WINE is generally made from the juice of the grape. The juice, or must, as it is called, is placed in vats in the cellar, where the low temperature favors a slow fermentation. If all the sugar be converted into alcohol and carbonic-acid gas, a dry wine will remain; if the fermentation be checked, a sweet wine will result; and if the wine be bottled while the change is still going on, a brisk effervescing liquor like champagne, will be formed. All these are dangerous beverages because of the alcohol they contain.
DISTILLATION.—Alcohol is so volatile that, by the application of heat, it can be driven off as a vapor from the fermented liquid in which it has been produced. Steam and various fragrant substances will accompany it, and, if they are collected and condensed in a cool receiver, a new and stronger liquor will be formed, having a distinctive odor.
In this way whiskey is distilled from fermented corn, rye, barley, or potatoes; the alcohol of commerce is distilled from whiskey; brandy, from wine; rum, from fermented molasses; and gin, from fermented barley and rye, afterward distilled with juniper berries.
VARIETIES AND PROPERTIES OF ALCOHOL.—There are several varieties of alcohol produced from distillation of various substances. Thus Methyl Alcohol is obtained from the decomposition of hard wood when exposed to intense heat with little or no oxygen present. It is a light, volatile liquid, which closely resembles ordinary alcohol in all its properties. It is used in the manufacture of aniline dyes, in making varnishes, and for burning in spirit lamps. Amyl Alcohol [Footnote: The odor of amylic alcohol is sweet, nauseous, and heavy. The sensation of its presence remains long. In taste it is burning and acrid, and it is itself practically insoluble in water. When it is diluted with common alcohol it dissolves freely in water, and gives a soft and rather unctuous flavor, I may call it a fruity flavor, something like that of ripe pears. Amyl alcohol, introduced as an adulterant, is an extremely dangerous addition to ordinary alcohol, in whatever form it is presented. From the quantities of it imported into this country, it is believed to be employed largely in the adulteration of wines and spirits.—RICHARDSON.] is the chief constituent of "fusel oil," found in whiskey distilled from potatoes. It is often present in common alcohol, giving a slightly unpleasant odor when it evaporates from the hand. Fusel oil is extremely poisonous and lasting in its effects, so that when contained in liquors it greatly increases their destructive and intoxicating properties.
Ethyl Alcohol, which is that which we have described as obtained from fermentation of fruits and grains, is the ordinary alcohol of commerce. We have spoken of its volatility. This property permits it to pass into vapor at 56° Fahr. It boils at 173° Fahr. (Water boils at 212°.) Like Methyl Alcohol, it burns without smoke and with great heat, [Footnote: Pour a little alcohol into a saucer and apply an ignited match. The liquid will suddenly take fire, burning with intense heat, but feeble light. In this process, alcohol takes up oxygen from the air, forming carbonic-acid gas, and water.—Hold a red-hot coil of platinum wire in a goblet containing a few drops of alcohol, and a peculiar odor will be noticed. It denotes the formation of aldehyde—a substance produced in the slow oxidation of alcohol. Still further oxidized, the alcohol would be changed into acetic acid—the sour principle of vinegar.—Put the white of an egg—nearly pure albumen—into a cup, and pour upon it some alcohol, or even strong brandy; the fluid albumen will coagulate, becoming hard and solid. In this connection, it is well to remember that albumen is contained in our food, while the brain is largely an albuminous substance.] and is therefore of much value in the arts. Its great solvent power over fats and mixed oils renders it a useful agent in many industrial operations. It is also a powerful antiseptic, and no one who visits a museum of natural history will be likely to forget the rows of bottles within which float reptilian and batrachian specimens, preserved in alcohol.
To alcohol, also, we are indebted for various anæsthetic agents, which, when not abused (p. 340), are of inestimable value. Thus, if certain proportions of alcohol and nitric acid be mixed together and heated, nitrite of amyl, so serviceable in relieving the agonizing spasms peculiar to that dread disease, angina pectoris, will be obtained. If, instead of nitric, we use sulphuric acid, we shall get ether; if chlorine be passed through alcohol, hydrate of chloral is the result; and, if chloride of lime and alcohol be treated together, the outcome is chloroform.
One of the most striking properties of alcohol, and one which we shall hereafter consider in its disastrous effects upon the tissues of our body, is its affinity for water. [Footnote: Suppose, then, a certain measure of alcohol be taken into the stomach, it will be absorbed there, but, previous to absorption, it will have to undergo a proper degree of dilution with water; for there is this peculiarity respecting alcohol when it is separated by an animal membrane from a watery fluid like the blood, that it will not pass through the membrane until it has become charged, to a given point of dilution, with water. Alcohol is itself, in fact, so greedy for water that it will pick it up from watery textures, and deprive them of it until, by its saturation, its power of reception is exhausted, after which it will diffuse into the current of circulating fluid.
