DENATURED ALCOHOL ' 243 



DENATURED ALCOHOL 



By Professor S. LAWRENCE BIGELOW 



UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 



TT7 IDESPEEAD interest was aroused by the passage, last June, 

 * » of an act of congress permitting the manufacture and sale 

 of alcohol tax-free after January 1, 1907, provided it be rendered 

 unfit to drink by the addition of substances imparting to it a repulsive 

 odor and taste. Such alcohol is known as denaturalized, denaturized, 

 or denatured alcohol, and the substances added are called denaturiz- 

 ing or denaturing agents, or more simply, denaturants. These are 

 barbarous terms, almost as repulsive as the substances themselves. 

 It is only fair to add that neither Professor Matthews nor President 

 Roosevelt is responsible for these dislocations of our language. They 

 are literal translations from German and French equivalents. True 

 to its resolutions of reform, our government has adopted the simplest 

 of these terms and recent publications refer to denatured alcohol and 

 denaturants. 



The cause of the general interest in the subject is twofold. Each 

 individual in the community has reason to think that he may perhaps 

 derive some benefit from this bill ; that he will be able to use denatured 

 alcohol in a way to increase his comforts or to diminish his running 

 expenses. A smaller number see in the new article of commerce possi- 

 bilities of profitable occupation or of profitable investment. It is my 

 purpose to consider certain facts regarding denatured alcohol which 

 have a bearing upon these expectations. 



Alcohol, to the chemist, is a class name for a large number of 

 different compounds, all of which have certain definite characteristics 

 in common. The proper name for ' ordinary alcohol/ sometimes 

 called ' grain ' alcohol, or ' spirits of wine,' constituting between 40 per 

 cent, and 55 per cent, of the volume of whiskey, brandy and the other 

 so-called spirituous liquors, 8 per cent, to 25 per cent, of the volume 

 of wines, 3 per cent, to 8 per cent, of the volume of beers and ales, is 

 ethyl alcohol. It contains only the elements carbon, hydrogen and 

 oxygen. Its chemical formula is C 2 H 5 OH and it is the only ' alcohol ' 

 which can be taken as a beverage, all others being much more poison- 

 ous. For instance, wood alcohol, the correct name for which is methyl 

 alcohol, a substance about which we shall have frequent occasion to 

 speak as it is to be one of the denaturants, is closely related to ethyl 

 alcohol, containing the same elements only in slightly different pro- 



