Whatever may be the opinion or judgment, based on experience or science, as to the value or uselessness of taking some form of alcohol with the meals, there is no doubt in anybody's mind that the custom of taking wine or spirits or beer between meals and on an empty stomach - in one word, the pernicious habit of " nipping " - is highly injurious. The morning nip, between breakfast and the midday meal, which is so frequently taken by domestic servants, nurses, workpeople, and " City men," renders the taker less fit for his daily work than he would otherwise be; and it is often in women the first fatal step towards dram-drinking, and the shameful life of the woman-drunkard, of whom we hear and see so much at the present time. The flushing of the face, caused by the dilatation of the small blood vessels, and usually induced by alcohol when taken alone, is symptomatic of what takes place in the stomach. The direct action of alcohol on the mucous membrane is to produce temporary congestion or blushing of the internal surface of the stomach. This congestion ultimately becomes chronic if "nips" or "drams" of spirits are frequently indulged in, with the result that the mucous membrane becomes thickened and indurated, a quantity of tenacious mucus is secreted, the digestive ferment is paralysed or destroyed, and alcoholic dyspepsia is established.

Does alcohol give strength? - In contradiction of the popular fallacy that spirits and beer give strength and enable a man to do his work better, there may be quoted the experience of soldiers on the march in the tropics, of explorers toiling day after day across the frozen oceans of the North Pole, of Alpine climbers undergoing great fatigue. In all these instances the conclusive and invariable experience is that alcohol taken in any form during the period of exertion, causes increased fatigue and depresses the spirits. On the other hand, in the opinion of many, a small amount of alcohol, taken after the work of the day is done, proves sedative and harmless.