Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, or Forensic Psychiatry, Vol. 2
Ethyl alcohol, Spirit of wine, is commercially assumed to be the base of intoxicating drinks, and the purest of these is capable of working great havoc when abused but on account of the demand for cheap liquor in vast quantities, what is known to chemists as the more poisonous amyl alcohol (potato spirit or fusel oil) is sub stituted for portions of the less harmful ethyl or vinic alcohol. The aroma, or bouquet, of liquors is largely due to certain others of the more poisonous amyl and butyl alcohols, notably the acetic and valeric. All too often, by the time it reaches the average consumer, liquor contains, in addition to the alcohol, diluents to increase bulk, and articles to give it false color, odor, and taste. In the English licensing act of 187 2' there is a schedule of substances called deleterious ingredients, found to have been used in adulterating intoxicating liquors. They are cocculus Indicus, common salt, copperas, Opium, Indian hemp, strychnine, tobacco, darnel seed, logwood, salts of zinc or lead, and alum; and there are also added correctives of acidity, such as litharge, lime, soda, potash astringents like catechu, oak-bark, and sloe leaves; earths for decolorizing; sweetening agents, and ethers for fia voring. Most of these articles are unwholesome, to say the least, and tend to debilitate and otherwise create depraved bodily states. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
