Absinthism

Absinthe: Why “Absinthe made me do it!” Never Caught On, IMHO

Finder of Lost ThingsLeave a comment

Amongst the treasure trove of Golden Age mysteries, we find Sherlock Holmes enjoying his seven percent solution, Philip Marlowe’s prodigious drinking makes the characters in Mad Men look like teetotalers, Elizabeth Daly pitted Henry Gamadge against a heroin addict in Somewhere In The House, and Dorothy L. Sayers engineered a plot where Lord Peter Wimsey broke up a cocaine ring in Murder Must Advertise…These and a title wave of like-minded plots prove Golden Age mystery writers (and those from the surrounding decades) didn’t shy away from including alcohol and/or illicit substances in their works. 

Yet absinthe, the purported creator of fiends and madmen, rarely gets mentioned. 

Above and beyond the fact that the “Absinthe Defense” repeatedly fell short in courtrooms, thereby making it less appealing as a McGuffin for writers, I think there are a couple of other factors as to why “Absinthe made me do it!” never became a trope in mysteries. (Or at least not among the tomes I’ve helped collectors locate or in the reprints I’ve cracked the covers of.)

First and foremost, UK scientists and physicians gave Magnan’s 1869 paper detailing his flawed test findings, the stink eye. Pointing out the same problem I saw when first encountering Magnan’s experiment — i.e., using wormwood oil rather than absinthe effectively negates the test as the essential oil contains significantly higher thujone levels than absinthe. So while France, Switzerland, and the USA (amongst others) lost their shirt over absinthism (which Magnan believed his test conclusively proved as a separate and worse disease than standard alcoholism) and the fiends the green fairy purportedly created.…This scientific side-eye damped the alarm over absinthism in the UK and is considered one of the main reasons Parliament dismissed the idea of banning the Green Fairy out of hand.

It also doesn’t hurt that absinthe never came anywhere close to supplanting Gin, Irish Whiskey, Single Malt, or Welsh Whisky in the hearts of British Isles imbibers. Otherwise, British distillers might have found themselves tempted to join forces with French vintners in their smear campaign against absinthe.

In any case, while the UK never banned absinthe, it doesn’t mean those who enjoyed the odd Frappe or Corpse Reviver at their local pub could do so. Unfortunately, when the Swiss and French bans landed, distilleries in both countries either switched production to a less contentious product or closed up shop. So, whilst the UK patrons could order a Sazerac or a Death in the Afternoon, most bartenders couldn’t shake or stir one up due to the lack of the key imported ingredient (according to the sources I read). 

(Unless said pub owner, or their supplier, navigated the red tape around importing absinthe directly from Pernod’s distillery in Catalonia, Spain (where the liquor was never prohibited) until it closed in the 1960s. Or someone working in this theoretical pub somehow cultivated a connection to a Swiss home brewer. Despite the ban, Swiss fans with home distilling skills still produced it — though many switched their recipes to the clear version so they could pass their homemade efforts off as some other liquor if lawmen came a knocking.)

Then came WWI and WWII.

Under the hail of bombs, bullets, fear, and rationing, together with battlefield atrocities grabbing headlines and bans stymieing absinthe sales — news stories focused on crimes committed by “absinthe fiends” by and large fell away and without new fuel, the hullaballoo around absinthe slowly extinguished. Moreover, with people focusing on just surviving the day, for so many years, absinthe & its sinister reputation largely passed into urban legend.

In my estimation, this exit from the public’s day-to-day consciousness further rendered the “Absinthe made me do it!” solution unappealing to mystery writers. Since younger authors and audiences probably never tasted the anise flavored liquor or knew much about the brouhaha it caused. While mature authors and their readers could recall the attached lousy science and the ineffectualness of the absinthe defense in courts across Europe and the Americas. 

Okay, these titles probably don’t mention absinthe within…but it’s what I’ve got!

Perhaps all these aforementioned reasons account for the general absence of absinthe in mysteries penned by the Queens of Crime: Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. Sayers; The American Queens of Crime: Elizabeth Daly, Craig Rice, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and Phoebe Atwood Taylor; Plus: Georgette Heyer, Josephine Tey, and Patricia Wentworth. In this pantheon of titans, only three (I can recall off the top of my head) chose to employ absinthe in any of their stories. 

