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Thus we see that nearly one-half (42.38 per cent.) take the negative, viz.: that total abstinence does not prevent consumption; and ten per cent, are doubtful; 26.67 percent, makes no reply; and only thirty-eight (18.09 per cent.) say that consumption is prevented by total abstinence.

This question, it must be admitted, is very difficult if not, strictly speaking, impossible of solution.

Nevertheless I asked it, thinking that some facts might be elicited, like the following, viz.: that in the family of some drunkard, where many have been given to intemperance, and have died of consumption, one who had practised total abstinence escaped the disease. No such case, I believe, is on record. I regret the conclusion, but think it possible that no such case has occurred. The following comparison of percentages of answers to the sixth and seventh questions, as more clearly illustrating the opinions of the profession on this subject, is interesting: --

Extracts from Correspondents' letters on this question.

Winsor. -- I would answer in the affirmative if under it were to be included those persons who cannot drink without going to excess, and for whom there is no middle course between drunkenness and total abstinence.

Barber. -- If a person becomes a total abstainer in early life, consumption may be prevented, and long life secured.

Wilcox. -- I have no reason to believe that the moderate use of spirituous liquors would have the effect to cause, or prevent, consumption.

Harris. -- Yes; as concomitant of good hygienic care.

Brownell. -- A temperate use of stimulants is beneficial in this disease.

Butler. -- The less a consumptive uses of stimulants the better he will be; and judicious diet, exercise, &c, the less liable he will be to the disease.

Richmond. -- In the moderate use of stimulants there is less liability to the disease. (I have been a total-abstinence man for forty-three years.)

Rice. -- I have never seen so much consumption among that class of people who use liquors moderately, as among the strictly abstemious.

EIGHTH QUESTION.

IS CONSUMPTION EVER CAUSED OR PROMOTED BY THE TOTAL ABSTINENCE OF AN INDIVIDUAL FROM INTOXICATING LIQUORS?

Tabular form of returns is as follows: --

The preponderance, one hundred and six (50.47 per cent.) of negative over the affirmative, twenty-six (12.38 per cent.) answers, is not unexpected. The cases in which total abstinence would have any marked influence in causing or promoting consumption, if such be ever the fact, must necessarily be very rare. They would indicate either an inability to bear alcohol, or a martyr-like spirit of abstinence for principle's sake; either of which, to the extent indicated, must be very rare in our community. For even the most rigid of temperance advocates do not refuse stimulants when directed by the physician. The small number of affirmative answers, twenty-six (12.38 per cent.), suggests either a careless mode of answering (which I am not willing to admit, inasmuch as each person could, if he had chosen, have declined to answer that question, as in fact, fifty-eight (27.62 per cent, actually did); or it suggests that there are a certain number of cases in which physicians believe that total abstinence realty promoted what the temperate use of alcohol might have retarded or prevented.

I am quite sure that there are individuals now in this community, who are ill from various other complaints, in consequence of their strict adherence to rules of total abstinence, and who are immediately benefited by a physician's prescription of the temperate use of some alcoholic medicine. One can believe, therefore, that rigid abstinence might so lower vitality in some persons, that consumption might more easily occur than in others who use alcohol carefully.

Extracts from letters of Correspondents' on this question.

Barber. -- In confirmed habits of intemperance, a little stimulant will sometimes prolong life.

Tracy. -- The temporary use of alcoholic stimulants is sometimes essential to the prevention of consumption.

Rice. -- I believe strict abstinence to be a means of hastening the fatal termination. This has been according to my observation.

Wakefield. -- Total abstinence would not cause consumption.

NINTH QUESTION.

IS CONSUMPTION EVER CAUSED BY OVERSTUDY AT SCHOOL OR COLLEG?