SECT. XCV.—ON THE PROPERTIES OF WINE.
He who has taken the subject of health into consideration ought also to be acquainted with the powers of wine. Wine in general is nutritious, but that which is red and thick is more particularly so; but its juices are not good. The sweet also is nutritious, but not stomachic. The astringent is stomachic, but is distributed with difficulty to the parts of the body, and nourishes less. The white nourishes less still. Wine of a yellow colour is the best of all. That which is old is more heating and desiccant than the new. Such, in the main, are the properties of wine. But wine in general resuscitates the natural heat within us, and therefore it improves digestion, and forms good blood. And being of a penetrating nature, it diffuses the nourishment all over the body, and therefore it recruits those who are emaciated by disease, for it gives them an appetite for food. It attenuates phlegm, clears away the bile by urine, and imparts a good colour. To the soul also it communicates gladness and pleasure, and improves the strength. Such are the good effects of the moderate use of wine. But its immoderate use produces just the reverse; wherefore, those who are drunk become changed, are delirious, and disposed to heavy sleep. On that account, such an immoderate use of wine ought to be avoided; but at greater intervals it may be drank liberally, for it promotes the discharges by urine and perspiration. But it is better in such cases to vomit, by taking, beforehand, of honied water, so that one may not be injured by it. When one has drunk largely, it is not proper to take much of any other food; but while drinking, one should eat boiled cabbage, and taste some sweetmeat, particularly almonds. These things relieve headach, and are not difficult to vomit. It is also very proper to take the infusion of wormwood before drinking, for of all things it is the best preservative from surfeit. If one experience any painful effects from wine, one should drink cold water, and the next day again the infusion of wormwood; and by using exercise, friction, the bath, and restricted food, in this way get restored to health.
Commentary. The opinions of the ancients on this interesting subject may be best learned by consulting Hippocrates (de Diæta, ii, 22, et alibi); Celsus (ii); Pliny (H. N. xiv and xxxiii, 22, 26); Dioscorides (v); Galen (de Sanit. tuend. v, 5, and de Alim. Facult. iii); Oribasius (Med. Col. v, and Euporist. i, 12); Aëtius (i); Athenæus (Deipnos. i); Macrobius (Saturnal.); Actuarius (de Diæta, 8); Simeon Seth (de Alimentis); Serapion (de Simplicibus, &c.); Haly Abbas (Theor. 30, and Pract. i, 8); Avicenna (i, 3, 2); Rhases (ad Mansor. iii, 5, and Continen. xxxvii); Alsaharavius (Theor. xiii, 2.) Stobæus gives an interesting collection of the opinions of the philosophers and poets. (Sermo xviii.)
For an ample account of the ancient and modern wines, the reader is particularly referred to the late ingenious and classical publication of Dr. Henderson. See also Barry (on Ancient Wines), and Canonherius (de Admirandis Vini Virtutibus.)
From the works of Moses and Homer, we learn that the art of converting the innocent juice of the grape into wine must have been a very early invention. Eustathius informs us that, in very ancient times, the wines were all of a dark colour; and hence Homer applies to the sea the epithet of wine-coloured, ὄινοπα πόντον. (Comment, in Iliad. I.) Achilles Tatius makes the same remark regarding the ancient wine, (ii, 67, ed. Salmasius.) However, in the time of Hippocrates, they had wines of all colours, as well as characters. He thus describes their general properties: Black and austere wines are of a drying nature, and are not laxative, nor diuretic, nor sialogogue. It is their heat that renders them desiccative, by consuming the humidity of the body. The soft dark wines are of a more moistening nature, and are more flatulent and laxative. The sweet dark wines are of a more moistening nature, but they are heating and flatulent by imparting humidity. The white austere wines are heating, but are rather diuretic than laxative. The new are more laxative than the old, as being a nearer approach to the fresh juice of the grape, and they are nutritious; and the fragrant wines than those of the same age which have no bouquet, because they are better concocted; and the thick than the thin. But thin sweet wines are more diuretic, laxative, and moistening, and form weak blood.
Celsus ranks the “vinum dulce vel lene” among the “res boni succi.” Sharp austere wine he places among the things which are most suitable for the stomach.
Dioscorides delivers very judiciously the different characters of wines. He concludes with remarking that, although habitual intoxication be prejudicial to the health, a moderate indulgence in wine for some days, especially after drinking water, is beneficial, by proving an alterative to the system, purging the secretions, and promoting the insensible perspiration.
