590 
The  Alcohol  Problem, 
|Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
?     Sept.,  1921. 
liable  to  become  the  substitute,  and  it  behooves  all  who  have  the 
maintenance  of  pharmaceutic  ethics  at  heart  to  use  every  effort  to 
counteract  this  tendency.  Black  sheep  there  will  be  in  spite  of  all 
teaching  and  example,  but  the  faculties  of  our  pharmaceutical 
colleges  and  the  controllers  of  pharmaceutic  organization  must 
preach  in  and  out  of  season  the  duties  of  the  retail  pharmacists  with 
no  uncertain  voice.  The  question  is,  of  course,  seriously  compli- 
cated by  the  general  opinion  that  alcoholic  beverages  have  a  medic- 
inal value,  and  by  a  somewhat  widespread  opinion  that  they  have 
also  a  food  value.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  moderate  amounts  of 
alcohol  are  consumed  in.  the  animal  system  with  production  of 
energy,  but  it  can  be  easily  shown  that  such  energy  is  more  expensive 
than  that  from  any  common  article  of  diet.  The  view  that  a  mod- 
erate amount  of  alcohol  has  a  so-called  "protein-sparing"  power 
never  had  any  satisfactory  experimental  basis,  and  does  not  now 
form  any  part  of  scientific  opinion  in  this  field. 
A  phase  of  the  alcohol  question  that  needs  active  discussion  is 
that  of  adulteration.  Habits  die  hard,  and  those  addicted  to  the 
use  of  alcohol,  or  lenient  in  regard  to  its  use  in  others,  are  found 
very  frequently  repeating  the  shibboleth  that  if  only  "pure"  liquors 
would  be  sold  the  evils  of  intoxication  would  be  materially  abated. 
The  widespread  notion  that  poisonous  substances  are  frequently 
added  to  beverages,  especially  those  sold  in  violation  of  law,  finds  no 
support  in  the  experiences  of  chemists.  It  is  true  that,  lately,  a  good 
many  cases  of  adulteration  with  methanol  (or  even  complete  substi- 
tution of  this  substance)  have  been  reported,  but  such  practices 
lead  usually  to  the  just  punishment  of  those  who  drink  the  liquor, 
inasmuch  as  such  admixture  is  generally  found  only  in  liquors  sold 
in  violation  of  the  law.  The  dangerous  ingredient  in  alcoholic  bev- 
erages is  the  alcohol ;  the  stories  of  the  use  of  strychnin  in  beer  and 
of  cocculus  berries  in  other  liquors  are  like  the  stories  of  arsenic 
and  opium  in  cigarettes,  sand  in  sugar  or  chalk  in  milk,  the  invention 
of  newspaper  reporters. 
The  value  of  alcoholic  beverages  in  treatment  of  disease  is  as 
yet  an  unsolved  problem.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  a  substance  that 
has  such  prompt  and  toxic  effects  as  alcohol  must  have  applications 
in  rational  therapeutics,  but  alcohol  differs  from  almost  all  other 
remedial  agents  in  the  gustatory  characters  of  its  commercial  forms. 
If  the  only  available  form  was  the  silent  spirit,  that  is,  the  almost 
