Spoiled Eggs & Garlic

In Pittsfield, Mass, last week ten men gathered around a dozen pint bottles for a drinking bout. Seven died. Three went blind. Cause: wood alcohol used by the U. S. Treasury Department as an industrial denaturant.

Each year when the Treasury's appropriation bill comes up, Wet Congressmen cite such tragedies as this, brand as "murder" the Government's policy of using poisonous denaturants, propose the abandonment of lethal ingredients in industrial alcohol, are overwhelmed by the Dry majority.

Last week, however, Director James M. Doran of the Treasury's Bureau of Industrial Alcohol announced the discovery of a new denaturant: alcotate. It will not kill or blind but will render industrial alcohol exceedingly nauseous to the taste. Director Doran said that alcotate's aroma is not unlike "spoiled eggs and garlic." One newshawk took a sip of it, made faces, said he thought it tasted like a compound of ether and benzine. Remarked Chemist Doran: "It's not as bad as some of the stuff you've been drinking."

For the past three years Treasury Department chemists--whose duty it was to denature tax-free industrial alcohol long before Prohibition--have been busy seeking a substitute for wood alcohol. Alco-tate, discovered by no one man, is a by-product of cracked California petroleum. Its formula is a Treasury secret. But Director Doran is confident that it can not be precipitated from or distilled out of grain alcohol. About Jan. 1 it will go into use.

Both Wets and Drys were satisfied with the new denaturant. Said the Dry Caucus assembled at Washington (see p. 9): "Prohibition carries no mandate to drink and, therefore, if the new denaturant has all the effects of a sea voyage, it is taken at the option of the drinkers."

Commented Wet Congressman Fiorello La Guardia of New York: "The country was up in arms against the use of deadly poison. This is but one concession."

Figures released last week indicated that more than 84,000,000 gal. of denatured alcohol were used industrially in the U. S. last year. Biggest consumers were manufacturers of lacquers, lacquer thinner, solvents (12,583,943 gal.). In the manufacture of nitrocellulose 10,461,860 gal. were used. More than 9,000,000 gal: went into vinegar, more than 7,000,000 gal. into ethyl acetate (necessary for dye-stuffs).

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