From Pliny’s excellent statement of the medicinal and dietetical properties of wine, we select the following remarks: “Vino aluntur vires, sanguis, colorque hominum. Vino modico nervi juvantur, copiosiore læduntur, sic et oculi. Stomachus recreatur; appetentia ciborum invitatur; tristitia et cura hebetatur; urina et algor expellitur; somnus conciliatur. Præterea vomitiones sistit. Vetus coposiore aqua miscetur, magisque urinam expellit; minus siti resistit. Dulce minus inebriat sed stomacho innatat; austerum facilius concoquitur. Stomacho minus utile est pingue, nigrum, sed corpora magis alit. Tenue et austerum minus alit, magis stomachum nutrit.”
The information supplied by Galen on this subject is most ample, but in too diffuse a shape to suit our narrow limits. Upon the whole, he states, thin wines are diuretic, but supply little nourishment, whereas the thick are proportionally nutritious. He says that the Falernian, especially the sweeter kind, is one of the most wholesome wines. Athenæus gives an interesting account of the Falernian, upon the authority of Galen. He says it is fit to be drank after it is ten years old, and from fifteen to twenty; but that, when older, it occasions headach and affects the nerves. He describes two kinds of it, the sweet and the austere. The latter, he adds, is of a tawny colour, that is to say, a colour intermediate between the white and black. Dr. Henderson concludes, that the modern Madeira is a near approach to the ancient Falernian. Brasavolus and C. Avantius compare it to a wine known in modern Rome by the name of greco di soma. Galen gives very minute directions for forcing this wine, or giving it premature age by heat. (De Antid. i, and de Simpl. iv.) Vitruvius, for this purpose, gives directions for building the wine-cellar close to the kitchen. (vi.) Athenæus says, that wine digests the food, and, being of a subtle nature, promotes the distribution of it. We learn from him that the ancients sometimes used their wines cooled with ice. (Deipnos. iii, 99.) He thus describes the different characters of the wines used in his time; that is to say, about the middle of the second century, P. C. Of wines, some are white, some tawny, and some dark coloured. The white is in nature the thinnest, diuretic, and heating, and being digestible it inflames the head, for it is a wine that has a tendency upwards. A dark-coloured wine, which is not of a sweet nature, is very nutritious and astringent. Sweet wines, whether of a white or tawny colour, are very nutritious; for they lubricate the passage, and thickening the humours, prove less troublesome to the head. The nature of sweet wines is to remain for a time in the præcordia, and to prove expectorant, as Diocles and Praxagoras tell. Mnesitheus the Athenian says dark-coloured wine is very nutritious, the white very diuretic and very subtle, and the tawny dry, and of all wines the one that most promotes the digestion of food. Wines carefully prepared with salt water are not of an intoxicating nature, they loosen the belly, occasion pains of the stomach, and produce flatulence, but promote digestion. Such are the Myndian and the Halicarnassian. The Coan is well prepared with salt water; the Rhodian has a less proportion of it; the Cnidian engenders blood, is nutritious, and laxative, but when drunk in large quantities it upsets the stomach; the Lesbian has less astringency and is more diuretic; the Chian is a most delicious wine, and especially the kind called Ariusian; but there are three varieties of it, the austere, the sweet, and the intermediate.—Of the Italian wines, the most delicious are the Alban and the Falernian. The Adrian is a diffusible, diaphoretic, and safe wine. (i, 25.) According to Galen, the cæcuban, so frequently mentioned by Horace, was not any one sort of wine, but a general name applied to all generous and old wines. (De Succ. bon. 2.) Old wine was much sought after: Galen says everything is impaired by age but wine. (De Antidot.) The Falernian was reckoned best from ten to twenty: the Surrentine was not thought good until twenty-five. (Athen. i.)
According to Actuarius, the thick wines are most nourishing and form the thickest blood, but are apt to occasion visceral obstructions; while, on the other hand, the thin wines are more stomachic and less nourishing. The sweet are the contrary; but the white are less hot than the others; the gold-coloured are more hot; and then the red.
Wine, says Simeon Seth, is not only nutritious, but promotes in a great degree the distribution of the food over the body, rousing, and at the same time increasing the vital heat, and with it the urinary and other secretions. It suits best, he says, with persons of a cold and dry temperament; and, therefore, it is most proper for old men. He adds that the immoderate use of wine dissolves the vital tone, depresses the natural heat, and occasions apoplexy, epilepsy, and tumours of the body. Macrobius attempts to trace a resemblance between the effects of habitual intoxication and those resulting from exposure to extreme cold. “Quæcunque nimium algentibus, eadem contingunt ebriis. Fiunt enim tremuli, pallidi, graves; et saltu tumultuantis spiritus artus suos et membra quatiuntur. Idem corporis torpor ambobus, eadem linguæ titubatio. Multis etiam morbus ille quem παράλυσιν Græci vocant sic nimio vino, et multo algore contingit.” In like manner, a modern writer, Andreas Baccius, maintains that some wines are of a cold nature.
