Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Chemist's War

The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.


It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him, wielding a baseball bat...