The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1894-07-18
A VAST NATIONAL EVIL.
HORRORS OF ABsINTHE DRINKING
IN FRANCE.
Its Chief Ingredient is WOrmwood,
and IL PoisOns the Body and Burns
the Brains of Its Victims.

and IL Poisons the Body and Burns
the Brains of Its Victims.
IN URING the Algerian war,
which lasted from 1874 to
y 1S47, the French army we're
& more in danger from African
fevers than from Algerian enemies.
Several things were tried as antidotes
or preventives by the skilful army
physicians. Finally absinthe was hit
on as the most effective febrifuge.
The soldiers were ordered to mix it
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
vinegar they fonday fancy is wine.
But when absinthe alone began to
usurp the time e-honored place Of claret
in the affections of the French army,
the evil became an unmixed one.
Absinthe straight as beverage is n
direly different thing from absinthe
mixed as medicine or an occasional
tonic. The victorious army on their
triumphal return to Paris brought the
habit with them. 1t is now 80 wide-
spread through all classes of Parisinn
society-and Paris gives the cue to
France-that French men of science
and publicists regard the custom of
absinthe tippling as 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 dread
full degree. Many men of remarkable
brilliancy have offered up their brains
and their lives on the livid altar of
absinthe. Baudelaire, who translated
all Poe's works into French, had
terrible grotesque 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 CORE.
spond with or match the inside.
Paul Verlaine, French literateur
and criminal, still living, who had a
poem in the May number of Mr.. Astor's
English magazine, is another absinthe
fiend, and Guy de Maupassant is re-
ported to have burned his brains away
with the same emeraldlne 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 it occasionally as an
after dinner settler of digestive debts
in this country, and quite often as an
appetizer or tonic before meals, while
in New Orleans, throughout the older
quarter, little cabarets, devoted almost
exclusively 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
process, to insure perfection in the
evil, is not SO. Absinthe may be tech
nically described as redistillation OF
alcoholic spirits (made originally from
various things, potatoes, for instance),
in which to give it the final character,
Rbsinthium with other aromatic herbs
and bitter roots are ground up, OF
mscerated, in chemist lingo.
The chief ingredient is the tops and
leaves of the herb artemisia absin-
thium, or wormwood, which grows
from two to four feet in great, pro-
fusion under cultivation, and which
contains a volatile oil, absinthol, and
a yellow, crystalline, resinous COM
aa1Ia1 oka,,AL,v .oI, b..
bitter principle. The alcohol with
which this and the essentials of other
aromatic plants are mixed holds there
volatile oils in solution.
1t is the precipitation of these oils
in water that causes the rich clouding
of the glass when the absinthe is
poured on the cracked ice double en-
blems or warnings of the clouding and
the cracking of the brain if it is taken
steadily. Thus every drink of the
opaline liquid is an object lesson in
chemistry that carries its own moral.
The continued use of the absinthe
gives rise to epileptic symptoms as an
external expression of the profound
disturbance of the brain and nerves.
One large dose of the essence of the
wormwood, indeed, has been noted as
causing almost instantly epileptiform
commissions in animals.
But the drug is not without its uses
from broad point of view As the
name implies, it is an anthelmintic, or
pretty sure cure for certain kinds of
animal life that sometimes infest the
intestines of men, causing pain and
death. This peculiar property was
we'll known to the Greeks, who had a
wine infused with wormwood called
absinthites.
The first effects of it are profound
serenity o. temper and slight
heightening of the mental powers,
coupled with bodily inertia. This is
the general rule, but as famous ply
sician once remarked of dreadful
disorder in his lecture-room, Gentle
men, the chief glory of the beautiful
disease l am now explaining is the re.
markable variety OF its manifesto
tions. New York World.
Mystery of Indian Corn