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‘Thujone—cause of absinthism?’, Dr Lachenmeier wrote: ‘Thujone plays none, or only a secondary role, in the clinical picture of absinthism.’ And, of course, some of the adulterants of the day—e.g. copper salts and antimony trichloride, which were used to enhance absinthe’s colour, clarity and flavour—were themselves poisonous.
    In the early 20th century, absinthe also became a scapegoat. It was often blamed for deaths caused by ‘embarrassing’ conditions—such as sexually transmitted infections like syphilis—to protect the good name of the family of the deceased.
    So perhaps the worm has turned to wipe the slate clean on wormwood—and to dispel the cloudy reputation of absinthe as well.
Aphrodisiac
Among its many fabled qualities, absinthe was also claimed to be an aphrodisiac. This encouraged the late 19th century English poet Ernest Dowson to write: ‘I understand that absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.’
    References
    ‘About Absinthe’, The New York Times , 30 July 1882.
    Arnold, Wilfred Niels, ‘Absinthe’, Scientific American , June 1989, pp 86-91.
    Hesser, Amanda, ‘A modern absinthe experiment’, The New York Times , 31 May 2000.
    Hutton, Ian, ‘Myth, reality and absinthe’, Current Drug Discovery , September 2002, pp 62-64.
    Lachenmeier, Dirk W., et al., ‘Thujone—Cause of absinthism?’, Forensic Science International , 2006, Vol 158, pp 1-8.
    Loubère, Leo A., The Red and the White: A History of Wine in France and Italy in the Nineteenth Century’ , Albany: State University of New York Press, 1978, pp 154-167.
    Padosch, Stephan A., et al., ‘Absinthism: A fictitious 19th century syndrome with present impact’, Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy , 10 May 2006, pp 1-14.
    Richardson, Dr, ‘Absinthe’, The New York Times , 3 August 1879.
    ‘The charms of absinthe: The allurements it holds out to its victims, and the sting that comes afterwards, confessions of a Frenchman who succumbed to it’, The New York Times , 19 October 1884.
    Wesibord, Steve D., et al., ‘Poison on line—acute renal failure caused by oil of wormwood, purchased through the internet’, The New England Journal of Medicine , 18 September 1997, pp 825-827.
    Wu, C., ‘Toxin in absinthe makes neurons run wild’, Science News , 1 April 2000, Vol 157, No 14, p 214.

Bromide and Libido
    Back in my high school days, I was in the School Cadets. Every now and then we would go to a real Army Base for Advanced Training. It was there that we heard from the regular Army soldiers that ‘someone’ put bromide in the soldiers’ food to keep their sexual libido way down. Indeed, in his book Sex and the British , the author Paul Ferris refers to the use of bromide to reduce the sexual libido of soldiers.
    However, as is so often the case with commonly repeated rumours, it’s not true.
    Lack of Libido
    The myth that new recruits are so virile that they need to be tamed and contained by drugs is a backhanded compliment to the soldiers.
    This fable of drugging soldiers into docility is well known to various military recruits around the world. In Poland it’s the soldiers’ coffee that has supposedly been treated, while in France the story is that soldiers are given adulterated wine. South African recruits reputedly have a mysterious substance called ‘blue-stone’ added to their food to keep them calm, while German recruits are allegedly kept in line with a double dose—the addition of iodine to their coffee as well as soda to their meat.
    And in many English-speaking countries, if the anti-libido additive is not bromide, it’s saltpetre (potassium nitrate).
    Taking the Bang Out of the ‘Cannon’
    It has been long thought that ‘someone’ put bromide in Army food so as to keep the soldiers’ sexual libido way down – effectively taking the ‘bang’ out of their ‘cannon’.

An illustrative interpretation of a soldier’s ‘limp cannon’
BROMINE
    Bromine itself is one of the 92 or so