The clinical impression has long been current that the excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages is conducive to the development of Laënnec's type of cirrhosis of the liver. This impression has persisted in spite of the general failure to reproduce this lesion experimentally by feeding alcohol to laboratory animals. Mallory1has suggested that minute amounts of phosphorus alloyed with iron which may be present as contaminating traces in liquors may be the real etiologic factor. Von Gerlach2found that the copper content of the liver of patients with cirrhosis was elevated and suggested that this mineral in conjunction with alcohol may be significant. Moon3recently reviewed the literature dealing with the experimental attempts to produce cirrhosis artificially and decided that no single factor can be responsible, that several factors must operate simultaneously and that, of these, nicotine, manganese and phenylhydrazine are probably significant. Boles and Clark4have