The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1894-06-27
AWFUL ABSINTHE.
THE HORRIBLE DRUG WHICH is Pop
uLAR IN FRANCE.

It's Chief ingredient Is Wormwood, and It
Poisons the Body and Burns Away the
Brains of It's victims-Tbc wickedest In
| toxicant In the World.
During the Algerian war, which last
ed from 1914 to 1S47, the French army
were more in danger from African fe-
vers than from Algerian enemies. Sew
eral things were tried as antidotes or
preventives by the skillful army physi-
clans. Finally absinthe was hit ON as
the most effective febrifuge
The soldiers were ordered to mix il
in small quantities three times day
with the ordinary French wine. The
luckless happy -go-lucky privates grew
to like their medicine, which at first
they swore at bitterly for spelling with
its bitterness that beautiful purple vine-
gar they fondly fancy is wine. But
when absinthe alone began to usurp the
time honored place of claret in the af.
fections of the French army the evil be.
came an unmixed one.
% DtNtTure 1S u
direly different thing from absinthe
mixed as u medicine or an occasional
tonic The victorious army on their
triumphal return to Paris brought the
habit with them. 1t is now so wide
spread through all classes of Partisan
society-and Paris gives the cue to
trance-that Frenchmen of science and
publicists regard the custom of absinthe
tippling as n vast national evil.
The consequence of the use-and use
OF this drug ripens to abuse, even with
men of unusual will power-has been
in France disastrous to n dreadful de-
gree. Many men Of remarkable bril-
liancy have offered up their brains and
their lives on the livid altar of absinthe.
Baudelaire, who translated all Poe's
works into French, had terribly gro
tesque passion for the pleasant green
poison. In one of his mad freaks this
minor French poet actually painted his
hair the same tint as the beverage that
corroded his brain, possibly from an
odd fancy to have the outside of his
head correspond with or match the in
side.
Alfred do Musset, who was the French
Byron, plus n tenderer, naiver touch,
also fell victim to the drug after
George Sand gave the final smash to his
fragmentary heart. Guy de Maupassant
is reported to have burned his brains
away with the same emeraldine flames.
The brain disease caused by this drug is
considered almost incurable. Far worse
than alcohol or opium, it can only be
compared to cocaine for the fellness of
its clutch ON poor humanity.
Yet we take 1t occasionally as an
after dinner settler Of digestive debts in
this country, and quite often as an ap-
petizer or tonic before meals, while in
New Orleans, throughout the older quar-
ter, little cabarets, devoted almost ex.
clusively to the sale of it, are quite
common.
What, then, is this dreadful drink
composed Of, and how is it made? The
answer is easy enough, though the proc
ess, to insure perfection in the evil, is
not so. Absinthe may be technically
described as a redistillation Of alcoholic
spirits made originally from various
things potatoes, for instance), in
which. to give it the final character,
absinthium with other aromatic herbs
and bitter roots are ground up, or mac
Grated, in chemist lingo.
The chief ingredient is the tops and
leaves of the herb Artemisia absinthium,
or wormwood, which grows from two
to four feet in great profusion under
cultivation, and which contains vola-
tile oil, absinthol. and yellow, crys-
talline, resinous compound called alb
sinthin, which is the hitter principle.
The alcohol with which this and the
essentials Of other aromatic plants are
mixed holds these volatile oils in solu-
tion.
1t is the precipitation of these oils in
water that causes the rich clouding Of
your glass when the absinthe Is poured