The Active Ingredient In Dr. Jekyll’s Strange Potion May Shock You
Then again, maybe it won’t
When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his fiction classic “The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde” in 1886, he spelled it all out for us.
The message was hiding in plain sight.
He even includes the key ingredient of the “potion” that transformed the well-respected doctor into the malevolent Mr. Hyde.
Booze.
Page 51 says that the potion included “blood-red liquor.” Did the good doctor need any other ingredients?
I never needed bat wings or the eye of a newt to become Mr. Hyde.
Blood red, golden brown, or clear as a bell — liquor did nicely all by itself.
By definition, being under the influence of alcohol turns you into a different person. That’s what being under the influence means.
The doctor didn’t like who he became when he drank the potion — but eventually, he couldn’t help himself. He kept returning to it, and inevitably, he no longer needed it to transform into Mr. Hyde.
