On the use and abuse of alcoholic liquors, in health and disease / by William B. Carpenter ; with a preface by D. F. Condie.

Fifteen essays were submitted for a prize of one hundred guineas offered in 1849 by a private donor on the topic of the effects of alcohol on the human system. Carpenter's essay was judged the most meritorious by a committee of three London physicians that included John Forbes, Physician to the Queen's household. In this treatise Carpenter takes the temperance argument beyond the usual moral plane and places it on a scientific footing that it had not often enjoyed.