1. Chittenden and his collaborators have made many experiments upon this subject. Their earlier experiments were made upon digestions in vitro and showed that, in so far as whisky was concerned, the only instance in which it differed materially from ethylic alcohol was in its influence upon pancreatic digestion. Here it exerted a marked inhibitive action, much greater than that produced by ethylic alcohol of the same strength. According to these observers, however, subsequent experiments made in vivo showed that the above experiments in vitro had not much practical value. In vivo whisky behaved practically identically with ethylic alcohol of the same strength.—Vide Chittenden and others : American Journal of Medical Sciences, 1896, January-April, pp. 35, 163, 314, 431; also American Journal of Physiology, 1898, vol. i., p. 164.
2. Swain : Brit. Med. Jour., 1891, vol. i., p. 903. It must be, however, noted with regard to this death that the "feints" consumed undoubtedly contained aldehydes, and that the poisonous nature of the aldehydes was apparently unknown to the author. The inclusion in this paper of an explanation of technical terms would render it too long; the reader is referred on this subject to, inter alia, the following:—Allen, Commercial Organic Analysis, vol. i.; Matthews. Alcoholic Fermentation; and Moercke, Handbuch der Spiritus Fabrication.
3. Allen : Evidence before Select Committee, 1891. Also Bell: Evidence before same Committee.
4. In some analyses at present unpublished and made while this paper was passing through the press, the percentage of higher alcohols reached 025 per cent.