Agatha Christie used absinthe in the 1926 Mr. Harley Quin short story The Soul of the Croupier to quickly flesh out the deterioration of a promising future due in part to absinthe’s influence. Similarly, Georgette Heyer employed absinthe in her 1934 novel The Unfinished Clue. Evoking the memory of the hedonistic existence and excess of turn-of-the-century artists to quickly sketch out a similar sort of character. And Craig Rice mentions the liquor in Headed For A Hearse as one of her characters is battling an absinthe inspired hangover with a plate of eggs (I believe).*

The relegation of absinthe to a piffling plot device by these Mistresses of Mystery, I think, struck the death knell of the “Absinthe made me do it!” solution before it ever had a chance to take off as a trope. Furthermore, the sheer dominance of these women’s works during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (together with the lasting influence they still enjoy within the genre) played a significant role in perpetuating absinthe’s role as a bit player in plots.

And with heat now wafting from each vent of our house, repairmen on their way, and our cash reserves depleted — I bid adieu to another home repair inspired question until next November.

(But hopefully not.)

*If I failed to mention a reference (as I am not infallible, nor have I read the complete bibliography of each authoress — yet), please be nice if you wish to point out an omission.

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2024

Absinthe: People have killed for less…But not by much.

Finder of Lost ThingsLeave a comment

This photo is by Timon Studler.

Now that we’ve established absinthe’s meteoric rise and even faster fall in the realm of public opinion, we can now focus on my original question: Why haven’t I read mysteries where, during the summing up, the malefactor yells, “Absinthe made me murder/rob/eat Uncle Singin McBuzzleworth!”

One Unscientific Opinion/Answer: The “Absinthe made me do it!” defense didn’t hold up in real-life courtrooms. 

When examining classic mystery and real-life motives like avarice, revenge, envy, and sex — the “Absinthe made me do it!” defense appears weak by comparison. Moreover, despite large swaths of the population (within many countries) purportedly believing absinthe poisoned the minds and hearts of any who partook of the Green Fairy’s potion — defense councils were still hard-pressed to engender enough sympathy in jury members to make this justification stick. 

Take the case of Auguste-Leon Thabuis. 

Near the township of Dole in the department of Jura in France sits Saint-Ylie Hospital (or Asylum; the French translator app I used was not flawless). Back in 1909, the 1,500 people (or so) residing within Saint-Ylie were separated into different pavilions by age and gender then sub-divided further based on their ailment — those possessing some sort of paralysis lived in one ward, those with mental health issues in another, and the “incurables” (their word, not mine) lived in their own wing. 

Saint-Ylie Hospital.

In April 1909, the hospital director hired Auguste-Leon Thabuis to work in the men’s paralysis ward. Besides discovering he owned a terrific thirst, which he quenched at a nearby tavern, hospital administrators found no problem with Thabuis’s work.

Fast forward seven months.

On Friday, November 19, 1909, Thabuis reported to his supervisor that Justin Garneret (age 61) had died. Busy with one thing or another, Thabuis’s superior didn’t take the time to look the body over, instead they told Thabuis to get on with it. Which he did — leaving Justin Garnet’s body in his room, Thabuis went to prepare the earth for her newest resident — as he also moonlighted as a gravedigger and amphitheater boy for the hospital when needed.

Now it’s unclear precisely what roused the other nurses’ suspicions, perhaps because Justin Garneret’s death came completely out-of-the-blue or the curious piece of serendipity which found four other patients passing away, about one every other day, on Thabuis’s watch starting on November 10, 1909. Either way, they snuck a peek at Mr. Garneret’s body whilst Thabuis was away….And were rewarded with the sight of darkening fingermarks encircling Mr. Garneret’s neck. 

Fetching Hospital Director Bierry and Chief Physician Santenoise, the nurses explained their misgivings and subsequent discovery. 

