The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-12-12
METHYLATED SPIRITS.

We have yet again another victim to
methylated spirits, and it really calls
for some steps to be taken to prevent
the sale of this poison. The fact that
it is poison does not seem to have any
effect upon the drinkers. They know
that there have been people dying from
the effects of this connection, but it
does not seem to inspire any fear
among them. What men will do to OBJ
tain alcohol is absolutely eXtraordin-
airy. Whymper the Alaskan explorer
lost all his specimens of snakes, toads,
and other uncanny beasts, because
first the sailors drank the alcohol out
of the cask in which the creatures were
preserved, and then broke the cask
open and chewed the contents in order
to get the last drop to be obtained. As
Whymper tells it in his book it is a
somewhat gruesome and sickening
story.
However because methylated spirits
have been misused here, we should not
forget the reason for their sale. AL
Cohol has to be used in many of the
arts and it was found in other cQun-
tries that the men who had alcohol
given them for industrial purposes used
it for internal purposes and got prop
erly drunk as a result. The idea in
using methylated spirits was to have
an article which would be too offensive
in taste to drink, and which yet would
be an effective medium for varnish,
polish and other things that alcohol
was used for. In Europe this has been
used for years, and there has not been
that misdirection of it which has &C.
Cured here.
AS far as one can judge in rushing
from the free sale of alcohol to the
free sale of methylated spirits, however
good the motives of those who urged
the change, we have simply directed
our bark from the Scylla of drunken
ness to the Charybdis of death. 1t
would have been better 10 have had an
unrestricted sale of alcohol than to
have had the unrestricted sale Of this
deleterious compound which has, we
know, hurled ten or a dozen people to
untimely graves, and has sent many
more that We know nothing of.
Why methylated spirits in Hawai-
should be so deadly, or why they are
not so unpleasant that it is impossi-
bic to take them The Star cannot say.
The Food Commissioner, whose duty
it is to examine dru"~ and medicines,
might make an analysis of specimens
from the various drug stores, and tell
us whether the methylated spirits sold
here have the same composition as
the methylated spirits sold elsewhere.
But the Food Commissioner has never
been bold enough to tackle the drug
business, and if he did it would be
doubtful if the Board of Health would
be interested enough in the matter to
bring a prosecution.
The sale of methylated spirits ought
to be stopped at once. Any one who
sells methylated spirits after all the
exposure and investigation which has
occurred, is practically as guilty of
murder or being an accessory TO MUIR
der or suicide, as if he sold arsenic,
prussic acid or any other deadly poison
without restraint or restriction. The
law against the sale of pure alcohol
should be allowed to become a dead
letter. 1t is better to break a law than
TO kill several men and leave dozens
of destitute children and widows as a
burden upon the resources of the COM
munity. As Gratano say in the Mer-
chant of Venice: ITO do a great right,
do little wrong" We want no more
of these poisonings under legal form.