New York. The Roaring Twenties. Jazz! But Prohibition is in effect across the country. Yet, people are preparing to welcome 1927 with a glass of champagne. Nobody knows that the government has prepared a deadly gift for them.
Since proper alcohol was unavailable, bootleggers stole industrial alcohol intended for paints and lacquers and attempted to purify it.
The authorities knew about this. And so, the federal government issued a radical order: make the industrial alcohol lethally poisonous to deter people from drinking.
Kerosene, chloroform, and the most deadly substance—methanol—were added to the formula for the industrial alcohol.
The celebration begins. People raise their glasses in speakeasies. By morning, the hospitals of New York are overflowing.
The symptoms are the same for everyone. First, hallucinations, then complete blindness, followed by respiratory paralysis and death. Doctors were horrified. They could do nothing.
The main proponent of Prohibition, Wayne Wheeler, stated: “The person who drinks this industrial alcohol is a deliberate suicide. The Government is under no obligation to furnish the people with alcohol that is drinkable when the Constitution prohibits it.”
In total, over 10,000 Americans died during this Chemists’ War.
This should have been a much bigger scandal than it was. But the prevalent thinking at the time was “they deserved it,” so it was quickly forgotten.
…the prevalent thinking at the time was “they deserved it”
This seems to be a prevalent thought across the States, right to this day. Sure, there’s no doubt a general, human nature component to it, but it seems to me that it’s got extra venom in the US, and I’m not totally sure why.
One idea might be that there are elements of Puritan thinking that seemed to flow in to the permanent national culture, and of course, medieval Christian thinking in general probably promotes the thinking, as something that flows out of the whole ‘good and evil,’ 'heaven and hell" mindset.
Bah, sorry for going way off tangent like that, but it got me thinking…
Interesting, to say the least. Would you happen to have any source about that mass poisoning?
Thx a lot!
