The philosophy of eating. By Albert J. Bellows, M.D.

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ALCOHOL ONLY A STIMULUS.

under its use than can be obtained without it, but
being followed by a corresponding depression of power,
which is the more prolonged and severe in proportion
as the previous excitement has been greater. Nothing,
therefore, is in the end gained by their use, which is
only justifiable where some temporary emergency can
only be met by a temporary augmentation of power,
even at the expense of an increased amount of subsequent depression, or where (as in the case of some
individuals whose digestive power is deficient) it affords
aid in the introduction of aliment into the system
which nothing else can so well supply. These exceptional cases, however, will be less numerous in proportion as due attention is paid to those other means of
promoting health which are more in accordance with
nature."
Will any physician contend that from seventy to one
hundred applications, of stimuli are necessary daily to
"goad" the flagging powers of nature in these one
hundred and twenty-eight patients up to their duty?
A stimulus is literally a goad, and, according to Carpenter, and every other sensible physiologist, alcohol is a
stimulus, and is never to be used only as a discreet
horseman would use a goad or a whip when other
inducements fail to excite the necessary exertion; and
will any one contend that "these exceptional cases"
in a year are so numerous as to require an expense to
meet them. of twenty-five hundred and twenty-one dollars and fifty-eight cents?
But the expense, it seems to me, is a trifle too insignificant to be mentioned (except as a means of estimating