Stramonium-seed would seem to have been made on purpose for the liquor business. In moderate doses it is a powerful narcotic, producing vertigo, headache, dimness or perversion of vision (i. e., seeing double) and confusion of thought. (N. B. What else does liquor do?) In larger doses (still like liquor,) you obtain these symptoms aggravated; and then a delirium, sometimes whimsical (snakes in your boots) and sometimes furious, a stupor, convulsions, and death. A fine drink this stramonium? Sugar of lead is what is called a cumulative poison; having the quality of remaining in the system when taken in small quantities, and piling itself up, as it were, until there is enough to accomplish something, when it causes debility, paralysis, and other things. Sulphuric acid is strongly corrosive,—a powerful caustic, attacking the teeth, even when very dilute; eating up flesh and bones alike when strong enough; and, if taken in a large enough dose, an awfully tearing and agonizing fatal poison.
The way to use these delectable nutriments is in part as follows:—Stir a little sulphuric acid into your beer. This will give you a fine “old ale” in about a quarter of a minute. Take a mixture of alum, salt, and copperas, ground fine, and stir into your beer, and this will make it froth handsomely. Cocculus indicus, tobacco-leaves, and stramonium, cooked in the beer, etc., give it force. Potash is sometimes stirred into wine to correct acidity. Sulphite of soda is now very commonly stirred into cider, to keep it from fermenting further. Sugar of lead is stirred into wines to make them clear, and to keep them sweet. And so on, through the whole long list.
