even they resist the influence of 
the vapour s© determinately, that the same quantity which 
would produce a profound effect in half-an-hour, were it injected 
subcutaneously, exerts no marked influence if administered 
through the air. 
But in whatever mode alcohol may be passed into the living 
body to produce modification of physiological action, the 
changes it excites are remarkably uniform, and cceteris 'paribus 
the amount required to induce the changes is also uniform. 
Thus, I have found, by many researches, that the proportion 
of sixty grains of alcohol to the pound weight of the animal 
body is the quantity capable of producing an extreme effect. 
The order of the changes induced is, in like manner, 
singularly uniform, and extends in a methodical way through 
all classes of animals that may be subjected to the influence ; 
and as the details of this part of my subject are the facts that 
concern us most, I shall expend some time in their narration. 
The first symptom of moment that attracts attention, after 
alcohol has commenced to take effect on the animal body, is 
what may be called vascular excitement ; in other words, over- 
action of the arterial vessels and of the heart, or, speaking still 
more correctly, over-action of the heart and arterial vessels. 
The heart beats more quickly, and thereupon the pulse rises. 
There may be some other symptoms of a subjective kind — 
symptoms felt by the person or animal under the alcohol — but 
this one symptom of vascular excitement is the first objective 
symptom, or that which is presented to the observer. I 
endeavoured in one research to determine from observations on 
