This volume is therefore to be regarded as a review article, rewritten and separately published. It is nothing more, as regards either the time and thought directly bestowed upon it, or the completeness with which it treats the subject. Bearing this in mind, the reader will understand the somewhat fantastic sub-titles of the book, and the presence of a number of citations and comments which would ordinarily be neither essential nor desirable in a serious discussion. Had we been writing a systematic treatise, with the object of stating exhaustively our theory of the action of Tobacco and Alcohol, we should have found it needful to be far more abstruse and technical; and we should certainly have had no occasion whatever to mention Mr. Parton's name. As it is, the ideal requirements of a complete statement have been subordinated—though by no means sacrificed—to the obvious desideratum of making a summary at once generally intelligible and briefly conclusive.
