At midnight, January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol took effect. Even before the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified, about 65 percent of the country had already banned alcohol. Progressives argued that prohibition would reduce violence and corruption, and with America’s entry into World War I, Prohibition took on a patriotic meaning, since many breweries were owned by German Americans.

The Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture and sale (but not the possession, consumption, or transportation) of “intoxicating liquors.” In 1921, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which defined beer and wine as well as hard liquor as intoxicating beverages. A few states passed enforcement laws, with Indiana banning the sale of cocktail shakers and hip flasks. With fewer than 2,500 agents assigned to follow up on this law, effectively enforcing prohibition was nearly impossible.

One exception to the ban was alcohol needed for medicinal purposes. The Internal Revenue Service, which was charged with enforcing prohibition, issued special, watermarked prescription forms to doctors who could prescribe “Spiritus Frumenti” (alcohol) to their patients. Loopholes abounded; Dr. McCarter, who issued this prescription to Ira Altman of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, was a coroner. Altman filled his prescription the same day it was written.

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