such stimulants are necessary, nor let him be tempted by others to partake of these beverages, merely because he finds many around him indulge in them. In by far the majority of instances, custom and not necessity has been the origin of the habit of taking stimulants. In that, as in other matters, custom is the god, before which many fall down and worship, never perhaps for one moment troubling themselves with the question, why should they do so?

These beverages, however, in some form or other, are almost universally used by Europeans in India as elsewhere; and as no amount of preaching will convince many that they are not absolutely necessary for those in health, the question comes to be, in what form, and in what quantity, may they be taken with the least danger, or with the least injury to health.

Sound vigorous health, as already mentioned, requires no alcoholic stimulant at all, and this is the condition in which all young Europeans are supposed to be on arrival in India. But after a residence there of two or three, or perhaps more years, when digestion begins to flag, a spur may be needed; one pint of beer, or one glass of good dry sherry, or half a pint of good claret may then be taken once or at most twice every day with advantage. These quantities are quite sufficient, as a rule, to stimulate the appetite and perhaps improve nutrition. It is, however, impossible to fix the precise quantities that may be taken in all cases, as so much depends on sex, age, constitution, and temperament, as well as on the amount of exercise taken, of the mechanical work done, and on the amount of exposure to the open air. Much, therefore, must be left to individual experience. Some men, however, have such elastic consciences as to argue themselves into the belief, that almost any amount of these beverages is necessary, and they measure the quantity more by their inclinations than by their requirements. Most persons in these days, as a rule, take too much; and, indeed, it is almost incredible the

quantity of beer, wine, and brandy that some men do consume in India. If it were always borne in mind that these beverages should be taken, not so much for their positively stimulating action as for their purely tonic effects, there would be little chance of the habit becoming a vice. The moment they produce excitement or flushing of the face, injurious effects are produced, and a bad habit engendered.

No beer or wine should on any account be taken at any time except at meals, unless prescribed medically. Beer drinking between meals is pernicious in the extreme. Those who thus indulge soonest need a change, and blame the climate of India for compelling them to go. Beer should not be taken before tiffin; if taken at breakfast, as many do take it, the system is at first excited, then depressed, when a stimulant is again demanded to enable the individual to go on with his work.

This is simply forcing the human machinery to do by artificial means, what ought to be done by purely natural ones, and the result is, as any one with any forethought might expect, functional or organic disease, or damaged health generally.

Brandy, whiskey, gin, arrack, or any other ardent spirit, must be shunned as poison, and like all other poison, should be taken only under medical advice. Medical experience condemns them as totally unnecessary to any one in health, and yet, next to beer, if not equal to it, the most common alcoholic stimulant used in India is brandy. In some districts the Englishman is marked out by the natives from every other race by the fact that "he eats beef, drinks brandy, and has no religion."

No one ever begins to drink brandy from choice. He is in his younger days tempted by his seniors to partake merely for social enjoyment, and he has not the moral courage to resist; nay further, he may even be, and too often is, deluded with the idea that a little, only a little, brandy and water is necessary to obviate or

remove the depressing influence of the climate upon him. The habit once commenced, gradually, almost imperceptibly grows, and the small quantity, which was originally taken, perhaps with a shudder and to please others, is now increased, and felt to be needed to supply the fancied want or craving, which has been caused by the very stimulant itself. So insidiously does this habit grow, that the victim is too frequently not aware of the enemy he is nursing within him, and when he perceives his error, when his health has suffered from it, with the singular inconsistency of human nature, he will conceal it from his medical adviser, to whom he is professing perfect openness.

Every medical man of any experience in India, can tell how very frequently the brightest hopes and prospects, as well as the finest constitutions, have been blighted, impaired, and sometimes utterly ruined by this indulgence. In the daily routine of professional duty, he often meets with men who are suffering from symptoms produced by brandy drinking and by nothing else, but who have yet no idea that they are intemperate in their habits, and can with difficulty be made to believe that their bad state of health is caused by these habits.

Occasionally a dialogue something like the following takes place.

Patient. Well, doctor, I have not been feeling at all well.

Doctor. What symptoms do you complain of?

Patient. Well, I can hardly tell, but I really feel good for nothing, and [here passing his hand in a confused, tremulous manner over his forehead] I don't sleep well at night, get up uncommonly "seedy" in the morning, have little or no appetite for breakfast, or indeed for any meal.

Doctor. Do you attribute these symptoms to anything you have been eating or drinking?

Patient.-Oh dear no! My food is simple in the extreme, and I eat very little of that. It is this abominable climate

which I think is the cause of all, and I wish I could quit it.

Doctor. You said just now that you were worse in the morning; do you take anything to relieve the lassitude and discomfort you feel at that time?

Patient.-Well, yes. I do generally take a bottle of sodawater, with some brandy, only to cover the taste of the soda, and this appears at the time to do me good.

Doctor. And you take this before breakfast?

Patient. Yes. I am obliged to do so, as I feel so shaky, though there is nothing I detest so much as brandy. I have really been feeling so "out of sorts" lately, and as it is the only thing which does me good, I sometimes take another dose before breakfast, just to relieve a depression which

comes on.

Doctor. And what do you take for breakfast,-tea or coffee?

Patient. Oh dear no. I can't stand tea or coffee; they make me more nervous than ever, and give me heartburn; indeed the only thing I can take which does not disagree with me is brandy and soda, or a bottle of beer.

And so on; the doctor thus finding on prosecuting the enquiry still further, that the details of the entire day's programme reveal a fact which the patient is slow to admit that he has been consuming by these repeated doses, very nearly one bottle of brandy daily; thus: one or two glasses before breakfast, one at breakfast, one or two before or at tiffin; the same in the afternoon; and one, two, or even three in the evening. No human constitution in any country, far less in India, could stand out against such excessive indulgence; and nothing will save it from disease and premature death, but complete abstinence from the liquor which has been acting as a poison, and which has produced all the symptoms described.

Nor is this intemperate indulgence confined to men only. Many women, educated, refined, and in easy circumstances,

take such quantities of alcohol in some form or other, at different times during the day, openly or secretly, as to cause the very symptoms just described,-precisely those, in short, of chronic or permanent alcoholization. The convenient and favourite excuse that they are taken by the "doctor's orders," is too often put forth to cover the infirmity. Medical men are sometimes, it must be confessed, much too careless in prescribing these stimulants for ladies; they too often take for granted that their patient is too sensible or strong-minded to exceed the quantity ordered, or to fail to discontinue it when no longer absolutely necessary. Some ladies do religiously adhere to the orders given, while others allow themselves a latitude and licence to suit their own inclinations or wishes. In women, owing to physiological differences, and a more susceptible nervous system, intemperate habits paralyse the will earlier than in men ; they become sooner the creatures of impulse, and less able to resist the seductive influence of alcohol, while its effects upon them are more ruinous to mind, character, and health.

All physiologists agree that alcohol becomes a poison to the nervous system, when it blunts perception, weakens the will, and causes tremulousness, and the quantity required to produce these effects, may be at once seen from the following:-"One and a half ounces of pure alcohol, or two in the case of unusual exercise of body or mind, is about the maximum standard of allowance for adult men; and the recent researches of Dr. Parkes confirm this belief, at least so far as showing that indubitably evil results follow, when this quantity is exceeded. If such be the proper allowance for a man weighing 160 lbs. (mostly bone and muscle), and always engaged in either powerfully exerting his muscles or his brain, or both, it would surely seem reasonable to say that a woman, weighing say 120 lbs., (much of it fat), and hardly ever using either her muscles or her brain vigorously and continuously, ought, at the outside, not to exceed the