This book presents a candid defense of the use of alcohol as a beverage, with arguments drawn from scientific experiments as well as from experience and current opinion. The scientific facts appear to be, in the main, correct, but the propositions which the author attempts to establish will seem to many open to question. He distinguishes sharply between the moderate use of alcohol and its use for purposes of intoxication, as if intoxication were a matter of deliberate choice. The moderate drinker, according to him, drinks for the purpose of stimulation; the drunkard, to obtain stupefaction. It is a delicate task to decide on the motives of men, but, while some men drink to drown their sorrows, it would seem to be the teaching of experience that others reach the stage of drunkenness, even when they are habitual drunkards, by taking the first glass from a desire for stimulation. The