WHEN a spirituous liquor is taken into the body it does not simply run through the digestive capacity of that body, but it runs through the blood before it can find any escape, and it clings to that blood for a considerable period, following with it, round and round, through the circling stream of its unceasing progress. It goes everywhere, in each fibre, membrane, and tissue, and saturates each vital organ—flesh, brain, heart, liver, lung, kidney, skin and secretive apparatus. Wherever there should be blood, under the natural arrangement of life, there is now blood mingled with the alcoholic spirits. Articles of food are "complex bodies, built up from simpler elements by the effort of vegetable life." Alcohol is not a complex substance, but it is a "product of the downward degradation and decay of such complex principle." The foods which furnish substance to the living structure are, for the most part, composed with the acid of nitrogen, and therefore have an affinity with the vital parts of the human structure. "The fibrin of the blood, the muscular flesh, the cartilages and tendons, the membranes of the skin, the soft nerve pulp, and the brain, 'are all so many examples of nitrogenized matter.' But alcohol is entirely devoid of nitrogen in any form. In the exceptional cases where alcohol has been found useful as a medicine, an unnatural condition of the body exists, and physicians should determine when stimulants, as a medicine, are necessary. The parts of the body which possess the most energetic vitality—the brain, the nerves, and nervous material of the spinal cord—are principally composed of matter of the most pulpy consistence, so soft that it may almost be termed melting. This nerve pulp is packed into minute pliny sacks and tubes describable only by microscopic aid. Through these tiny and almost invisible films the blood is "filtered." The nerve pulp appropriates such quantities of blood as nourish life and build up the structure, and at the same time reject and throw back into the stream their own waste particles. Large quantities of water enter into the composition of this pulpy matter, and the first evil effect of alcohol is to withdraw this water. For alcohol has an "uncontrollable impulse" to draw water into itself. Excessive use of alcohol hardens and dries up the nerve pulp in such a way as to impair if not spoil it for its proper office. When excessive drinking does not produce intoxication it is because the nerve pulp has become insensible as an "oiled sponge." The flushed face upon the approach of intoxication is among the earliest signs of the disturbance of these delicate "filters" in their work, the face being among the parts of the body exceptionally supplied with blood. The "restraining" or filtering work of the pulpy substance is impaired, and hence the unnatural reception of blood into the pulp cells. If this unnatural process is repeated or becomes habitual, the red, blotched, swollen, and pimpled face is the result of keeping the nerve pulp saturated with alcohol, and the delicate membranes, thickened, dried, and dyed, show through the skin. The first stages of intoxication are shown in the want of command of the lower lip and lower limbs. The muscles feel the torpor. Trembling and shuddering follow next, the nerve pulp of the brain comes under the influence, and the control of the judgment and the will disappear. When a man is what is termed "dead drunk," the paralysis of the higher nerve centers and of the brain is carried to its full end. All inlets of the senses are closed; all consciousness and sensation are destroyed, and all power of voluntary movement is effaced. The heart, the seat of life, toils on. If an enormous quantity of alcohol is swallowed at once; as in the case of foolish wagers, the toil of the heart ceases, and the man is dead indeed. But in ordinary instances the torpor saves life, as it stops the drinker just at the point when further drinking would kill him outright. With this general view of the effects of alcohol, and the manner in which they are produced, it is easy to understand why headache, sleeplessness, nausea, palpitation of the heart and the "trembling delirium" accompany and follow the excessive use of alcohol. A poison in the stomach can be pumped out or voided. A poison of the blood must wait removal till the efforts of nature effect it. But, when nature itself is abused and impaired, its recuperative powers soon become destroyed. The effects of continued alcoholization upon the liver, kidneys, and stomach it is unnecessary to describe, as they are all well understood. But where the mischievous process begins, and how it is continued, are points new to most non-medical readers.—Philadelphia Ledger.