A New Danger by L. A. Smith

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jan 28, 1904

A New Danger

By L. A. Smith

L. A. SMITH

In an article contributed to the Chicago Tribune of January 10, Dr. William E. Gamble, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, makes some statements which should cause any person inclined to the use of patent medicines to make a sudden halt in his experiments with such remedies. His statements refer to the extensive use which is being made of wood alcohol as a cheap substitute for common alcohol in patent medicines and other mixtures which require the presence of some preservative element. He says:—

“Within the last five years American physicians who limit their practise to diseases of the eye have recognized with increasing frequency cases of complete blindness resulting from the use of a cheap variety of alcohol known as wood alcohol. . . . Formerly its disagreeable odor deterred the debauchee from its use in all but unusual cases. Recently it has been deodorized, and placed upon the market under new and most innocent names. Frontier settlements, where supplies are apt to give out on account of lack of facilities for communication, have furnished more than their share of blind men from this cause. The drug in these cases has usually masqueraded under the form of essence of Jamaica ginger, lemon, peppermint, or cinnamon, wood alcohol having been used in their manufacture by unscrupulous firms, instead of the commonly used grain alcohol, for the reason that it costs but one third as much. Since it has been successfully deodorized, it has taken the place of the more expensive alcohol in the arts, and will more and more.

Under the name of Columbian spirits, varnishers use it almost exclusively to cut their shellac. During the last three years three cases of complete and permanent blindness have been observed in this city in varnishers, caused by inhaling the fumes of this drug in confined atmosphere. One man became completely and permanently blind within three days while varnishing the inside of a beer vat, while his partner became blind in two weeks. . . . Last year three fourths of a bottle of a widely advertised patent medicine, taken within a few hours in two or three doses by a man in this city, produced complete, permanent blindness. From the symptoms, wood alcohol was present in this mixture.

“I am informed by two of our best-known retail druggists that this variety of alcohol has within the last three or four years largely displaced grain alcohol in the manufacture of bay rum, witch hazel, and other barbers’ supplies. It is also used in the compounding of liniments. . . .

“The eyes of men blind from the use of either kind of alcohol have a normal appearance, no redness or swelling is seen, nor pain felt. This absence of any appearance of disease of the eyes lulls the victim into a false security, from which he may be aroused only when he is almost blind, and cure rendered impossible. The disease affects the nerve elements of the eye only, the retina and optic nerve.”

This knowledge of the terrible danger involved in the use, either internally or externally, of this deadly substance, says Dr. Gamble, is new, and has heretofore been published almost exclusively in special journals devoted to diseases of the eye.