To illustrate this fact of dilution I perform a simple experiment. Into a bladder is placed a mixture consisting of equal parts of alcohol and distilled water. Into the neck of the bladder a long glass tube is inserted and firmly tied. Then the bladder is immersed in a saline fluid representing an artificial serum of blood. The result is, that the alcohol in the bladder absorbs water from the surrounding saline solution, and thereby a column of fluid passes up into the glass tube. A second mixture of alcohol and water, in the proportion this time of one part of alcohol to two of water, is put into another bladder immersed in like manner in an artificial serum. In this instance a little fluid also passes from the outside into the bladder, so that there is a rise of water in the tube, but less than in the previous instance. A third mixture, consisting of one part of alcohol with three parts of water, is placed in another little bladder, and is also suspended in the artificial serum. In this case there is, for a time, a small rise of fluid in the tube connected with the bladder; but after a while, owing to the dilution which took place, a current from within outward sets in, and the tube becomes empty. Thus each bladder charged originally with the same quantity of fluid contains at last a different quantity. The first contains more than it did originally, the second only a little more, the third a little less. From the third, absorption takes place, and if I keep changing and replacing the outer fluid which surrounds the bladder with fresh serum, I can in time, owing to the double current of water into the bladder through its coats, and of water and alcohol out of the bladder into the serum, remove all the alcohol. In this way it is removed from the stomach into the circulating blood after it has been swallowed. When we dilute alcohol with water before drinking it, we quicken its absorption. If we do not dilute it sufficiently, it is diluted in the stomach by transudation of water in the stomach, until the required reduction for its absorption; the current then sets in toward the blood, and passes into the circulating canals by the veins.—RICHARDSON.] When strong alcohol is exposed to the air, it absorbs moisture and becomes diluted; at the same time, the spirit itself evaporates. The commercial or proof spirit is about one half water; the strongest holds five per cent; and to obtain absolute or waterless alcohol, requires careful distillation in connection with some substance, as lime, that has a still greater affinity for water, and so can despoil the alcohol.
ALCOHOL IN ITS DESTRUCTIVE RELATION TO PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE.—If we pour a little quantity of strong spirits upon a growing plant in our garden or conservatory, we shall soon see it shrivel and die. If we apply it to insects or small reptiles which we may have captured for specimens in our cabinet, the same potent poison will procure for them a speedy death. If we force one of our domestic animals to take habitual doses of it, the animal will not only strongly protest against the unnatural and nauseous potion, but it will gradually sicken and lose all power for usefulness. "If I wished," says a distinguished English physician, "by scientific experiment to spoil for work the most perfect specimen of a working animal, say a horse, without inflicting mechanical injury, I could choose no better agent for the purpose of the experiment than alcohol." [Footnote: "The effects produced by alcohol are common, so far as I can discover, to every animal. Alcohol is a universal intoxicant, and in the higher orders of animals is capable of inducing the most systematic phenomena of disease. But it is reserved for man himself to exhibit these phenomena in their purest form, and to present, through them, in the morbid conditions belonging to his age, a distinct pathology. Bad as this is, it might be worse; for if the evils of alcohol were made to extend equally to animals lower than man, we should soon have none that were tamable, none that were workable, and none that were eatable.">[
ALCOHOL IN WINE, BEER, AND CIDER IDENTICAL WITH ALCOHOL IN ARDENT SPIRITS.—In all liquors the active principle is alcohol. It comprises from six to eight per cent of ale and porter, seven to seventeen per cent of wine, and forty to fifty per cent of brandy and whiskey. All these may therefore be considered as alcohol more or less diluted with water and flavored with various aromatics. The taste of different liquors—as brandy, gin, beer, cider, etc.—may vary greatly, but they all produce certain physiological effects, due to their common ingredient—alcohol. "In whatever form it enters," says Dr. Richardson, "whether as spirit, wine, or ale, matters little when its specific influence is kept steadily in view. To say this man only drinks ale, that man only drinks wine, while a third drinks spirits, is merely to say, when the apology is unclothed, that all drink the same danger." In other words, the poisonous nature of alcohol, and the effects which result when it is taken into the stomach, are definite and immutable facts, which are not dependent upon any particular name or disguise under which the poison finds entrance.