At about this point, Thabuis returned to Mr. Garneret’s room with a coffin. In the ensuing conversation, during which I imagine Thabuis sweating more than a few bullets, Dr. Santenoise questioned the nurse about the undeniable signs of strangulation. Unfortunately (for Thabuis), the Chief Physician didn’t buy the story he spun: That one of the lunatics must’ve snuck out of their ward, into his, strangled Mr. Garneret, then crept back to their room — their absence and presence remaining undetected by everyone the entire time.

Thabuis is (obviously) the gentleman on the left.

When the public prosecutor, examining magistrate, their clerk, and two trained forensic examiners answered Dr. Santenoise’s summons, Thabuis told them that Mr. Garneret attacked him and he’d been forced to defend himself. This explanation, which went over about as well as his first, prompted Thabuis’s immediate arrest — during which he cried out, “I’m innocent! I’m innocent!” Mr. Garneret’s autopsy, carried the same night around eight pm, confirmed the nurses’ worst fears — he was indeed murdered.

The Question Was: Did the other four patients who died under Thabuis’s care over the past eight days meet the same fate? 

Performing a quadruple exhumation and autopsy the following Friday, authorities found some answers. Sadly, the bodies of the first two possible victims decomposed to the point where murder couldn’t be conclusively proven. The third victim, Francoise-Emile Menefere (age 54), bore bruises in the outline of two hands around his neck and a bruise on his chest. The fourth victim, Xavier Guinez (age 54), sported a similar bruising pattern as well as a row of four broken ribs and other defensive injuries. (It seems in addition to using his hands, the murderer used his knees to compress his victim’s chest to hasten the deed.)

My photo of a glass of absinthe!

With cause of death now established and confident they had their man, investigators turned to motive…..which proved troubling. Not because they found its establishment difficult but because the only dependable benefit Thabuis received from any of the deaths was the single extra franc he earned for each grave he dug. This veritable pittance was hastily spent at the neighborhood tavern. Where, when “flush” with cash, Thabuis reputedly drank up to four liters of wine and twenty-two glasses of absinthe.

All these facts & theories, together with the unsavory intelligence Thabuis sent notes to grieving families asking if they’d like him to maintain their loved ones’ graves in exchange for a small donation, emerged during his trial, which commenced in July of 1910. (It’s unclear if Thabuis wrote the families of the men he murdered.) This seedy behavior, coupled with a job history that included terminations due to theft, insolence towards a nun, coming to work while inebriated, and serving a three-month prison sentence for insulting a Swiss police officer — didn’t help his case. 

However, his public defender, Milleret, was up to the task.

Amongst the sixteen witnesses called by the prosecution, Milleret determined that while all the nurses, who’d first raised the alarm, believed Thabuis culpable in the murder of Mr. Garneret (based on his and their movements that day), none could confidently assign his hand to the deaths of Mr. Menefere or Mr. Guinez. While the prosecution argued that Mr. Garneret’s murder proved the pattern. Milleret countered this by pointing out that the prosecution could not call a single “reliable” eyewitness to the crimes.

(Now, here comes the cream, at least for the question I’m trying to answer.)

In a Classic Scenario of ‘I didn’t do it. But if I did it.’: Milleret attempted to establish that Thabuis suffered from a classic case of hereditary degeneration and, therefore, shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions. (Yes, this case explicitly put absinthism to the test.) Not only did Thabuis prefer the embrace of the green fairy above all others — Milleret argued this devotion/addiction decayed Thabuis’s moral fiber to the point where taking another man’s life in pursuit of another glass felt justifiable. Moreover, due to weak genes he’d inherited from his father, whose excessive drinking sent him to an early grave six years prior, Thabuis’s ethical putrefaction was all but guaranteed.

It’s unclear if the alienist the prosecutor brought in successfully refuted Thabuis’s defense or (more likely in my estimation due to the slant of the newspaper reports) the members of the jury couldn’t overcome the repugnance of Thabuis killing a man for a single franc. Either way, it only took the jury three-quarters of an hour to find Thabuis guilty of Mr. Garneret’s murder and sentence him to seven years in prison and a ten-year ban of stay. (I’ve no clue what that last bit means. Maybe it banned him from working in another hospital for ten years after his release?)

