The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1874-01-17
From the Cincinnati Gazette
IsiReer q Healthy Beverage?

The plea put in for the German ma
tional drink is that it is not only
harmless. but also decidedly healthy.
Beer brewers, we are told, are public
benefactors, for they supply the peo-
pie with a mildly stimulating and
pleasant drink, which is destined at
no very distant day to supplant and
drive from the country whisky and all
other distilled liquors which are pro-
ducing such an amount of drunken
ness and woe in the land. Indeed,
we are assured that beer is even an
element of morality and honesty, and
that when once the American people
generally will patronize the beer sa-
looms on Sunday instead Of Puritanic
churches, the millennium of morality
and honesty will have come. Let but
the time come when all shall worship
at the shrine Of Gambrinus, and there
will be no more salary grabbing, no
more Credit Mobilier, no more ring
swindling, nor any of the thousand
and one forms of public and private
robbery now in vogue.
We have no disposition, at present
at least, to dispel the delightful vision
thus conjured up by the philosophic
German mind, but will only record the
fact, recently brought to light in Ger
many, that beer, there, is no longer
the simple juice Of barley, spiced with
hops, which it formerly was, and
which many in their simplicity still
believe it to be. Like everything else
the art of beer brewing has been max.
ing progress, and the old fogy notion
that barley and hops shall constitute
the only ingredients of the beverage is
exploded. The barley part had been
to great extent, superseded for year!
by West India molasses, sugar Of
starch, and similar substances, which
by the decomposition of the fusel OF
contained therein, by the process o
fermentation, do not contribute yer.
materially to the healthfulness Of beer
Now, to crown all, the discovery i
made that the seed of the extremel.
poisonous colchicum antomale il
largely used as a substitute for hop
in the manufacture Of beer. The evi
dence upon which this charge agains
the German brewers is founded ma,
be summed up thus: In the first place
chemical experiments have shown tina
it is possible to use the allaloid o
colchicum (colchicin) in place of tn
bitter principle of the hop. Then
again, the consumption of colchicun
has latterly increased in a most mex
plicable manner. DR.. A. Spies, Q
Frankfort, calls attention to the fac
that the manufacture of bear has in
creased fifteen fold within the last fe,
decades, while the quantity of hop
raised has remained the same. Thi
fact of itself points with unerring Ger
tainty to the adoption of substitute
in place of the hop, and the stron
| probability is that it is the poisonou
colchicin, a decoction of colchicul
seed, that is largely used as such sui
stltute.
The quantity of colchicum seed use
for medicinal purposes is so small tia
| it scarcely enters into the accoun
| Twenty hundred weight of the see
would suffice to produce all the co
chicum used for that purpose in con
merce. Less still is needed for til
balance Of the colchicin preparation
SO that We do not Overstate the cas-
when We say that sixty hundred weigl
would supply all the demands of con
! merce, SO far as medicinal prepar;
! tions are concerned. Ten years ae
the colchicum seed could be procure
at a cost of two or three kreutzel
Gone and half or two cents) pt
pound, and frequently those who ha
gathered it were sent away by tt
druggists because very few pount
, sufiiced to supply the demand. 4
present colchicum seed is quoted
, 35(96 kreutzers per pound in Il
, price currents; and in spite OF tn
, high price a we'll known firm, whiG
! about two years ago had occasion f
a larger quantity, could not get it b
, cause the drug had in some inexplic
BILE manner vanished from the trad
, Latterly the consumption of colch
, cum seed has Increased in so remarl
|, able manner as to attract the attel
: ton of the authorities, of the Graz
, Duchy Of Hesse; it has even been a
: certained that the gathering Of tn
seed has grown into a regular bus
, ness in various parts of the Hessi;
} and Bavarian Odenwald. Aocordil
/. to an official communication, an U
r per Hessian burgomaster inquired
the authorities what if any tax Il
= people would be required to pay, wi
t should gather the colchicum seed f
r the brewers. The gensdarmes briga.
of Neustadt gave information to Il
| authorities, that in the neighbour
village of Sandbach people had be-
requested by the town crier to gath
: colchicum seed, and the gendarme WI
r gave the ,information had been to
+ upon inquiry that the seed was to
!. gathered for the beer brewers.
/, TInon tho stranotb IF this inform