[ Paul Camps wrote in 050326 MMDigest:


>> Can I just clarify that I was not suggesting anyone should drink
>> mentholated spirit; it was just meant to be an amusing anecdote.
>> Obviously some of you took it the wrong way.  Sure, tramps used to
>> consume it as a substitute to whisky and gin; it was much cheaper,
>> for one thing.  And certainly it would have killed.


I think my reply to your original post about methylated spirits on
MMD sounded harsher than I had wished.  I knew that you were joking,
but I wasn't entirely sure that the others knew that this stuff is as
bad as it is.


>> As for children drinking meth's, I would have thought this most
>> unlikely; there are far more readily available cleaning agents in the
>> cupboard under the sink.  However, "White Meth's" is probably the back
>> bone of the French polishing industry; we certainly used the stuff in
>> the organ building trade.


My caution about kids drinking the stuff came from experience: I lived
in an apartment with some roommates and certainly no children -- not
in _that_ place!  But someone came to visit and brought their kid who,
in crawling about the floor, found a soup can of naphtha we'd been
using as a paint solvent.  The kid moved really fast, took a big chug
of the stuff, and we were off to the emergency room as soon as his
mother realized what had happened.

So it occurred to me that lots of kids like to visit grandpa's shop --
I certainly did -- but that grandpa's shop isn't set up for little kids
to be safe.  I wanted to make sure that everyone understood that our
casually-stored chemicals are part of the danger.

Didn't mean to seem so shrill.

Mark Kinsler - who at an early age consumed a pound of buttons from
my mother's sewing box and several cigarettes from a visitor's purse.