Alcohol is an excellent local application to counteract the caustic action of carbolic acid.

Alcohol, or brandy, has been successfully employed to harden nipples and prevent their cracking.

A very efficient means of reducing temperature in fever is to bathe the skin with alcohol, the method being also useful to check excessive sweating.

Internally. - Alcohol, in the form of wine, beer, or ale, taken before or during meals, is an efficient stomachic. Atonic dyspepsia and the weakened digestion attendant upon convalescence from acute diseases are greatly benefited by some form of alcohol. When digestion becomes impaired as the result of physical or mental exhaustion the drug serves a useful purpose as a tonic. In percentages above 10 per cent. alcohol hinders, rather than aids, digestion. It is obviously contraindicated in gastritis.

The wisdom of using the drug, however, in the conditions mentioned may be questioned, because of the danger of establishing the desire or habit, particularly in the case of neurotic women and those whose debilitated energies call for renewed and increasing quantities of the drug.

Frequently the physical or mental depression, the peculiar, irresistible craving for stimulants, the insomnia and fitful appetite and disposition which urge recourse to alcoholic indulgence, are but the early manifestations of a brain-and-nerve degeneration, the impulse to drink being only the physical demand for relief.

There is less danger attending the administration of alcohol in conditions of lowered vitality and weakened digestion in old people than in the young and middle-aged. The drug is decidedly contraindicated in persons of average health and fair digestion, although beneficial in the aged, whose powers are failing from natural decline.

The anesthetic and sedative properties of alcohol, especially in the form of champagne, which contains carbon-dioxide gas, may frequently control obstinate vomiting. Gastralgia and the pain arising from flatulence are often readily relieved by brandy.

As a pure cardiac stimulant, alcohol is remarkably serviceable in syncope, asphyxia, exhausting hemorrhages, diphtheria, and collapse where death seems imminent. In counteracting the effects of?iar-cotic poisons it is almost indispensable; it is of some service for the treatment of poisoning by venomous reptiles, but it is not a specific in any degree.

It is a common practice with some surgeons to precede the inhalation of chloroform with the administration of I or 2 ounces (30.0-60.0 Cc.) of whiskey or brandy, to induce a partial anesthesia before giving the general anesthetic.

In certain stages of various acute diseases, such as typhoid, typhus, small-pox, pneumonia, cerebrospinal meningitis, capillary bronchitis, etc., alcohol is one of the 'most potent and valuable remedies. It should be employed in these cases only when there is marked depression of the circulatory apparatus, characterized by a weak, rapid, soft, and irregular pulse with a feeble sound of the heart and threatened syncope or delirium.

Alcohol is beneficial in such cases as the foregoing when by its use the tongue is moistened, the pulse and respiration are slowed, the restlessness and delirium quieted, and the skin becomes less parched.

Should the drug increase the pulse rate and intensify the nervous manifestations, it is an indication that the dosage is excessive, in which event it may be well to discontinue the administration altogether. Even where the action of the drug is favorable, it is doubtful whether it should ever be given in fevers throughout the twenty-four hours, administration being advisable rather when the muffled or absent first sound of the heart indicates impending cardiac failure. This usually occurs during the interval between midnight and 7 a. m. Stimulation should therefore begin before midnight, and full doses - say I fluidounce (30 Cc.) - be given every three hours, full doses being of more service than repeated smaller amounts.

It should be remembered that alcohol generates no new energy, but simply enables a person to utilize in a short period all his available reserve force. It is, therefore, a remedy for temporary use only, and the utmost discrimination and judgment are requisite to its proper administration.

In pyemia, septicemia, erysipelas, and diphtheria alcohol is frequently one of our most efficient remedies. Experience tends to show that tuberculous patients for the most part get along better without alcohol.

Small quantities of alcohol appear to exert a favorable action in functional impotence.

Its sedative action, or possibly its property of increasing intracranial blood-pressure, renders alcohol valuable as a hypnotic in mild insomnia, particularly in old people. It may be useful in some cases of insomnia if the patient does not continue to work. It is a very useful hypnotic in the delirium of acute infectious diseases. The principal therapeutic use for alcohol, perhaps, is as a cardiac stimulant. In syncope, shock particularly, it is invaluable. In acute colds, which are largely local circulatory disturbances, alcohol may restore balance.

Contraindications. - In gehito-urinary affections alcohol does more harm than good. It is ordinarily contraindicated in nephritis and diseases of the liver, gout, gleet, gonorrhea, and in urethritis. The malt liquors and sweet wines should not be given in diabetes nor to persons suffering from eczema. Alcohol is also dangerous in hypertrophy of the heart and excessive cardiac action.

Administration. - When possible, alcohol should always be taken with food. Brandy is the best astringent, and brandy and champagne are the best preparations to allay nausea. Whiskey is the least constipating, and gin the most diuretic. As regards their sedative action, there is no preference, whichever is most agreeable to the patient and least affects the head being advisable. As stomachics either claret, beer, or ale is most efficacious in improving the appetite. In cases of fermentative dyspepsia sweet wines and malted liquors are more injurious than beneficial, whiskey or brandy being preferable.

When desired as diffusible stimulants in cases of cardiac failure, brandy or whiskey only should be employed, which preparations may be given hypodermically,