Jake Leg Blues and poisoned beer
Did Poisoned Beer catch your attention?
I’ve been caught reposting items from social media, without fact checking first.
which is why now..
When something on social media interests me, I’ll try to snope out the truth of the matter.
To snope out ; meaning: a quick visit to Snopes.com for a ruling of true or false. Click To TweetWhich meant that this meme sent me down a historical rabbit hole.
That would explain how I found myself listening to the Jake Leg Blues, by Chattanooga Folks, on this early Sunday morning. I’ve heard the tune before, or something similar to it; listening with a better understanding of the story, gives it a different feeling.
While searching through Snopes.com I came upon this lively discussion of beer poisoning on a Snopes forum
Where jimmy101_again 
said; “The basic story is certainly true and indeed is still true today. All grain alcohol (ethanol) that is not for human consumption is purposely poisoned (denatured) with either methanol (wood alcohol) or benzene. Once the alcohol is denatured it avoids the IIRC $25/gallon tax on drinkable alcohol. (There is a very small and tightly regulated market for pure ethanol that is drinkable but still not taxed.)“
So the beer wasn’t poisoned intentionally to sicken people; grain alcohol is denatured as it wasn’t intended for human consumption and to avoid paying tax on the product.
This Pebhealth article on Jamaican Ginger Extract, called Jerk, was truly eye-opening and pertained to vendors changing formulations on human consumables without testing their products. Also they had explained the early days of the NIH (National Institute of Health).
The description of the condition from consuming Jerk in Pebhealth sounds dreadful:
“Early in the year 1930, newspapers in the American South and Midwest began to report on a strange new paralytic illness that was affecting relatively large numbers of persons. Victims of the disease would typically notice numbness in the legs, followed by weakness and eventual paralysis with “foot drop.” In most cases, this condition was followed within about a week by a similar process in the arms, resulting in many cases in “wrist drop.” Although the disease was rarely fatal, recovery was very slow, and in many cases the damage to the nervous system left the patient with permanent disabilities”
Another anecdote from the Pebhealth article sounds surprisingly familiar to more recent stories.
“Jamaica ginger, or “Jake” as it was commonly referred to, was a convenient way of imbibing alcohol during the era of Prohibition. It had an alcohol content of about 70 percent and was readily available in pharmacies,”
Unfortunately, it was discovered that various distributors would put additives in the original Jamaican ginger formula as the ginger was too strong. Most of the additives didn’t poison, however one Boston firm used a neurotoxin called Tri-orthocresyl phosphate, an industrial chemical used in plastics and lacquers. This toxin was directly related to the symptoms of Jake Leg Blues
It is mentioned in this Pubhealth article that this was one of the first cases the newly created NIH (National Institute of Health) had been assigned to work on.
While unrelated to the Jake Leg Blues and poisoned beer. The Jake Leg blues lead to researching Elixir Sulfanilamide incident and the creation of the FDA in 1938. Which the Thalidomide tragedy contributed to as well.
As for the Jake Leg Blues song lyrics, now that you’re familiar with the history they make more sense.
You thought the lively man would die,
When you made the country dry,
When you made it so, that he could not get,
Not another drop of rye,
But I know that you will feel bad,
When you see what he have had,
When you see him coming with a lot of dough,
If you listen I will tell you so.
Oh well, it’s here he comes, I mean to tell you here he comes,
He’s got those jake limber leg blues
Here he comes, I mean to tell you, here he comes
He’s got those jake limber leg blues
When you see him coming, I am going to tell you,
If you sell him jake, you’d better give him a crutch too,
Oh well, it’s here he comes, I mean to tell you, here he comes
He’s got those jake limber leg blues, oh step on it.
Oh well, it’s here he comes, I mean to tell you here he comes,
He’s got those jake limber leg blues,
Here he comes, I mean to tell you, here he comes,
He’s got those jake limber leg blues.
He could be named Charley, and he could be named Ned,
But if he drank this jake, it will give him the limber leg,
Oh well, it’s here he comes, I mean to tell you here he comes,
He’s got those jake limber leg blues.
