Pick Your Poison?
1900 English Beer Poisoning
In 1900, a mysterious epidemic swept across the Midlands and North West England with over 6,000 people falling ill, killing at least 70. Originally misdiagnosed as alcoholic neuropathy, the actual source of epidemic was discovered several months later – arsenic tainted beer.
Alcoholic Neuropathy?
Manchester was hit particularly hard with this epidemic, where local medical professionals responded to hundreds of cases of alcohol-related neuropathy – nerve damage resulting from long-term, excessive alcohol consumption. Those who had fallen ill complained of joint pain, inflammation and “pins and needles” in hands and feet.
A physician at Manchester Workhouse Infirmary, Dr. Ernest Reynolds, started to question this diagnosis as it did not justify the sheer number of people suddenly falling ill, nor did it fit all of the symptoms. Several patients claimed to be light drinkers, and many also experienced inexplicable changes in their skin pigmentation.
Through his investigation, Reynolds discovered a common thread – that every person afflicted with this illness also claimed to drink beer. Suspecting arsenic poisoning, Dr. Reynolds and his team of medical professionals started analyzing beer samples from taverns frequented by his patients.
Arsenic & Cheap Brews
Initially it was thought that arsenic may have originated from sulphur used to treat hop blight – a disease affecting hop plants – but analysis soon revealed the source was priming sugar. To reduce production costs in an industry with slim profit margins, some breweries opted to use a lower-quality barley malt supplemented with a sugar syrup. This priming sugar used in conjunction with low grade barley-malt was a cost-effective substitute for expensive premium-grade barley, reducing conditioning times for more efficient production.
To make this sugary syrup, starch is broken down into simpler sugars with the introduction of acid and water through a process called acid hydrolysis. Bostock & Co., an invert sugar supplier, made their sugar syrup with sulphuric acid. The suphuric acid in this process was tainted with arsenic from its pyrite source, subsequently contaminating the liquid sweetener, which was sold to breweries as priming sugar.
1902 Halifax Poisoning
In Halifax, West Yorkshire, there was another outbreak, though on a much smaller scale. Chemical analysis of the local brews found that malt, not sugar, was the culprit. Malt grains dried in a kiln were exposed to arsenic contained in coal or coke, that was transferred to these grains through the malting process. It was revealed that the tainted malt used in the Halifax beer had been dried in a coke kiln. As a direct result of this discovery, maltsters almost exclusively switched to drying malt over anthracite, a cleaner-burning and more expensive fuel source, that was largely free from arsenic.
Brewers’ Reaction
Breweries acted quickly on the directive of health authorities to remove all contaminated beer. Thousands of kegs were recalled and destroyed, many barrels literally dumped into the streets. To safeguard against any further contamination, the beer industry moved forward by rigorously testing their raw materials before each new brew. The crisis quickly waned and beer sales returned to normal within the year.
The vast majority of sufferers from beer poisoning were from the working-classes, many of whom tended to drink the most inexpensive brews. Cheap beer was more likely to contain arsenic via sugar syrup, as more high-end beers were typically brewed exclusively with barley and hops. In the years preceding the 1900 beer poisoning, many low-cost beers were also made using inferior quality malt, which contained varying levels of arsenic.
The 1900 epidemic effectively eliminated a medical condition that had been endemic in the Manchester region for a long time. Due to classism, working class citizens were written off as alcoholics suffering from alcohol-related health problems, until an acute crisis revealed that the root cause was arsenic poisoning and not alcoholic neuritis. This crisis not only forced the medical community to confront class-based biases, but also led to enhanced consumer protection protocols on mass-produced food and beverages.
(Leah is a Toronto based freelance writer as well as the Beer Boss and a server at C’est What)