ADULTERATED BEER | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 19, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 46.

ADULTERATED BEER.

DR. WINSLOW ANDERSON says that one of the worst adulterated articles in general use as a beverage—and we must admit that it is in very general use—is beer. Instead of its being a brew of malt and hops, costing one-tenth of a cent per glass and selling for ten cents per glass, thus making ten thousand per cent—quite a reasonable profit—beer is often adulterated with cocculus indicus, capsicum, ginger, quassia, wormwood, calamus root, carraway and coriander seeds, copperas, sulphuric acid, cream of tartar, alum, carbonate of potash, ground oyster shells, nux vomica, picrotoxin and strychnine. These articles, presumably, do away with malt and hops, make a stronger beverage when mixed with water and two to eight per cent. of alcohol, thus making the profit one million per cent., instead of ten thousand per cent. Dr. Anderson has seen several people "crazy drunk" on beer, and when one considers the picrotoxin, cocculus indicus and strychnine, it is no wonder they lose their reason.—Nat. Pop. Review.