280 
Wood  Alcohol  Poisoning. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
April,  19 1 8. 
therein  contained.  This  latter  product  has  become  very  scarce  since 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  because  of  the  curtailment  of  the  export 
from  certain  belligerent  countries. 
WOOD  ALCOHOL  POISONING.1 
By  A.  O.  Gettler,  Ph.D.,  and  A.  V.  St.  George,  M.D. 
The  prohibition  by  our  government  of  the  manufacture  of  dis- 
tilled liquors  will  unquestionably  lead  to  much  "  moonshining," 
adulteration  and  dilutions  of  liquors  offered  to  the  public.  That 
such  is  the  case,  even  at  this  period  of  the  war,  is  quite  evident  from 
the  recent  poisoning  in  this  city  of  over  thirty  persons,  six  of  whom 
died,  with  a  whisky  sold  in  one  of  the  poorer  sections  of  the  city 
that  on  analysis  proved  to  contain  a  considerable  amount  X)f  wood 
(methyl)  alcohol.  Believing  that  similar  cases  will  occur  and  with 
increasing  frequency,  despite  the  vigilance  of  our  revenue  and  state 
officers,  we  feel  it  timely  again  to  warn  physicians,  coroners  and 
health  officers,  in  order  that  they  may  be  on  their  guard  in  similar 
"cases,  as  prompt  and  efficient  therapeutic  measures  must  be  insti- 
tuted to  hold  any  hope  for  recovery  of  the  patient,  and  furthermore, 
to  detect  any  violations  of  the  food  laws. 
It  is  our  belief  that  the  introduction  into  beverages  of  the 
dangerous  poison,  wood  alcohol,  is  nearly  always  due  to  ignorance 
on  the  part  of  the  blender.  Many  physicians  and  nearly  all  of  the 
lay  public  are  unacquainted  with  the  chemical  and  physiologic  dif- 
ferences between  the  relatively  innocuous  ethyl  or  grain  alcohol  and 
the  dangerous  methyl  or  wood  alcohol  when  applied  to  the  body  or 
introduced  into  it.  The  refined  wood  alcohol  tastes  like  ethyl  alco- 
hol, and,  moreover,  is  considerably  cheaper;  hence  the  adulterator 
buys  the  latter,  ignorant  that  severe  poisoning,  blindness  and  often 
death  lurk  within  it. 
The  pharmacology  of  this  poison  has  been  presented  by  Pohl  and 
Hunt,  and  we  would  refer  the  reader  to  their  original  papers.  The 
violation  of  the  food  law  and  the  criminal  aspects  of  our  cases  are 
being  investigated  by  the  proper  authorities,  and  we  shall  merely 
record  the  findings  in  the  six  fatal  cases,  with  points  in  diagnosis 
and  treatment  and  methods  for  detecting  the  poison. 
1  Reprinted  from  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association. 
