The Government’s Prohibition Poison Program

It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him, wielding a baseball bat.

via The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition. – By Deborah Blum – Slate Magazine.