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On Christmas Eve 1926, more than 60 people ended up in a single hospital in New York City.
1926年平安夜，60多人住进了纽约的一家医院。
They were violently ill and hallucinating. And despite doctors' best efforts, within a few days, about half of them died.
他们剧烈呕吐并出现幻觉。虽然医生们尽了全力，在几天内，约半数人都去世了。
But it wasn't a virulent flu or poorly-chosen mushrooms that caused their deaths.
但这并不是因为某种致命流感或是误食蘑菇而导致的丧命。
It was alcohol that had been poisoned by the U.S. government...which sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it's the truth.
是因为被美国政府下了毒的酒精...这听起来像是阴谋论，但却是事实。
In the '20s, a chemical war between government regulators
在20年代，政府监管者和非法酒类推销商
and illegal booze sellers resulted in tens of thousands of poisonings and hundreds—maybe even thousands—of deaths.
之间的化学战争导致成千上万人中毒，上百—甚至上千人—丧命。
In the U.S., the roaring '20s were a decade filled with jazz, flapper dresses, speakeasies and lavish parties like the ones in The Great Gatsby…
在美国，喧嚣的20年代就是一个充满爵士乐、直筒低腰连衣裙、非法经营的酒吧和奢华派对（就像是《了不起的盖茨比》中的一样）的十年，
even though America was supposed to be a dry country.
虽然那时的美国应该是一个禁酒的国家。
The 18th Amendment, which banned the production, sale, import, and export of alcoholic beverages, came into effect in 1920, and it wasn't repealed until 1933.
第18次修正案规定禁止生产、销售、进出口酒精类饮品。该修正案于1920年生效，直到1933年才废除。
But plenty of people still drank—even though that sometimes meant risking their lives.
但是很多人仍然喝酒—即便有时这意味着冒着生命危险。
When alcohol became illegal, people turned to the black market for their booze.
当酒精变成非法物，人们便去黑市买酒。
And thanks to heavy enforcement at ports of entry, smugglers could only bring in so much.
由于入境口的强制政策，走私者只能带这么多酒进来。
So the bootleggers that trafficked in illegal alcohol often stole industrial alcohol instead.
因此进行非法酒精交易的走私犯经常会偷一些工业酒精替代。
Ethanol—the main kind of alcohol in alcoholic beverages—is used in everything from cosmetics to pharmaceutical products to house paint.
乙醇—酒精类饮品中的主要酒精种类—被用于各种产品，从化妆品到药品再到外墙涂料。
But at the turn of the century, import taxes made it really expensive to use pure ethanol that way, because it's technically drinkable.
但是在世纪之交，进口税使得使用纯乙醇变得昂贵，因为从工艺上来讲，乙醇是可以饮用的。
So starting in 1906, almost 15 years before prohibition, the U.S. government began adding toxic chemicals to industrial alcohol to make it cheaper—
因此，自1906年起，在实施禁酒令的近15年之前，美国政府开始将有毒化学物质添加至工业酒精中，降低工业酒精的价格—
a tactic already used in other places like Europe.
包括欧洲在内的其他国家已经在使用这种方法了。
Industrial formulas were spiked with well-known toxic compounds like gasoline, chloroform and methanol.
工业配方中掺有有毒物质，如汽油、氯仿和甲醇。
And because that made them undrinkable, when the 18th amendment went into effect, they weren't covered by the ban.
因为这些物质的掺和，工业酒精变得不可饮用，因此，当第18次法案生效时，工业酒精不在被禁范围之中。
But… for the most part, all one had to do to make them drinkable was distill them.
但是要使这些工业酒精变得可以饮用，他们要做的是蒸馏。
That's the process where alcohol is boiled and then its vapor is collected and cooled.
这一步骤是将酒精煮沸，然后收集并冷却它的蒸汽。
And when done carefully, it can get rid of small amounts of toxic additives if their boiling points are different from ethanol's.
小心完成这一步可以去除小量的有毒添加剂，如果它们的沸点和乙醇沸点不同的话。
During the first several years of prohibition, the U.S. Treasury Department estimated tens of millions of gallons of industrial alcohol were stolen for human consumption.
在实行禁酒令的前几年，美国财务部预计有数以百万加仑的工业酒精被偷用做人类消费。
So in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge used the help of chemists to make these already toxic alcohols even more dangerous, particularly by adding methanol.
因此，在1926年，卡尔文·柯立芝总统借助化学家的帮助，让这些已经含毒的酒精变得更加危险，尤其是通过给酒精中添加甲醇。
There was already some methanol in most industrial alcohol formulations,
大部分工业酒精配方中已经含有一些甲醇了，
but the government added more—a lot more—to the point where it was sometimes 10% of the entire product.
