Wood Alcohol First Blinds, Then Causes Victim's Death

1920

Authorities Alarmed by Increased Use

More than 150 persons are dead and scores are dangerously ill as a result of drinking poison booze in various parts of the United States. Wood and denatured alcohol, homemade stuff with "a kick in it," hair tonic, perfume and various other concoctions, drunk to alleviate the thirst that will not down, are blamed. In all parts of the country steps are being taken to put down the traffic in these death-dealing drinks and to warn the public against indulging in them. Dozens of arrests in big cities have revealed plans to ship the poison booze to small towns and villages, the men back of these plans being willing to risk killing fellow-men in order to reap a few dollars.

Investigation by the Federal authorities at Washington has revealed that existing laws are powerless to stop the sale of wood alcohol to those who may want it. Congress, when it meets next Monday, will be asked to rush new legislation that will put such restrictions upon the sale of denatured spirits that the death list which is becoming of such big proportions will not be increased by leaps and bounds.

Warning by Employers

Large employers of labor have been asked to warn all their men of the danger incurred in drinking stuff with "a kick in it." Most of the deaths and cases of total blindness resulting from drinking wood alcohol have been among the laboring classes, the people who were unable to put by a large reserve of booze when the country went dry last July.

Symptoms of poisoning by wood alcohol are vertigo, nausea, vomiting, headache, dilated pupils, delirium and unconsciousness, rapidly followed by death unless a physician is called immediately. If recovery takes place there is serious danger of blindness. Blindness has followed the taking of so little as five teaspoonfuls of wood alcohol and less than half a pint may cause death. There is no antidote to counteract the effect of this poison booze. Once absorbed into the system, there is nothing that can be done.

Started With Christmas Jags

The ravages of wood alcohol made their appearance the day after Christmas in towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where thirty-six persons died as a result of drinking booze that had been distributed from New York. At the town of Chicopee, Mass., eighteen persons, including one woman, died. Discovery then was made that great quantities of the booze had been shipped throughout the New England States for the Christmas trade. The shipments were traced to New York, where several persons are under arrest.

Federal agents arrested five men who are believed the heads of the gang which flooded five eastern States. The headquarters of this gang was in New York. A wine and liquor dealer, a druggist and an undertaker are among the prisoners. A saloonkeeper and his bartender also were arrested. Charges of murder in the first degree will be placed against the last two as a result of the deaths of four men from wood alcohol, the victims all being roomers over the saloon. Thirty-five persons have died from wood alcohol in New York since Nov. 1.

Twenty-seven deaths in Chicago are attributed to the same cause. One Christmas party resulted in three deaths, those of two women and one man. The man, a former saloonkeeper. was stricken while at the bier of his wife, who had died after being stricken with blindness.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 1.