CHLORAL AND OTHER NARCOTICS. 651 



spinach, or nettles. It is commonly adulterated. M. Derheims found 

 it adulterated with sulphate of copper, blue vitriol, which substance is 

 added in order to give the required greenish color or tint, as well as to 

 afford a slight causticity, which to depraved tastes is considered the 

 right thing to taste and swallow. M. Stanislas Martin stated that 

 he found chloride of antimony, commonly called butter of antimony, 

 as another adulteration used also to give the color. Chevalier doubts 

 this latter adulteration, but the adulteration with the sulphate of 

 copper is not disputed. The proportion of essence of wormwood to 

 the alcohol is five drachms of the essence to one hundred quarts of 

 alcohol. The action of absinthe on those who become habituated to 

 its use is most deleterious. The bitterness increases the craving or 

 desire, and the confirmed habitue is soon unable to take food until he 

 is duly primed for it by the deadly provocative. On the nervous 

 system the influence of the absinthium essence is different from the 

 action of the alcohol. The absinthium acts rather after the manner of 

 nicotine ; but it is slower in taking effect than the alcohol which 

 accompanies it into the organism. There is therefore felt by the 

 drinker first the exciting relaxing influence of the alcohol, and after- 

 ward the constringing suppressing influence of the secondary and 

 more slowly acting poison. The sufferer, for he must be so called, 

 is left cold, tremulous, unsteady of movement, and nauseated. If his 

 dose be large, these phenomena are exaggerated, and the voluntary 

 muscles, bereft of the control of the will, are thrown into epileptiform 

 convulsions, attended with unconsciousness and with an oblivion to all 

 surrounding objects which I have known to last for six or seven hours. 

 In the worst examples of poisoning from absinthe the person becomes 

 a confirmed epileptic. 



In addition to these general indications of evil there are certain 

 local indications not less severe, not less dangerous. The effect which 

 the absinthe exerts in a direct way on the stomach would alone be 

 sufficiently pernicious. It controls for mischief the natural power of 

 the stomach to secrete healthy digestive fluid. It interferes with the 

 solvent power of that fluid itself, so that taken in what, is considered to 

 be a moderate quantity, one or two wineglassfuls in the course of the 

 day, it soon establishes in the victim subjected to it a permanent 

 dyspepsia. The appetite is so perverted that all desire for food is 

 quenched until the desire is feebly whipjaed up by another draught of 

 the destroyer. In a word, a more consummate devil of destruction 

 could not be concocted by the finest skill of science devoted to the 

 worst of purposes than is concocted in this destructive agent, absinthe. 

 It is doubly lethal, and ought to be put down peremptorily in all 

 places where it is sold. Our magistrates have full power to deal with 

 this poison, if they had the discretion and the courage to use their 

 power. They could prohibit the license to all who sell the poison. 

 Beyond this, there is another power that ought to come into play. 



