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NATURE 



[March 21, 1901 



Certainly until the appearance of this report, and by 

 many even to-day, fusel oil is regarded as par excellence 

 the injurious constituent of whiskey. This substance, 

 which is a mixture of varying proportions, according to 

 the spirit, of butylic, propylic and amylic alcohols, has 

 apparently been maligned, and is not, at any rate in the 

 proportion in which it occurs in ordinary potable spirits, 

 a source of much danger to the public health. The chief 

 other impurities touched upon at this inquiry were 

 furfural and aldehydes other than furfural. At that time 

 very little was known concerning the action of furfural 

 or the aldehydes, and it is especially in this connection 

 that the monograph before us is of interest. 



Although there can be no doubt that it is the ethyl 

 alcohol that causes alcoholic intoxication, it appears that 

 the actual way in which one gets drunk, or gets sober 

 after being drunk, depends largely upon the quality of 

 the liquor partaken of. One of the most important factors 

 in determining the quality is the content of the beverage 

 in question in aldehydes, including furfural, another its 

 content in certain volatile bases. 



The source of furfural in the manufacture of whiskey 

 is a class of substances known as pentosans ; these are 

 derived from the cellulose of the grain husks, and under 

 the influence of heat, in the presence of acids, are in the 

 wash still converted into furfural. Furfural is present in 

 all pot-still whiskeys, and also obviously to a less extent 

 in those patent still whiskeys which are blended with the 

 real pot-still products to give them the taste of whiskey. 

 Any one can apparently demonstrate for himself quite 

 simply the presence of furfural in whiskey. It is simply 

 necessary to dilute the whiskey and to add to it a few 

 drops of an aniline acetate solution ; almost immediately 

 the whiskey becomes rose-coloured and later deep rose, 

 changing to light purple according to the quantity of 

 furfural present. 



In addition to furfural there are also present in whiskey 

 other aldehydes. Speaking generally, these bodies are 

 poisonous, or at least irritating ; they are for the most 

 part converted in the body into the corresponding acid, 

 and thus tend to diminish the alkalinity of the blood. 

 This individual point is not without interest in that, 

 according to most physicians, any cause tending to 

 render the blood less alkaline favours the occurrence of 

 gouty deposits in the joints. 



The experimental inquiry concerns itself more especially 

 with the action of furfural upon animals and man. 

 This substance, according to Sir Lauder Brunton and 

 Dr. TunnicHffe, gives rise to paralysis of the voluntary 

 muscles, and later to clonic and tonic convulsions. 

 An odd point about these symptoms is their transient 

 nature ; immediately after the injection of the drug 

 the animal would fall down completely paralysed, its 

 tongue and lips would become bluish and its breath- 

 ing slow and convulsive, at other times irregular 

 and rapid ; convulsions would then appear, vomiting 

 would occur, and then the animal would begin to re- 

 cover, being at first dazed but becoming rapidly normal. 

 Two human subjects who were bold enough to take this 

 apparently active poison in the same dose got bad 

 throbbing headache after it which lasted the rest of the 

 day. This latter result brings us to what, from the 

 practical standpoint, is the most interesting part of the 

 research. 



We believe it will be generally admitted that one of 

 the commonest results of too free potations in the human 

 subject is a bad throbbing headache, and it appears that 

 the alcohol itself is only partly to blame for this dis- 

 agreeable sequela. The aldehydes generally, and fur- 

 fural particularly, play a very active part in the production 

 of these headaches. This appears to be one reason why 

 one is less liable to get a headache after old whiskey, for 

 instance, than after new, or, speaking more correctly, 



NO. 1638, VOL. 63] 



relatively new. One of the effects of maturation upon 

 whiskey is to diminish the amount of furfural and alde- 

 hydes which it contains. This effect of maturation can 

 apparently be effected by another means, viz., by distilla- 

 tion of the fresh spirit or of the low wines with phenyl- 

 hydrazine-sulphonate. By this means the authors were 

 able to obtain an aldehyde-free whiskey, and. to watch the 

 effect of it upon animals, comparing it with that of the 

 same spirit before distillation. Their results are certainly 

 interesting. They found that recovery from profound 

 alcoholic, or rather whiskey, poisoning was distinctly \ 

 different in the two cases. In the case of the original 

 spirit, the animal, during the transition stage from 

 drunkenness to sobriety, was restless, wandering from 

 one part of the laboratory to another, and seemed, 

 generally speaking, remarkably uncomfortable. Even 

 when the gross symptoms of alcoholic poisoning had 

 passed off the animal did not behave normally for some 

 time ; it refused food offered to it, and showed marked 

 signs of bad temper. These secondary symptoms were 

 entirely absent in the case of the aldehyde free spirit. 

 When the animal was sober it appeared perfectly normal, 

 and if offered food took it apparently with relish. 



These symptoms, which cannot fail to remind one of 

 the so-called " Katzen-jammer" of the German student, 

 are, oddly enough, most markedly relieved by precisely 

 those substances which contain chemical groups capable 

 of combining with and rendering innocuous these same 

 aldehydes. The most general substance used in this 

 connection is either ammonia itself or some compound 

 containing amido (NHg) groups. The action of all 

 morning "pick-me-ups," from the student's red-herring 

 to the viv'eur's effervescing citrate of caffeine, is apparently 

 explainable upon this hypothesis, viz., that they neutralise 

 the alhedyde constituents of the potable spirits. 



THE ORIENT A TION OF GREEK TEMPLES. 



A PAPER, "Some Additional Notes on the Orienta- 

 -^*- tion of Greek Temples," an abstract of which was 

 read before the Royal Society on February 14, gave an 

 account of six Grecian temples of which the orientation 

 had been examined or re-examined during the spring of 

 1900. The chief observations and results described in 

 the paper may be stated as follows : — 



(i) The grotto sacred to Apollo on Mt. Cynthus, in 

 the isle of Delos, was interesting as being not improbably 

 the very earliest existing structure of a religious character 

 on Greek soil. The orientation seems, as usual, to have 

 been connected with a zodiacal star, « Librse, and the 

 date of the formation of the grotto derived from this is 

 about 1530 B.C. The original foundation of temples in 

 Greece on some other sites are, indeed, more ancient 

 than this ; but it is presumed, and in a good many cases 

 can be clearly established, that in those cases what can 

 be now seen and measured is that which remains of recon- 

 structions following the same lines as the earlier works. 

 But this grotto at Delos, the sides of which are formed 

 by the natural rock, and the roof and doorway only are 

 artificial, is probably the very shrine alluded to by Virgil 

 as already ancient at the time of the Trojan war {Templa 

 dei saxo venerabar structa veiusto, Mn. iii. 84). 



(2) At Delphi, where the clearance of the site by the 

 French archaeologists gave a better opportunity of ex- 

 amining the celebrated temple of Apollo, there is evidence 

 of a change of orientation, one, evidently the more ancient, 

 having the angle 231^ 18', the other 227° 8'. These are 

 the angles of the axis when looking east, measured from 

 the south point round by west. The site is very peculiar, 

 being surrounded by mountains. The sun must have 

 illuminated the sanctuary through an opening on the 

 flank, as was the case at Bassas, also dedicated to Apollo ; 



