Chislehurst is excellent; and that of Hampstead Heath is good beyond dispute.

THE BRANDY FETISH.

T is well, as time wears on, and as the superstitions of past and ignorant ages wear out, to correct, not only actual practices which are hurtful, but the terms also by which bad practices are designated, and on which superstitions sometimes hang when real falsity has been discovered and proclaimed. I venture, therefore, the suggestion to change, in medical practice at all events, an old and misleading term, Aqua Vitæ or Eau de Vie. Why brandy should ever have been called, by any persons, water of life instead of water of death, is very peculiar, considering its manifold, and obviously manifold, faults, and the fearful mischiefs it has inflicted on mankind ever since it was first imposed on the world. But I am dealing with it now simply as a medicinal substance. It seems to me, we men of physic have, like the rest of the world, got it so firmly implanted in our minds that this fluid is really a kind of water of life, that we order it as such without a thought of questioning its value. There was confessedly a time in my life when this was my folly, and I fear there are some who still adhere to the same idolatry. Not long since I was called to meet a brother practitioner in a case of typhoid in a comparatively poor neighbourhood. Being a minute or two before my time, I observed a woman enter the house of the patient as one who belonged to it, carrying under her apron a bottle, which she took into a parlour on the entrance passage floor, leaving the street door of the house open, and coming back to it to meet my

friend, whom she had seen approaching. The case was a clear case enough of typhoid, not of a severe type, but peculiar, in that there existed, with a great deal of mental stupor, a constant subsultus which was easily intensified by touching the skin over various groups of muscles. There was also an ethereal odour in the breath, with a temperature much lower than would be expected; that is to say, half a degree of fever only. The practitioner in charge pointed out these peculiarities, which he said he could not account for. After we retired for consultation in the parlour in which the bottle still stood, I took the liberty of uncorking the bottle and of smelling and tasting its contents. It was as vile a specimen of an article called brandy as could be met with. When a little of it was burned, and a white plate was held over the flame, a dark deposit of carbon showed the presence in it of amyl alcohol and explained at once the cause of the peculiar delirium and subsultus. The man who was taking this brandy was suffering from the action of amyl alcohol, mixed with the ethylic alcohol in the brandy. My friend was willing to admit this view, but, he argued, had not the reduced temperature which had come on since he ordered brandy produced an effect? may have done so, for no one of the members of the alcohol group reduces temperature like amylic alcohol; but this was not the important point. The point was that amylic alcohol had been brought into use under the name of brandy, and was producing its own specific effects without the recognition of those effects in a precise and scientific manner. The observation might fairly lead to an inquiry as to the value of amyl alcohol in typhoid, but it said nothing for brandy as the name of a remedy. In this instance we at once

It

stopped the brandy, with quick subsidence of the subsultus, with return of the mental faculties, with clearance of the breath from the ethereal odour, and with an increase, for a few days, of fever up to two degrees, but with excellent recovery without the aid of an alcoholic of any kind.

More recently a child fifteen months old, coming from abroad, was brought home after suffering on board ship from an acute exanthem. The child was feeble and disinclined for food, and had a white creamy tongue, with several small, very irritable aphthous spots upon it. Under medical advice, the mother of this child was led to administer to it brandy half diluted with water in small doses, and to trust to that as the "sheet anchor." How the poor infant could swallow such a fluid was a marvel; and that it should try to resist taking it was, indeed, no wonder. Under the so-called remedy, it fell into a semi-comatose state, and in this condition was seen by an able practitioner, who was led at first to the diagnosis of subacute meningitis. When, however, he had gleaned all the facts, his eyes were opened; he stopped the brandy, and on substituting for it plain nutritious diet and simple remedies, the little patient gradually came out of the coma and made a rapid recovery. Here was a case in which the word "brandy" was the misleading mischief. On what hypothesis could brandy have been prescribed under the circumstance named? How could it take the place of food? What was it intended to do? Besides, no instruction was given as to the character of the brandy that was to be used. Suppose we ordered other drugs of potent toxic action in the same loose way, what would happen except frequent deaths, with an occasional inquest, followed by a trial for malapraxis? It is time to give aqua vitæ its true name of aqua

mortis, and to let the fetish, brandy, stand for a fluid the chemical qualities of which are uncertain and the physiological utterly unreliable.

INDIAN HEMP AS AN INTOXICANT.

NDIAN hemp is probably older than wine as an intoxicant. It is the Nepenthes of the poet Homer. The father of history, Herodotus, also refers to it in his first book. He tells us, in writing of the people living on some small islands on the river Araxes, which runs into the Caspian Sea, how they discovered plants that produced a fruit which, when they met together in company and had lighted a fire, they threw on the fire as they sat round in a circle, and by inhaling the fumes of the burning fruit that had been thrown on the fire became intoxicated by the odour, just as the Greeks did by wine; and the more fruit that was thrown on, the more intoxicated they became, until they rose up to dance, and betook themselves to singing.

To this day the Nepenthes of Homer, known now in some countries as Haschish, is employed as an intoxicating substance. Like opium, it is fitted either for a pill or a pipe, and, according to taste or circumstance, is used either as a medicine or a luxury.

Whatever the form of its preparation, its active principle is derived from the flowering extremities of the variety of hemp called Cannabis Indica. The active substance itself is fixed in a resinous principle, which is called Cannabina or Haschishina. The resin is not met with in hemp that is indigenous to cold or temperate climates.

Haschish, as it is prepared for use, does not represent

the pure resin. It is in cylindrical or candle-shaped pieces, pointed, and of a brown cr almost black colour. The material, when powdered, has the character of a dried extract. It softens under the influence of warmth, and may be moulded by the finger; to the smell it conveys the idea of hemp or impure wax; to the taste it is sharp; it is easily soluble in water, and more soluble in ether; digested in ether, the impure substance yields a dark resin possessing all the properties of Cannabina.

Indian hemp is taken by those who indulge in it in various ways, according to custom or fashion. By some it is smoked in the pipe, although, like opium, it smokes with difficulty, requiring the constant reapplication of the torch; it is smoked sometimes with tobacco; it is often taken by the mouth, and may be mixed with honey or swallowed in coffee. There is also a fatty and aromatic substance prepared from it for those who choose to chew it. It is not unfrequently smoked in the crude form, as the simple flower and seed of the Cannabis Indica, or is swallowed without any further preparation than that of making an infusion of the seeds and flowers of the plant as we make tea. Occasionally it is taken. in the form of a spirituous liquid, made from the plant Cannabis Indica while in its fresh state. In England those who indulge in it commonly take it as a tincture, and call it "Bang," or "Bhang."

THE EFFECTS OF CANNABINA.

The effects of the narcotic substance taken into the body vary according to the dose, and according to the habit of the person who takes it. According to Professor Rech, of Montpellier, thirty grains of the extract are equal in effect to one to two grains of Cannabina, the active substance. At first those who indulge in it

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