Your ShelfYour Projects

THE ALCOHOL FAMILY

7%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 24, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 52.

Read the full edition

THE ALCOHOL FAMILY.

By Frederick M. Rossiter

FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M. D.
  • (Battle Creek, Mich.) *
The old adage, “A man is known by the company he keeps,” may be applied to alcohol. It belongs to a bad family, a family of chemical bodies that possess a common principle of action when introduced into the living animal body. Methylic alcohol, or wood alcohol, was discovered in 1812, and is obtained by the distillation of wood. Wood alcohol is used principally for burning in lamps, and in the arts. When it is used as a drink, its effect is decidedly marked.
Amylic alcohol, starch alcohol, or fusel oil, is obtained from the fermentation of potatoes, molasses, and grapes. It remains after the lighter alcohols have been distilled. It produces intoxication of the most dangerous character. Fusel oil is present in rum and in new whiskies, and partially accounts for the mania that possesses a man after drinking these beverages. Fusel oil is an active general poison. It disappears from whisky by oxidation in from five to ten years, hence the preferment for “old whiskies.”
Ether, chloroform, and chloral are all made from alcohol, and all produce profound narcosis, or stupor. All produce sleep by anaesthetizing the brain centers, and by directly depressing the high centers of the brain.
All alcohol is derived from the fermentation of sugar, as found in all juices, and its derivatives, such as starch and cellulose. Alcoholic beverages are classified as distilled and fermented. The fermented are divided into malts, which are derived from fermented grains, and wines, which are fermented fruit juices. The malted drinks, such as beer, ale, and porter, contain from three to eight per cent of alcohol. The wines which are light, heavy, and fortified, contain from three to forty-eight per cent of alcohol. No fruit juices can form more than twenty per cent of alcohol; for when this limit is reached, the process of fermentation is stopped by its own products. Fortified wines are made by adding a certain percentage of alcohol to the already fermented wine. Champagne is a wine that is bottled before fermentation is complete, and so it is charged with carbon dioxide.
The distilled alcoholic drinks are whiskies, from the distillation of grain, after being fermented, and brandies, from the distillation of wines and fruit juices. The whiskies are corn and rye whiskies, gin, rum, and arrack. They contain from forty-eight to sixty per cent of alcohol. Gin contains oil of juniper or oil of turpentine. Rum is distilled from molasses and from the refuse of sugar refineries. It is one of the most poisonous of alcoholic drinks.
Brandies contain from forty-five to sixty per cent of alcohol, and are much more expensive than the whiskies, as they are distilled from fermented fruit juices.
Hence we see that alcohol is always a product of fermentation, never found in nature, and is a waste product. All alcoholic drinks are made at the expense and by the destruction of natural foods. That which the Creator put into the grain in order that it might perpetuate itself, or to assist in the digestion of it, thus giving and prolonging life, is perverted and changed into a poison, producing death.
Wheat, barley, and rye contain starch and gluten in each kernel. When moistened, and at a low temperature, the grain begins to sprout. The starch and gluten are intended to form the first food of the young plant. Starch and gluten are both insoluble in water, and so in their natural state cannot pass from the seed to supply the wants of the growing plant. Hence nature has made a wonderful provision for all these processes. The starch and gluten are both changed by a chemical process, which takes place at the base of the germ, at the exact time when they are wanted as food. Every little starch cell is surrounded with gluten, which is partly converted into a substance called diastase, and this in turn converts the starch into soluble grape sugar. Hence the sprout is sweet. One part of diastase will convert one thousand parts of starch into grape sugar. Brewers take advantage of this property of diastase, and so add large quantities of starch to their fermenting fluids to increase the percentage of alcohol, and then dilute it with water, thus increasing their profits.
In all malted drinks the grain is permitted to sprout for several days, or until the sprout is one and a half times the length of the grain; it is there arrested, dried, and soaked in water to dissolve the sugar and diastase. This fluid is then allowed to ferment to the desired point by the addition of hops.
One bushel of grain will produce about two gallons of whisky. The flour that can be put on the tip of a knife has more food value than a barrel of beer, and a five-pound loaf of bread contains more nourishment than twenty-seven barrels of beer.
Enough grain is destroyed each year in the manufacture of alcoholic drinks to feed the entire world. The fruit destroyed in providing for depraved appetites, is sufficient to supply every soul with an abundance of delicious fruits and fruit juices. The alcoholic beverages consumed in the United States last year would make a canal ten feet deep, thirty feet wide, and one hundred and fifty miles long.