1892 The flowing bowl when and what to drink (1892, c1891)

SPIRITS.

63

IN hardly any article of merchandise so many adul- terations occur as in the stronger alcoholic liquids. And to these falsifications it is due that the use of alco- hol so often shows its most detrimental effect on the health, especially on the brain of man. Spirits may be adulterated with water, sugar, capsi- cum, cinnamon or cassia, various sulphates, free sul- phuric acid and lead. Water has been added to them in such a degree that their commercial value was re- duced to the enormous extent of more than one-half. This lack of body was covered partly by sugar. Hassall says in his Adulterations of Food, etc.: " It is impossible to conceive of more scandalous adulterations of spirits than those by cayenne pepper or grains of paradise, for they are almost equally hot and pungent. The introduction into the stomach of raw spirits is suf- ficiently destructive of itself, but the addition of such powerful and acrid substances as cayenne pepper and grains of paradise forms a compound which no human stomach or system, however strong, could long with- stand." The different kinds of spirits are obtained in a com- paratively crude state from the grain by the distiller. They are afterward submitted to purification by the rectifier, as well as procured of a higher strength. The