The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

36 Tlic P~i3siolo,mical Effjcis of A lcoAiol.
due time, come to be as generally discounted as the belief in witchcraft and the evil-eye. Scientific analysis
proves that distilled liquors, when pure, consist only of
alcohol and water, the service rendered by the water
being to qualify the potency of the intoxicating spirit.
In fermented liquors the nutritive elements are of the
smallest quantity and lowest type of quality, as can be
proved by any housewife who boils a pint of ale till all
the watery and alcoholic parts have evaporated, when
the residuum, a waxy and distasteful deposit, represents
all the solid and "feeding" particles of the ale. The
residuum of a glass of wine is almost imperceptible to the
naked eye, and though in some high-priced wines, inaccessible to the mass of the people, there are more useful
fixed ingredients, these are derived from the grapes employed in the manufacture of the wines, and are not the
product of the fermenting process. There is, in short,'
nothing in any alcoholic liquor except the alcohol
which does not exist elsewhere in abundance, and capable
of being purchased at less cost, and with an assurance of
freedom from those adulterating acts bywhich the ordinary
intoxicating beverages are made still further unsuited for
daily use. There is in this country no real guarantee
against adulteration of the liquors bought; and the wines
of commerce, like the beers and ales of the public-house,
are "doctored" to an extent that renders it absurd to
attribute to them any marked sanitive effect. Such adulterations would neutralize any benefit derivable from
them did they contain specially nutritive properties; but,
on the contrary, these properties are deficient in such a
degree that nourishment costing shillings or pounds to
procure in the shape of such liquors can be obtained for
pence and half-pence in the form of grain, flesh, and
fruits. What analysis exhibits to the eye, experience has
made clear to the reflection of mankind. Instead of
alcoholic liquors being necessary, as some have asserted,
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