Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes / With Special Reference to the Effects of Alcoholic Drinks, Stimulants, and Narcotics upon The Human System

by Jane Andrews

CHAPTER VI.

DISTILLING.

ISTILLING (dĭs tĭlł´ing) may be a new word to you, but you can easily learn its meaning.

You have all seen distilling going on in the kitchen at home, many a time. When the water in the tea-kettle is boiling, what comes out at the nose? Steam.

What is steam?

You can find out what it is by catching some of it on a cold plate, or tin cover. As soon as it touches any thing cold, it turns into drops of water.

When we boil water and turn it into steam, and then turn the steam back into water, we have distilled the water. We say vapor instead of steam, when we talk about the boiling of alcohol.

It takes less heat to turn alcohol to vapor than to turn water to steam; so, if we put over the fire some liquid that contains alcohol, and begin to collect the vapor as it rises, we shall get alcohol first, and then water.

But the alcohol will not be pure alcohol; it will be part water, because it is so ready to mix with water that it has to be distilled many times to be pure.