Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1920 — Wood Alcohol. [ARTICLE]

Wood Alcohol.

The wood alcohol used In the United States is obtained chiefly from the destructive distillation of wood—hard wood, birch, maple, oak, elm and alder being those inost frequently used. The chief uses to which it is put are for the denaturing of grain alcohol; for various purposes in lines of common manufacture (especially as a solvent in the preparation of shellac, varnish, dyes, etc.); as an ingredient in medical and pharmaceutical preparations; in the chemical industries and as a fuel and illumlnant. Only within recent years has wood alcohol become so dangerous to life and sight Formerly it was a dark, bad-smelling, bad-tasting fluid which no one was tempted to drink. Later a process was developed by which this color, smell and taste are removed. Wood alcohol, when purified in this way, looks, smells and tastes like grain alcohol, and may thus be easily substituted for it by unscrupulous persons.— Illinois Health News, October, 1919.