但是政府添加了更多—很多—直到甲醇有时占整个产品的10%。
And that change is probably what caused so many poisonings and deaths.
这一改变或许就导致了如此多的中毒和死亡。
No alcohol is great for you, but methanol is much worse than ethanol.
不喝酒固然是好事，但是甲醇比乙醇更加糟糕。
The two chemicals only differ by a carbon and two hydrogens, but that's enough to make one drinkable and the other lethal.
两种化学物质的区别仅在于一个碳和两个氢，但是却足以让一个成为可饮用物质，另一个成为致命物质。
In your liver, an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase removes hydrogens from alcohols.
在你的肝脏中，有一种酶被称为乙醇脱氢酶，可以将氢移除酒精中。
Ethanol is converted to acetaldehyde and then eventually to acetic acid—the same stuff in vinegar.
乙醇被转化成乙醛，最终成为醋酸—醋中所含的同种物质。
Methanol is also processed by this enzyme, but the losses of hydrogens create formaldehyde and then formic acid instead.
甲醇也经由这种酶处理，但是少了氢就会造成蚁醛，然后被甲酸所替代。
And formic acid is baaaaaad. It inhibits a key enzyme that your cells need to convert sugar and oxygen into usable energy.
甲酸是有害的。它会抑制细胞所需的一种关键酶，你的细胞需要这种关键酶将糖和氧转化成有用的能量。
So even though they've got plenty of food, your cells basically end up starved.
所以即便它们有许多食物，你的细胞还是会饿。
That's why the buildup of formic acid in someone's body can cause a range of horrifying effects, from holes in the stomach and intestines, to vomiting blood and kidney failure.
因此，人体内甲酸的增强会造成一些可怕的影响，比如肠胃穿孔、呕血和肾衰竭。
One of the most common symptoms, though, is hallucinations—like the ones experienced by all those people rushed to that New York hospital in 1926.
最常见的症状之一是出现幻觉—就像是那些在1926年匆忙跑进纽约医院的人所经历的一样。
That's because your optic nerves—the nerves that transfer visual information from your eyes to your brain—need a lot of energy to function,
那是因为你的视神经—将视觉信息由眼睛传入大脑的神经—需要大量用于运转的能量，
so they're among the first to feel formic acid's toxic effects.
所以它们是首批感受到甲酸有毒影响中的一部分。
And that damage can be permanent, which is why methanol poisoning frequently causes blindness.
这种损害可以是永久的，因此甲醇中毒经常导致失明。
Now, in principle, even 10% methanol can be distilled away, but the bootleggers' chemists didn't have the best equipment, and they were pressed to work quickly.
原则上来讲，现在即便是10%的甲醇都可以被蒸馏出去，但走私犯的化学家们没有最好的设备，而且他们被迫做迅速完成工作。
And since booze was illegal, no one was checking their product to make sure it was safe.
由于酒是非法的，没人会检查他们的产品确保产品的安全。
Although the exact figures aren't known, by the time prohibition ended in 1933,
虽然准确数字未知，但截止1933年禁酒令解除，
some estimate that over 10,000 people had died from drinking government-poisoned alcohol.
一些人估计超过一万人因饮用被政府投毒的酒精而死亡。
Killing people wasn't the goal, but it was the result.
杀人不是目的，但是死亡却是结果。
And these deaths became a hot-button political issue,
这些人的死亡成了一个热点政治问题，
so as the '20s came to a close, regulators slowly started switching to less toxic dyes and noxious compounds that couldn't be distilled away.
20年代近结束之期，监管者慢慢地开始转用那些低毒染料和无法被蒸馏出去的有害混合物。
For example, in 1930, the U.S. government announced the discovery of alcotate, a sulfurous compound that smells like rotten eggs.
例如在1930年，美国政府宣布酒精变性剂的发现，一种闻起来像臭鸡蛋的硫磺混合物。
Which isn't exactly an appetizing scent for a gin and tonic.
对于杜松子酒和奎宁水来说，可并不是一种开胃的味道。
Some industrial formulations still included methanol, and some still do today,
一些工业配方中仍含有甲醇，至今都有，
but when the 18th amendment was repealed, there was much less incentive to drink them.
但当第18次修正案被废除时，喝酒的动机没那么强烈了。
So nowadays, thankfully, methanol poisonings in the US are relatively rare. Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow!
所以，如今美国甲醇中毒已经相对很少了。感谢收看本期科学秀！
If you want to learn more about how different drinks are made, you might like our episode on the science of alcohol.
如果你想了解更多关于不同酒精的制成，你可以观看我们关于酒精科学的视频。
