New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-04-28
heath IN THE DECANT R!
STARTLING CHEMICAL REVELATIONS.
From The Nev.York Independent, Feb. 90.

preparation to a customer he labels it poison"
The law requires this as safeguard against
accidents. But there is no statute to protect
the public against the destructive beverages OF
the bar-roOm. No labels proclaiming their del
eterious character are affixed to them; but, on
the contrary, they are recommended by the
vendors as pure and wholesome. On the walls
of retail liquor stores are painted i'll conspicuous
letters such announcements as these: Pure
imported and domestic liquors." "The finest
imported liquors out of bond" ETC.; and yet the
fiery compounds thus Endorsed are impregnated
with poisons az vrulent and active as the fatal
drugs which the law says shall not pass into
the hands of the people without their life-de-
stroying nature being signifed on the packages
or walls containing them. What strange in
congruity is this! 1t is penal offense in the
druggist to sell poison, even in the smallest
quantities, unlabeled; while the liquor dealer
can dispense it all day and all night to thirsty
crowds, warranting it as o healthful article
without mourning any penalty whatever.
What is to be done under these circum-
stances7 How are the public to be protected
against the adulteratorsf These practices have
been officially exposed @The whole community
has been shown, by the results of infallible
chemical tests, that the liquors of commerce,
whether sold in first-class hotels or common
dram-shops, arc all more or less noxious.
What, then, should be the course of rational
beings, with these facts before themf The
question is easily answered. In the first place,
stimulants are only needed incidentally. When
pure and scientifically combined with the ex-
tracts, ETC., of valuable medicinal roots, barls
and other vegetable products, they become OF
immense importance in the cure and proven
ton of disease; but they are not, under any
circumstances, necessary as q beverage. Let
all prudent people, therefore, abandon the use
of unmedcated alcoholic stimuants. There is
one article of which the unauthorized essence
of sound rye is the spirItuous basis, and OF
which the juices of the most genial products
of the vegetable kingdom are the medicinal in
gradients, which may safely be taken by all
who require an invigorant and corrective. This
preparation has now ranked as n standard
specific for dyspepsia, debility, bilious COM
plants, nervousness, malarious fevers, and many
other ailments, for upward of twenty years,
aud is admirably adapted to all cases in which
n tonic. Alternative and anti-b bilious agent is de-
sirabe. The article bears the unpretending
name of Hostetter's Stomach Btters. 1t Is
claimed to be the most wholesome stimulant
and restorative known; and in view of the
startling disclosures recently made with regard
to all liquors used as beverages, the present
seems to be q proper opportunity for stating
in plain terms its merits as medicinal prepar
alton.
The attention of philanthropc citizens inter
ested in the temperance movement is invited to
the facts disclosed by Prof. Chandler of New
York, who was employed by the Board of
Health to make careful inspection of the
liquors sold ut the low tayers of the Five
Points and other obscure localities. He tested
thirty-two samples, and found them all impure,
and many of them horribly adulterated. Vim
egar and rancid lamp OIL "tusil oil" "pine
shayings7 and other denominations are emu
merated among their components. While Prof.
Chandler was testing these staples of common
groggcries, Prof. John c. Draper, one of the
most profound chemists Of the present day,
vas making a thor5Ggh Qualitative and guam
titatye analysis of the liquors sold at the high
est prices. in the bar-roOms Of the principal ho-
tells and restaurants of the city, aud his report
is of still greater interest to the friends of tenn
perance than that of DR.. Chandler. 1t dis
closes the astounding fact that the spirits kept
for sale in these splendid resorts are, rs rule,
quite as poisonous, though not quite rs nauseous,
as the stuff quafIed by laboring men in the rear
dens of the corner groceries. 1t appears that
if there is any difference between the dele
FERROUS properties of fifty cent brandy and ten
cent rum, the latter is, generally speaking, the
least poisonous of the two. The effect of both
is to beget perpetual thirst for fiery alcohol,
which is consequently poured down the threats
of the victims day aud night with their own
suicidal and trembling hands, until chronic in
fanimation of stomach, and finally or the brain,
consigns them TO a premature grave.
What physician, after these exposures, will
venture to prescribe the G.stdicles to which they
refer 40 stimulants for the sick If table
spoonful of any of them is ordered to be taken
three or four times day, tho probability is
that it will in the end produce craving fol
itself which nothing less than copious draughts
will satisfy.
Contrast this effect with the operation of the
vegetable tonic known as llostetter's Bitters.
Its medicinal virtues are not due to its s,imu-
lating basis, but to the restorative and vital
izing botanical substances with which 1t IS
charged The stimulant merely holds these in
gradients in solution, preserves their properties