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Bible Encyclopedias
Alcohol (Addition)
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or This article is from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Medical science has made many leaps forward since it has been written. This is not a site for medical advice, when you need information on a medical condition, consult a professional instead.
| This article from the 1922 extension to the 1911 encyclopedia is an update of the information in the article Alcohol. "ALCOHOL I.525). - Alcohol intended for potable purposes has always been subject to a heavy duty in all countries. In the United Kingdom the duty on alcohol was raised in 1920 from 30s. to 72s. 6d. a proof gallon. Owing to its prohibitive price, duty-paid alcohol cannot be used for the many purposes for which it is essential, quite apart from the production of light, heat and power. Its earliest employment in industry was as an illuminant, and dates back to the early part of the 19th century. In 1853 exhaustive experiments were carried out in England with a view to ascertaining whether it would be possible so to treat alcohol as to allow it to be used industrially without, at the same time, any risk of the revenue being defrauded. These experiments resulted in the legislation of 1855, when the use of duty-free alcohol mixed with 10% by volume of wood naphtha, known as methylated spirits, was authorized for manufacturing purposes only. From 1861-91 methylated spirits prepared in this way were allowed to be sold by retail in Great Britain in small quantities for domestic purposes such as cleaning, heating and lighting; but use in large quantities, or in manufacture, was only possible under special authority and under excise supervision. The Netherlands legalized the use of denatured alcohol in 1865; in 1872 France permitted its use under a special tax, and in Germany its employment was authorized in 1879, the other European countries following, Austria in 1888, Italy in 1889, Sweden in 1890, Norway in 1891, Switzerland in 1893, and Belgium in 1896. In the United States the tax on distilled spirits was repealed in 1817, but was reimposed at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, and it was not until 1907 that denatured alcohol became tax-free for general purposes. Alcohol was used in Germany for many years before the World War in increasing quantities as a source of heat, but its application for light and power started about 1887. In 1895, in order to bring down its price, a distillation tax was imposed, from which a refund was paid on alcohol used for other than beverage purposes. About this date the output of alcohol in Germany and its use in stationary internal-combustion engines increased rapidly. The chief source was the bounty-fed potato, and the industry was an agricultural one worked on cooperative principles. The first competition in connexion with alcohol as a fuel for motor vehicles took place in France in 1901, followed in the next year by German investigations, but its employment for this purpose did not make much headway. The subject received little attention in the United Kingdom, owing to the relatively high cost of home-produced alcohol as compared with that of imported petrol; and the use of alcohol in England for generating mechanical power was neither contemplated nor provided for by the Legislature before 1920, when, as the result of the consideration of the position by the Government, following on a report by a Departmental Committee appointed towards the end of 1918, clauses were inserted in the Finance Act of 1920 legalizing the use of alcohol for power purposes. Whilst alcohol is applied in motor engines in a similar manner to petrol, its vapour mixed with a proper proportion of air being drawn into the cylinder where it is compressed and ignited, it cannot be used with maximum efficiency by itself in engines such as are fitted to modern motors because it requires a higher degree of compression than petrol engines are usually designed to stand, and also because, unless special arrangements are made, a motor engine will not start readily from the cold with alcohol alone. For these reasons alcohol has not been used to any extent in petrol motors. Mixing with benzol and/or petrol, or with ether in varying proportions, enables it, however, to be employed successfully in them, until such time as engines specially designed for its use are available. In the event of its production being a commercial possibility it should, therefore, form a valuable addition to the liquid-fuel resources of the world (see Fuel) . In the appended table are given some comparative figures in connexion with commercial petrols and alcohol, taken from H. R. Ricardo's paper on" The Influence of Various Fuels on the Performance of Internal-Combustion Engines,"published in 1921. Alcohol and Petrol as Fuel.
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