Wormwood on trial: the dogs, the bottles and the bans

The experiments that convicted absinthe were done on dogs. Valentin Magnan, the Paris asylum doctor whose name is tied to the disease he called "absinthism," reported that 10 to 15 centigrams of essence of wormwood, injected into a vein of a 12 kilogram dog, brought on an epileptic fit. Nobody drank absinthe that way. The liqueur in a café glass held a trace of the oil, diluted with water and a great deal of alcohol.

That was enough to start a panic that ran for half a century and crossed the Atlantic. Belgium banned absinthe first, then Switzerland after a murder and a national vote, then the Netherlands, the United States and finally France, the drink's home. Two findings come late: French scientists who said in 1889 that the real villain was anise, and the 2008 lab report on sealed bottles from before the bans. The page closes on the second.

The plant and its oil

Absinthe takes its name and its bitterness from wormwood, Artemisia absinthium. The oil distilled from the plant contains thujone, a compound that can cause convulsions in large doses. That is the chemistry the whole case rested on. The question nobody could answer for a hundred years was how much of it was actually in the drink.

1864 to 1889: Magnan's dogs, and the anise rebellion

Magnan began his absinthe research in 1864 and reported "épilepsie absinthique," absinthe epilepsy, to the French Academy of Sciences in 1869 and 1871. His evidence was the dose of oil it took to make a dog convulse. Another essence, hyssop, needed far more: 70 centigrams for the same 12 kilogram dog.

Not everyone agreed it was the wormwood. On September 10, 1889, two researchers, Cadéac and Albin Meunier, told the Academy of Medicine that absinthe liqueur took most of its narcotic and toxic effect from anise, that the wormwood "should be relatively exonerated," and that "absinthism" should be renamed "anisisme." Magnan, who quoted them in order to argue with them, did not accept it. The name never caught on, and the fear of the drink kept growing.

1906 to 1915: one country at a time

Belgium, 1906. A bill passed both houses that spring, "ninety-two votes to two" in the Senate. It prohibited "the importation, manufacture, transport, sale or storing for sale of absinthe or of any substitute for it."

Switzerland, 1908 and 1910. After a French vineyard worker named Jean Lanfray shot his wife and two children at Commugny in 1905, and the killings were blamed on absinthe, Swiss voters put a ban into their constitution on July 5, 1908. The law took effect on October 7, 1910: "The manufacture, importation or sale of absinthe in Switzerland is absolutely prohibited."

The Netherlands. A Dutch ban existed by 1912, because the US Department of Agriculture cited it that year. Its exact date was not found.

The United States, 1912. America never passed an absinthe law. In December 1911 the Agriculture Department's pure food board, headed by the chemist Harvey Wiley, decided to keep it out. Wiley called absinthe "one of the worst enemies of man," and said "if we can keep the people of the United States from becoming slaves to this demon we will do it." The ban came as Food Inspection Decision 147, issued July 25, 1912, effective October 1.

France, 1915. In 1912 the French government briefly floated a compromise: allow a drink called absinthe so long as it was free of the "vegetable substance thujon." A London correspondent noted that "the absinthe manufacturers profess themselves entirely satisfied with this compromise, a fact in itself suspicious." It went nowhere. The war came, the sale of absinthe was suspended, and in March 1915 the Chamber of Deputies voted 481 to 52 to suppress it for good. The law is dated March 16, 1915.

The comeback

The bans came down one by one. Europe settled on limits for thujone instead of a ban on the plant: today's rule allows up to 35 milligrams per kilogram in drinks made from Artemisia. Switzerland lifted its ban on March 1, 2005. In the United States, the Treasury's alcohol bureau ruled on October 16, 2007 that a spirit could be called absinthe if it was "thujone-free," meaning under 10 parts per million. The 1912 compromise that French distillers liked so much turned out to be, almost word for word, the American rule ninety-five years later.

2008: the old bottles opened

In 2008 a team led by Dirk Lachenmeier at a German state laboratory analyzed thirteen absinthes from sealed bottles made before the bans. Thujone ranged from 0.5 to 48.3 milligrams per liter, about 25 on average, in line with absinthe made today. Their conclusion: "nothing besides ethanol was found in the absinthes that was able to explain the syndrome 'absinthism.'" The green fairy was mostly strong alcohol. The dogs had been given a dose no drinker ever took.

The case against absinthe, year by year

Where the sources disagree

Belgium, 1905 or 1906. Many histories say 1905. The newspaper record found here shows the bill passing in the spring of 1906.

The Netherlands. Usually dated 1909. A 1914 American paper says 1910. The Dutch law itself was not reached.

The Swiss vote count. An early count and the official result differ by a few thousand votes. The official result is the one to use.

The 2008 study. One of its authors, T. A. Breaux, also makes absinthe commercially. The lab work was done at a German state laboratory and published in a peer reviewed journal.