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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
entered it, an unbroken chemical compound ? This question, 
however important scientifically, is of secondary moment when 
it is compared with the study of the direct, regular, and 
almost unvarying action of alcohol upon the body during 
life, and I have therefore left it in order to place before 
the mind of my readers the actual influence of alcohol on 
the body of the animal that takes it, whatever may become 
of it after it has entered the body. If in this effort I have 
shown how far alcohol is really good, and how such value as 
there is in it is limited at most to the first stage of its action ; 
if I have shown how, being a so-called stimulant, it is not a 
giver of power ; if I have indicated by what slight error in the 
use of it it is a destroyer of power of the most potent charac- 
ter ; and if, from experimental research on the physiological 
action of the agent, I have been able to communicate to the 
world some facts not before rightly understood, my intention is 
carried out. I hope, moreover, the intention is carried out 
with benefit to the greatest of all social efforts, the effort to 
reduce alcohol to its legitimate application as an instrument 
for some good and most evil in the possession of man. 
