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Extracts from Correspondents' letters on this subject.

Smith. -- Think I have seen life prolonged by it; no definite facts.

Spofford. -- They, i.e. drunkards, sometimes live to old age.

Reynolds. -- Father and some children died of phthisis. Three sons became "free livers," and still live, strong and stout.

Parker. -- Yes; by moderate use of alcoholic stimulants; not to the extent of drunkenness.

The following is a very significant, if sad, case: --

Blodgett. -- I have in mind an individual who seems to have warded off tuberculosis by a long-continued debauch. There seems to have been a cessation of tubercular activity from that time onward. When the individual, by virtue of his inherent manhood, ceases for a time to use alcoholics, tubercular activity sets in. The connection between the two seems in this instance to be certain.

Gilbert. -- The progress of some cases may be checked by the moderate use of stimulants.

French. -- From an experience of twenty-six years, I do not believe that alcohol causes or prevents consumption. This disease has been diminishing in this part of the State, especially in Warwick and Royalston, Mass., Richmond and Winchester, N. H., towns in which I have practised more or less for the past twenty years, and in that time there has been a great reformation in temperance. In Warwick, in a mortality of thirteen, for the last seven and a half months, there was but one case of consumption. It is hilly and dry; no swamps, no stagnant water, no nuisances of any kind; people remarkably temperate.

Howe. -- I do not think drunkenness in itself really injurious to the consumptive; the other vices, which are usually associated with it, are. If we could have the former without the latter, alcohol might frequently be beneficial.

Butler. -- Does this involve the free use of whiskey and other stimulants in the treatment of consumption? If so, I answer no; for, in my opinion, no case of consumption, hereditary in its nature, was ever cured or essentially benefited by the free use of stimulants. An unnatural excitement may be produced, which may be mistaken for returning health, but it is only awakening hope to be ultimately disappointed.

Abell. -- I should be sorry to be understood as recommending drunkenness as a cure. But I have known several instances where nearly all the family, from five to nine children have successively died of phthisis. Finally, one of the boys, from sheer desperation, took to excessive drinking of alcoholic stimulants. These boys are now past middle life, and enjoying good health when last heard from. In two families, not less than five or six victims in each were carried off by consumption. In each there was always one sick, and a short time before death another would be prostrated. In one family they resorted to that horrible relic of superstition, the burning of the heart, etc., of the dead, and the ashes were swallowed by the survivors, in the hope that the fatal demon would be exorcised from the family, but it did not avail. But another son fell a victim; and then the alcoholic treatment was tried, not as an expected remedy, but as a means of forgetfulness of impending doom, and no deaths in the family have to my knowledge since occurred.

Rice. -- I believe the moderate use of liquors, by persons of a consumptive habit, to be a means of preventing the disease. I have known intemperate people die of consumption, but cannot say that the disease was hastened to a fatal termination by the habit.

Richmond. -- There are some cases in the country where poverty might beneficially modify the diet, and compel the child to take a more active course of life, and make him more healthy than would be the case in affluence. In other words, poverty, growing out of drunkenness, might reduce the family to a plainer mode of living; compel its members to adopt a more active life; and thus improve their physical well-being, though they may be predisposed to consumption.

Carr. -- Not unless one dies of drunkenness, before consumption develops itself.

McKenzie. -- Very rarely is phthisis found amongst drunkards.

Smith. -- Consumption is not prevented by drunkenness, but may be influenced beneficially, in severe cases, by a free use of spirituous and malt liquors.

Twitchell. -- I know that I differ from many, but I am satisfied from my experience that I am right. I never knew a person cured or his life prolonged when in a consumption by the use of alcoholic spirits; but in several in- stances have known it -- consumption -- caused by alcohol itself, or by the effects of poverty and exposure, which are often attendant upon persons who largely indulge in alcoholic drinks.

SEVENTH QUESTION.

IS CONSUMPTION PREVENTED BY TOTAL ABSTINENCE ON PART OE AN INDIVIDUAL? IN OTHER WORDS, WILL TOTAL ABSTINENCE SAVE A MAN FROM CONSUMPTION?

The table stands thus: --