Tiie arsenical beer poisoning cases in England created such a scare amongst those who have a partiality for a glass of “ bitter,” that many beer drinkers, in sheer desperation, became members of various temperance organisations. That there was death, and a pretty sudden one too, in a glass of foaming beer was very evi dent, so the popular imagination quickly grasped the position and fore swore beer and resolved to live cleanly ever afterward. Whether those re solves, conceived in fright, will be

adhered to when the arsenical scare has passed, whether temperance re formers will have cause to rejoice, and whether good will come out of the evil caused by brewing beer from ingredients in which arsenic was found are questions for the statistician and the reformer. Had the beer-drinkers given up their favourite beverage for whiskey they would have had no fear of arsenical poisoning. The 'Lancet ’proves that beyond what whiskey can do on its own merits, it is harmless in this one respect. Our contemporary says : It is fairly certain that artificially derived sugar is employed in the pro duction of spirits, and the question remains to be answered whether if there were arsenic in the sugar it would pass into the spirit on dis tillation. All spirits, of course, are distilled. We have this week con ducted a simple experiment which shows that arsenious acid does not pass over with the acid in the still. Indeed, if a spirit contained arsenic in the form of arsenious acid the latter could be easily separated in this way. We placed a few ounces of whiskey in a small still with about 20 grains of white arsenic or arsenious acid, and then pro ceeded to distil the mixture. In spite of the very large quantity of arsenic in the still, not a trace of arsenic passed over or could be de tected in the rectified spirit. The whole of the arsenic was left behind. According to this experiment, there fore, no fear need be entertained of arsenic occurring in whiskey, though the poison may be present in the sugar substitute employed. This ex periment was undertaken because it had been reported that some of the cases at Manchester and Shoreditch occurred in regard to patients who had not been beer-drinkers but whiskey-drinkers. 