Literary work connected with medicine, in addition to regular journalism, occupied much of his energy during his whole professional life. His activity was mainly directed in three lines—in the advancement of therapeutics, in questions of public health, and in the study of nervous diseases. In therapeutics he began with investigating the action of alcohol on the body in health and disease; and in this he was a pupil of Dr. R. B. Todd, one of whose leading principles was the use of stimulants in medicine. After writing scientific and popular papers on the subject (in the London Medical Review, 1862, and the Cornhill Magazine respectively), Anstie brought out in 1864 his important work on Stimulants and Narcotics, containing the result of experiments, observations, and literary research, and these subjects continued to occupy his attention till the last year of his life. Journalism In 1868 he became joint-editor (and in the next year sole editor) of The Practitioner, a new journal intended to advance the scientific study of therapeutics. The special character and importance of this journal, which – according to Anstie's Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) entry – has done much to invigorate the study of therapeutics in the UK, were of Anstie's creation. Public health In questions of public health Anstie was warmly interested; and he took an important part in initiating two important public reforms. In 1864 certain scandals connected with the administration of the poor-law infirmaries attracted public attention, and induced the proprietors of The Lancet to appoint a commission, consisting of Dr. Anstie, Mr. Ernest Hart, and Dr. Carr, to report on the subject. Anstie took the largest part in examining the London infirmaries, and wrote the report which appeared in The Lancet 1 July 1865. Others followed, and one on the state of Farnham workhouse, published in 1867, led to an inquiry by the Poor Law Board, which justified the report of The Lancet commissioners. These inquiries may be regarded as the starting-point of the movement of reform of poor-law medical relief. In 1874 Anstie brought before the College of Physicians a motion that the college should petition the prime minister to provide some remedy for the injurious overcrowding of the poor in London, which the introduction of certain railways and improvements had lately aggravated. The petition, being adopted and sent in, was largely influential in inducing the then Home Secretary, Mr. Cross, to bring