OF PONTARILER (DOUBS)
Indeed pure ethanol, boiling at 79°, evaporates from
the lungs almost as soon as it is ingested; it only traverses
the body, so to speak; amyl acohol, on the contrary, stops at
140°, so that at human body temperature, it almost never
evaporates. Once introduced into the body, it remains there
and accumulates there, the daily amount added to that of the
day before and two days before that, as those have been
added to previous amounts. No matter how weak the
quantity taken each day, the body ends up accumulating a
considerable quantity of this toxic alcohol. (The Time of
September 21, 1894.)
Those are the unhealthy effects of bad alcohols, especially
the amyl essences contained in all the potato, grain, and
beet alcohols, which are absent in spirits distilled from wine
such as are exclusively used in the House of Pernod Fils.
To summarize this chapter, we thus can, without hazard
to ourselves, venture the following propositions:
If the absinthe is distilled carefully, it constitutes a tonic
and refreshing drink; its abuse can become a problem,
because it contains much alcohol, but the people who make
moderate use of this drink represent proof of its salutatory
effects.
The absinthe made by certain distillers is a simple mixture,
cold-processed, using duplicated alcohol and essences, the
whole colored by chemical means.
