"JAKE" POISONING

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 92, 19 April 1930, Page 8

"JAKE" POISONING

GINGER BELOW STANDARD , .PROSECUTION OF CHEMISTS (Ee-ceived 19th April, 1 p.m.) NEW YOKE, 18th April. _' Science and the law came to the. aid of a thousand or more persons in four States suffering from "Jake" poisoning. Thohealth authorities in Wichita, Topeka, and Oklahoma City, cities in. ' Missouri and Texas, are making extensive laboratory tests while Federal" agents are gathering evidence which can' be presented to the- Grand Jury. Warrants have- been issued for the. arrest of thirty chemists in Oklahoma City, who will be charged with.selling ginger below standard. . The condition of 400 persons afflicted in Oklahoma City more than a month! ago is unchanged. The majority still hobble about, or have paralysed feet and nurse numb arms. Two hundred persons are ill in Wichita City. At Oklahoma City (states a New York message of 7th March), a hundred frightened citizens informed the police that they were suffering from paralysis, apparently caused from drinking a concoction derived from Jamaica ginger. The majority lost the use of their feet in the beginning, after which the paralysis spread. to the . arms, and face. Cihemist shop owners" were- held' for selling the drink. Among the victims were two physicians, four medical students, five chemists' assistants, two school girls, and one minister. Mr. James M. Doran, Commissioner of Prohibition, subsequently reported that aa analysis of the liquor revealed that it contained alcohol, ginger extract, crude carbolic acid, and creasote. The drinking of this liquor caused tremendous shock and paralysis of the legs, and a feeling of-utter depression and melancholy. Mr. Doran added: "The disinfectants. used in the new drink were contained in ordinary sheep-dip, which could be obtained at low cost."