Alcohol has the effect of stimulating the cardiac centres and of increasing the number and volume of the heart-beats, and also of dilating the arterioles, thus temporarily producing a sensation of warmth and comfort frequently succeeded by chilliness, which is caused in some measure by the greater surface of blood exposed to the influence of skin radiation. The lowering of the temperature of the body by large doses of alcohol is a well-known fact, and alcohol consequently was at one time advocated and used by certain physicians to reduce the temperature in acute fevers. This method of treatment has now been discontinued, as it was found that the remedy was as bad as the disease; and that in reducing temperature by alcohol, which is less certain in its effects than other available antipyretics, various morbid conditions and complications were produced. The depression of temperature in the coma of intoxication is, moreover, so well known to the persons who have to deal with these unfortunate cases, that in the Glasgow lock-ups, large fires are kept alight on Saturday nights, before which dead-drunk persons brought in may be laid, in order that they may not perish of cold. Alcohol is one of those strange substances which have the power of producing apparently opposite results. In small quantities it stimulates the action of the heart, in large it depresses it; in small quantities it increases the secretion of gastric juice, in large it destroys the pepsin and arrests digestion; in small quantities it has an exhilarating effect on the nervous system, in large it is narcotic. If, therefore, the production of the stimulating action of alcohol be required, the question which it is important to answer is, - What is the amount which can be taken without exceeding the narrow limit beyond which alcohol is harmful?