Newscripts The case of the Green Parrot Goat Farm
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They had a little excitement in Feb ruary at the Green Parrot Goat Farm commune near Grand Rhonde, Ore. One of the commune's 11 members, all in their twenties, turned himself in to a Portland hospital after a week of abdominal pains, muscle cramps, nausea, and tingling and numbness of hands and feet. His problem was diagnosed quickly as lead poisoning. Five days' treatment with calcium EDTA brought him around, but the source of the lead had also to be found. The detective work is de scribed in Morbidity and Mortality (Vol. 20, No. 22, 1971), published by the Center for Disease Control, De partment of Health, Education, and Welfare. The members of the Green Parrot commune are living off the land on a 130-acre farm. It turned out that in late 1970 they had gathered plums from an abandoned orchard, put them in three old bathtubs, and smashed them with a baseball bat. Then they covered the tubs, allowed the juice to ferment for 10 days, and bottled the results in 300 1-gallon glass jugs. The lead victim estimated that he had drunk 50 gallons of plum wine in the four weeks before he entered the hospital. The rest of the commune members had had considerably less and none had obvious symptoms of lead poisoning. Spectrographic analy sis showed nearly 10% lead in glaze from two of the enameled bathtubs. This was enough to account for gross contamination of the wine caused by leaching by the plum juice, which is acidic. Morbidity and Mortality notes that the most common cause of lead poi soning in the U.S. is ingestion of leadcontaining paint and plaster by chil dren with pica, a craving for unnatural food. The poisoning at the Green Parrot Goat Farm was of a less common type.
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Patent issues on cure for overdose of alcohol
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State
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OLABINDUSTRIES The Error
Eliminators
1802V Second Street, Berkeley, Calif. 94710. Telephone (415) 843-0220. Cable LABIND, Berkeley, CA, USA. 56 C&EN JULY 5, 1971
Harry W. Gordon of the Bronx, N X , has received U.S. Patent 3,584,122 on "Oral Administration of Fructose for Alcohol Intoxication." The patent is assigned to Julius Schmid, Inc., New York, N.Y. Its four claims cover basically the use of lozenges contain ing substantially pure crystalline fruc tose to accelerate the reduction of the
by Κ. Μ. Reese
concentration of alcohol in the blood of persons who have been drinking. Previous studies of the use of fruc tose for this purpose often involved doses of roughly 1 gram per kg. of body weight, repeated hourly. The fructose was effective, but the sub jects have been reported to suffer nausea, heat sensation, flushing, and epigastric pain. Mr. Gordon's method involves doses of only 10 to 100 mg. of fructose per kg. of body weight. The lozenges contain 500 to 1500 mg. of fructose, and he claims they do the job without side effects. The fructose should be at least 98% pure. The lozenges are formulated with the conventional pharmaceutical ingredients: a solid carrier, a lub ricant, a binder, and the like. Clinical work on the lozenges was done with humans who drank 30 ml. of 80-proof vodka. Half sucked two lozenges, each containing 1 gram of fructose; the other half did not. In those who sucked the lozenges, blood alcohol was less than 0.05% after 60 minutes. In those who got no fructose it was 0.20 to 0.25%. A practical aspect of the patent re lates to the National Safety Council's guidelines for determining when a person is under the influence of al cohol: • Less than 0.05% blood alcohol— prima facie evidence that the subject is not under the influence. • 0.05 to 0.15%—corroborative evi dence to be considered with outward physical symptoms. • 0.15% and above—prima facie evi dence that the subject is under the influence. • 0.25% and above—smashed. It is thus clear that to avoid being charged with drunk driving one sim ply takes a jolt of vodka and two of Mr. Gordon's lozenges 60 minutes be fore the cops show up.
Department of obscure information • By 1985 western Europe will be consuming an estimated 1.3 billion tons of crude oil per year. • About 40 different varieties of sweet potatoes are grown in the U.S. • The new World Trade Center in New York City will have 43,600 win dows, each 7.5 feet tall. • Strip mining accounts for nearly 40% of U.S. coal output. • Iran's annual production of cop per, iron, coal, lead, and zinc totals about $24 million worth.