In any case, the regular rejection of Magnan and Legrain’s absinthism defense by juries presents a fascinating counterpoint to the anti-absinthe campaign, which embraced these theories and was, at that moment in time, gaining momentum across several continents. Perhaps if women, the backbone of the temperance movement, were allowed to serve on juries during this period, acquittals based on the “Absinthe made me do it!” wouldn’t have been rarer than hen’s teeth.

Moreover, the lack of acquittals based solely on “Absinthe made me do it!” may have signaled to Golden Age mystery writers the inherent weakness in this particular solution. Since their livelihoods were based on fashioning viable and (generally) believable solutions for their readers, placing the blame solely on absinthe for the unfortunate fate befalling Uncle Singin McBuzzleworth could place a lackluster ending on an otherwise strong story — which might cause an author to lose readers. 

An idea I imagine any pro would find insupportable.

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2024

Absinthe: Mary Poppins, Bad Science, & Teetotalers

Finder of Lost ThingsLeave a comment

‘A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. The medicine go down. The medicine go down…’ Originally, this ditty sung by MaryPoppins meant to teach her charges how changing their perspective could make any task fun — and as a kid, I lapped Ms. Poppins’ lesson right up. Not long after, my folks skewed the song’s meaning to a more literal interpretation, i.e., taking actual medicine. (Without giving me an actual spoonful of sugar or some other substitute — much to my younger self’s disappointment.) This ever-so-slight adjustment introduced the idea that songs, art, and books could take on new meanings separate from the creator’s original intent. 

Fast forward a few decades to the day my brain took this ditty’s refrain one step further by wondering if A Spoonful of Sugar shouldn’t be absinthe’s unofficial anthem. After all, absinthe did originally start out as a medicine (whether or not it was effective treatment is a different story), and the ritual around consuming the notorious spirit does often include a sugar cube…..Set on a slotted spoon which rests upon the rim of a glass which contains absinthe. When all the elements are assembled in the correct order the water dripper is turned on and the sugar cube is gradually dissolved — one water droplet at a time. 

A Pic of a picnic with absinthe cocktails in tow.

(Fun Fact: A Spoonful of Sugar owes its origins to the songwriter’s son, who inspired his father with how he received his polio vaccine.)

What’s the point of waiting ages for the sugar cube to completely dissolve? 

Not only does the sugar sweeten and round out the taste of absinthe (according to experts) — you’re rewarded with the pageantry of the ouzo effect. Otherwise known as louching, as each drop of water falls into the absinthe, the ice cold drip steadily transforms the crystal clear green liquid into cloudy opalescence. This unhurried ceremony forces the imbiber to slow down, be patient, and present in the moment. Lessons which I think Mary Poppins, who herself enjoys the odd glass of rum punch, would approve.

An absinthe water dripper & specialized spoons.

Interestingly enough, this pomp & circumstance around drinking a dram of absinthe was perfected by the French during decades spanning the mid to late nineteenth century. Culminating l’heure verte or the green hour, where people would flock to their favorite drinking joint from five to seven pm and partake in absinthe’s relaxed razzle-dazzle. 

(Fun Fact: L’heure verte is the precursor to what we now call Happy Hour.)

A pic from 1916 of Valentin Magnan.

Yet not everyone in France was spellbound by absinthe’s sedate charm. The man considered the foremost authority on mental illness (upon his appointment to the post of physician and chief of Sainte-Anns asylum in 1867), Valentin Magnan, held absinthe responsible for the overall decline of the French people. He also believed this degeneration via absinthe (and alcohol in general) was passed on genetically from one generation to another — and was inevitable. He came to this conclusion due to the uptick in those admitted to his asylum and the study of over two hundred and fifty alcoholics under his care. Magnan’s research convinced him that those addicted to absinthe suffered far worse and from distinct symptoms than those who drunk pretty much anything else. 

(BTW: Other doctors and newspapers criticized Magnan for giving cold comfort to those “afflicted” by this absinthe/alcohol induced degeneration theory and robbing those genetically related to them of all hope of avoiding a similar fate.)

So, of course, Magnan coined a term.

