The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

Nature of Alcoholic Liquors.
alcohol and carbon oxide (carbonic acid). In the case of
glucose (grape-sugar), these products result from a single
splitting up of the molecule: C 6 H 12 0 6 (glucose)
2 C 0 2 (carbon oxide) + 2 C 2 H 60 (alcohol). Cane-sugar
is first converted into glucose by assumption of water, and
the latter is then decomposed as above."* In wine-making,
"the vegetable albumen of the juice absorbs oxygen from
the air, runs into decomposition, and in that state becomes a ferment to the sugar, which is gradually converted into alcohol and carbonic acid gas."t Fermented
liquors are those in which the sweet liquid has.undergone
this change; distilled liquors consist of the alcohol and
water drawn off from the fermented mass. The art of distillation (which dates in Europe from about the twelfth
century) has rendered possible the use of beverages alcoholically very strong. In fermented liquors the alcohol
varies from 3 to I 5 per cent., but most of the wines used
in this country are branded, or "fortified," as it is termed,
up to 25 per cent. Distilled spirits (fitly called ardent,
from ardens, "burning") contain from 40 to 60 per cent.
of alcohol. Rectified spirits consist of 75 parts alcohol
and 25 water. Pure or anhydrous (waterless) alcohol is
rarely used. A knowledge of these facts will dissipate
two vulgar errors, but errors held by many otherwise
highly-educated persons. The one error is that "alcohol
is in sugar," or " in everything," as some comprehensively
phrase it. It might as well be affirmed that there is blasphemy in the Lord's Prayer, because the words or letters
composing it can be so arranged as to express profane
ideas. The other error-that fermentation resembles the
process of cooking or baking —is equally absurd. Cook * Fownes' "Chemistry," p. 6ox. It is a theory received by many scientific
men that nitrogenous substances are not changed into ferment by the action
of oxygen, but by the presence of 4nimalcula invisible to the eye, which
abound in the air, and which, according to their own nature, impart a speci.
fic character to the decomposing action they assist to carry on.
t Ibid. p. 602.
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