Evening star., 1927-04-05
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

strychnine, grain alcohol. or good
whisky" is harmless. Also that, since
wood alcohol is known TO be in the
strychnine class, the Government puts
it in with malice aforethought, as n
trap, like sprinkling arsenic on meat
and laying it where wolves will get it.
Wood alcohol plays fairer, for it blinds
the victim before killing him-some-
times-as a warning.
The purpose of putting wood alcohol
into the denatured mixture is simply
to make the redistillation more diff
cult. Grain alcohol distills at as de-
grees Centigrade. wood alcohol at So
degrees, but when wood alcohol is
mixed with the other ingredients the
complex distillation point ranges be-
tween 20 degrees and 270 degrees Fab
renheit, and the moonshiner's lot is
not happy one.
Besides, wood alcohol in small parts
a parts mixed with 100 parts Of
grain alcohol-is not as poisonous as
the grain alcohol. The notion that
pure grain alcohol" is non-poisonous
is absolutely contradicted by science.
This statement is based on expert
ments on animals by DIR. Reid Hunt OF
Harvard Medical School. In a letter
dated last January -, DR.. Reid Hunt
says:
II have tested few samples OF
bootleg liquor which has caused death
in man. In each case the entire tox-
icity could be explained by the ethyl
(grain) alcohol, which in one case was
S6 per cent present.
Death came from the grain aIco.
hol)
x X
As to the statistics that Indicate the
defeat of prohibition, according to the
''wets," they may be better under
stood by comparing the alcohol deaths,
not with 1920-the first year of pro-
hibition, before the bootleggers were
organized-but with the deaths prior
to the prohibition amendment and the
Volstead law.
It is conceded by both vets and
drys that 1920 was the low mark for
drinking, and that since then bootleg
ging has organized and become cum.
ming, and the fight against the con-
spirators, especially in the "wet" part
of the country, which is north of the
Potomac and east Of the Ohio, has
been more and more strenuous
According to the United States Cen
sus Bureau, there has been a decrease
of deaths from alcohol during the six
full years of prohibition to the num-
Der Of 1850, as compared with the
rate between 1910 and 1917. The
average annual death rate from alco-
holism prior to prohibition was So
per 100000 population. Since prohi-
bition, covering six years, the average
has been 3.6 per 100000.
This saving of 1850 lives, since
1919. has occurred despite the in
creased rate from 1921 to 1926, due 10
of the illegal traffic,
reaching its height i'm 1924. Since
then the increase has been much less
for enforcement has been
more successful
1t is said by prohibition officials
hat public ridicule of total abstinence
mas induced excessive but sporadic
thinking surreptitiously, with extra
atal consequences. That opposition
md ridicule in press and clubs need.
essly cost the country in the six years
1000 lives, as compared with the low
ate of fatalities in 1920. They blame
he press and the health departments
mainly for this lack of public appre-
'lation or the seriousness of this ridi.
:ule.
This situation is thus expressed:
"A little smallpox epidemic sets
health departments hustling to exter.
innate the disease and to inform tbs
public how to avoid 1t. Smallpox
'aused only 700 deaths in 1925. aIco-
,olism caused 1904. A man who dies
i alcohol Is just as dead as one who
lies OF smallpox. Yet alcoholism is
wen easier to avoid than smallnox."
DR.. Bigelow Of the Massachusetts
leaIth department said recently in
IN official report:
Alcohol Is probably the poison in
IIcohoilc beverages chiefly responsible
or alcoholic deaths. People who think
pure whisky can be drunk with i'm
'unity and without injury ignore the
act that alcohol. the principal ingre.
lent in whisky. is a poison"
The death rate of alcoholics per
100000 population has been as followss
$40. 5.5; 1917, &3; 1920, IL; 1925. ~.
But what has become OF all the
<eeley Institutes and other medical
for the cure OF habitual
runkards which fiourished prior 10
Why don't they stu Do
lusinesS7 liz. AsaaN