Absinthism, he believed, was characterized by hallucinations, delirium, bouts of amnesia, tremors, sleeplessness, seizures, and violent fits brought on by one of absinthe’s key ingredients — wormwood. A man of science, Magnan sought to prove his absinthism theory by conducting a series of tests. Procuring two guinea pigs, he placed each under their own glass domes. In one enclosure, Magnan placed a saucer of pure alcohol; in the other, he set a saucer of wormwood oil and then watched the animals inhale the vapors. Whilst the guinea pig with alcohol merely grew inebriated, the one exposed to wormwood oil grew highly excited, then collapsed into seizures and died. 

You see the problem with his experiment, don’t you? Magnan didn’t use absinthe. He used wormwood oil. 

A drawing of what Artemisia Absinthium looks like.

This concentrated form of Artemisia Absinthium owns significantly more thujone (the chemical compound responsible for the animal’s seizures) than the common wormwood plant or absinthe. Hence, Magnan did some spectacularly bad science by performing an experiment guaranteed to prove his theory.

(From the Office of Fairness: It’s unclear if Magnan made this error in good faith, i.e., just an ordinary cockup — or — if he tested absinthe on the animals and switched to wormwood oil when they failed to prove his theory.) 

Magnan also didn’t take into account the adulterated versions of absinthe floating around France by this time, either. Unlike wine or brandy, absinthe had no governmental oversight keeping distillers honest. So as absinthe’s popularity grew, unscrupulous manufacturers would contaminate poor quality absinthe or create fraudulent versions by adding things like parsley, turmeric & indigo or copper sulfate to enhance or attain absinthe’s trademark green hue and antimony trichloride to achieve the spirit’s signature ouzo effect. Whilst parsley and turmeric aren’t a problem, the other substances aren’t particularly good for you when ingested and could account for the array of symptoms Magnan attributed to absinthism. Moreover, the people most likely to partake of the polluted versions, the desperately poor and alcoholics who’ve hit rock bottom, were more likely to wind up institutionalized than their wealthier counterparts — thereby skewing Magnan’s theory from the outset.

Flawed as Magnan’s methodology was, he felt confident enough to publish a paper on the perils of absinthe, its chronic use, and absinthism in 1869. (And its flawed conclusions have bedeviled absinthe ever since).

Two paintings depicting the Green Fairy’s influence.

The bohemian artists of France embraced a slice of Magnan’s findings. Loudly extolling the virtues of absinthe’s purported psychedelic properties, they claimed brought a clarity of mind, which in turn enhanced their creativity. Naming absinthe’s muse like qualities the Green Fairy, artists like Manet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alfred Jarry, Oscar Wilde, and Vincent Van Gough all sought out absinthe’s warm embrace and some even put her into their works. 

(Fun Fact?: Critics of absinthe are forever pointing at the generally early deaths of these aforementioned artists as proof of absinthe’s toxic qualities. However, what these fault finding individuals generally ignore is this group of artists also enjoyed a host of other ailments like syphilis, TB, and mental illnesses which alcohol of any variety would’ve exacerbate.)

A photo of Dr. Paul Maurice Legrain and some of the propaganda he helped create. (The first three contain absinthe references and the last one is translate.)

In any case, these wholehearted endorsements of absinthe’s spectacular effects cut little ice with the growing conservativeness in France, including a student of Magnan’s, Dr. Paul Maurice Legrain. Like his mentor, Legrain too was a chief physician of an insane asylum, only he specialized in the treatment of alcoholics. While his mentor viewed absinthe as the sole author of France’s decline, Legrain widened this stance, considering alcohol and alcoholism as the root of France’s social evils. However, rather than doing medical research into how to successfully treat the disease, Legrain threw himself into France’s growing temperance movement. In 1897 he founded the French Anti-Alcoholic Union then grew its membership numbers from 40,000 in 1903 to 125,000 in 1914.

At about this point, the late 1890s, French grapevines and vintners had bounced back (which took about thirty years), thanks to grafting and hybridization with louse-resistant American vines….Only to discover they’d a formidable rival. Even worse, a substantial number of drinkers were uninterested in abandoning absinthe’s leisurely glitz & glam or its lower price point. Leaving French wine producers flailing about for ideas on how to rid themselves of this brash green upstart.

Then came the afternoon of August 28, 1905.

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2024