Absinthe: Problem In Itself, Or Is It Alcohol In General That Is The Problem?

12 Pages 3023 Words

amounts to a million gallons a year. Government and the more enlightened classes recognize the perils of this growing evil but are powerless to stop it.”
What this means is that the revenue the drink was creating was overshadowing the social problems it was thought to have caused. The main problem was that people who drank a lot were considered to develop an ailment known as absinthism; a syndrome which was thought to have occurred when an individual would drink heavily. Symptoms for these Absinthists were thought to include, among other things, addiction, convulsions, hallucinations and death. Absinthe is thought to have been initially created in Switzerland near the end of the 18th century; the first recipes are believed to have mixed wormwood, as well as angelica, hyssop and other herbs for flavour. These ingredients had been known to serve as medicine for various ailments for many centuries, the chief herb, Artemisia Absinthium (wormwood), was in particular known for its digestive and parasite-killing properties. The principle ingredie...