The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-10-07
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
PROHIBITION IN
TROPICS VIEWED
AS IMPOSSIBLE
German Scientist Points to
Ease of Fermentation
as Reason.
BY PROFESSOR PAUL LINDNER
(Copvripht 1893 by Science Service

-
Copyright. 1888. by Science servieel
BERLIN, Oct. =. - Prohibition,
now apparently on its way to OBJ
livion in the United States because
the Americans found the law unen-
torcable, would be an even vainer
dream if attempted in the tropics.
This may be a severe blow to we'll
intentioned humanitarianS who
think that the lot of the black and
brown skinned natives could be i'm
proved if sobriety were permanently
enforced upon them, but it is none
the less in accord with the facts.
Prohibition in the tropics is impos-
sible.
The reason is not far to seek.
Palms grow everywhere in the
tropics: There are over a thou
sand species of them, and most of
them yield quantities of sweet, easily
fermentable sap And in every
tropical land the art of making
palm wine is known, and can be
carried on with the simplest of ap-
paratuS.
Add to this the facts that sugar.
cane culture now is practically uni
versal in tropical lands, and that
the open season for fermentation
lasts the year round, and you have
situation that could not be con-
trolled even with whole armies of
police.
San FermentS in Tree
In most tropic lands, particularly
in East Africa, the common practice
IS to tap the tree just below its
crown of leaves and collect the sap
in calabash gourd or other YES
sci. In the former Germany colony
of Togoland, however, an even
simpler method is used. The palm
is chopped down, and after about
ten days a rectangular hole is cut
into it. In this the sap collects, and
there it ferments. In three or four
days the fermentation is complete;
after this period a disagreeable odor
of hydrogen disulphide arises. If
the cavity is emptied regularly, one
of these felled palms will yield about
nine quarts of sap daily for APP
proXimately three months.
Walter Busse, German scientist
who described this process some
thirty years ago, states that palm
wine thus made was exceedingly
cheap-cheaper than water. Five
pfenning (about one cent in Ameri-
can money! would purchase one or
two quarts. Because of its highly
intoxicating qualities as it grew
older, fetish" practice demanded
that it be diluted with water, if
water was available.
Basterium Is Agent
The initial phase of palm wine
fermentation is carried on not by
years, but by a fermenting bac-
terium, which I discovered some
years ago in the Mexican beverage
aguamiel, made from the sap of a
species of century plant. This bac-
terium has received the name Ter
mobacterium mobile. It universally
is distributed in the warm regions
of the earth, and I was able to dem
onstrate recently that it was the
fermentive agent of soma, the
sacred beer-like drink of ancient
India.
So long as Hermobacterium pre-
dominates in the fermenting palm
sap, nothing but thyl alcohol, car
homie and lacttic acid we're formed,
and that in low concentration. But
once the yeasts begin to get in their
work, they produce larger quanti-
ties of ethyl alcohol and also small
amounts of some Of the higher
alcohoIs (the "fusel oil" group,
which are much more toxic in their
action and doubtless give the native
palm wines their "quarrelSome"
qualities.
Wine Is Trouble Maker
Without much doubt, palm wine
was "surra," the drink of the COM
mon people of ancient India and
Persia, in the days when soma was
reserved for the gods and their
servants the priests 1t still is
called "surra" in Africa, and the
same troublemaking qualities that
cause it to be more or less under
restriction now are roundly con-
demned in the ancient oriental
| literature.
The name "surra" in the ancient
books applied not only to the drink
but to a god, king, a wise man,
| %11o Tho classic Indian
word for a brewer is surrakara';
kara meant to strain or filter. A
brewer therefore was strainer OF
Surra.
Surra did not refer to the whole
plant, but to the flower-sheath OF
the palm.
Palm Leaf Sugar Source
One of the worlds major sources
of sugar still is this same palm
sheath: Something like 900 million
pounds of palm sugar still finds its
way into trade channels every year.
I believe that refreshing bever-
age of high quality could be made
by inoculating a pasteurized Solu-
ton of this palm sugar with my
termobacterium, and permitting 1t
to ferment under controlled condi-
lions. This would produce a drink
of the "surra' or soma" type, but
without yeasts and the dangerous
~ Intoxicating higher alcoholS. This
beverage will have the same medi-
cinal effect in the digestive tract
as the soma of the ancient Indians
or the "neo-soma" now brewed in
Vienna and inoculated with the ter
! mobacterium mobile.