Haly Abbas gives nearly the same characters of wine as Seth. His account of all the wines, natural and artificial, used in his time, is most ample.
Alsaharavius forbids wine to be taken when the stomach is quite empty, or after a full meal. When taken seasonably, he says it improves the appetite, increases the vital heat, nourishes the body, and clears the senses.
Avicenna, with his usual judgment and industry, collects all the information of preceding authors, to which he adds his own opinions. He remarks that the immoderate use of wine induces disease of the liver and brain, and debilitates the nerves.
Wine, says Rhases, warms the stomach and liver, and dispels flatulence, promotes digestion, provokes the urinary and alvine discharges, and gladdens the mind.
Serapion copies mostly from Galen in delivering the general characters of wine. He disapproves of wine made with salt water. For an account of it, see Pliny and Athenæus, (l. c.)
The ancients were scarcely more agreed respecting the intoxicating properties of wine than they were as to the powers of the cabbage in counteracting them. Old Cato the Censor, who was in the practice “of warming his virtue with wine,” describes the following method of cooling it: “Si voles in convivio multum bibere cænareque, ante cæenam esto crudam brassicam quantum voles ex aceto, et item ubi cænaveris comesto aliqua V. folia, reddent te quasi nihil ederis, biberisque, bibesque quantum voles.” (De R. R. 156.) See a long dissertation on this property of the cabbage in Athenæus (Deipnos. i, ad finem); also Pliny (Hist. Nat. xx, 34); Pseudo-Dioscorides (Euporist. i, 24); Nonnius (14); Simeon Seth (in voce Brassica); Geopon. (xii, 17); Avicenna, Rhases, and Serapion give the same character of it. Plutarch affirms that almonds also are a preservative from intoxication. (Quæst. vi.)
Before quitting this subject, we must notice certain peculiar modes of preparing wine. The mustum was wine newly made, or the fresh juice of the grape. The protropum was the juice which runs from grapes without pressing. The mulsum was a preparation of wine and honey. Dioscorides recommends two parts of wine to one of honey; but there does not appear to have been any fixed proportion. The sapa, called by the Greeks hepsema and siræum, according to Pliny, is must boiled to a third; and the defrutum the same reduced to a half. They are now called robs, a term borrowed from the Arabians. The carenum, according to Isidorus, is must reduced to two thirds. The passum was a sweet wine prepared from grapes which had been much dried in the sun. The passum creticum, which is much praised by Pliny and Athenæus, and is often mentioned by our author, the learned Andreas Baccius and Nonnius believe to have resembled the modern malmsey. We have already mentioned a peculiar species of wine prepared with salt water. The ancients also gave artificial qualities to wine by adding rosin, pitch, and other substances to the casks in which it was deposited. See ‘Geoponica’ (vii.) Dioscorides gives receipts for preparing a great variety of vinous tinctures. These were used only for medicinal purposes. (Mat. Med. v.)
It is scarcely necessary for us to remark that the ancients generally drank their wines diluted either with hot or cold water. Hence the poet Juvenal says: “Quando vocatus adest calidæ gelidæque minister.” (Sat. v, 63.) According to Pliny, Staphylus first introduced this practice (H. N. viii, 56); but Athenæus refers it to Melampus (ii.) It would appear, however, from some passages in the ‘Ecclesiazusæ’ of Aristophanes, and from Eustathius’s Commentary on Homer (Iliad, ix, 203), that the ancients often drank their wines undiluted. It was customary, during the time of dinner, to drink off a cup of pure wine to “the good deity.” See Athenæus (xv, 17), with the learned note of Schweighäuser. The wine and water were commonly mixed together according to certain fixed proportions, such as one part of wine and two of water, or two of wine and three of water, or equal parts of both. (Eustathius in Odyss. vii.) In winter it was the rule to drink equal parts of wine and hot water; but in summer two parts of water were added to one of wine. (Anonymus de Diæta ap. Phys. et Med. Min. ed. Ideler, p. 197.) It would appear that it was a common practice to drink wine with other hot things in the morning during the cold months of winter. (Hierophilus de Nutr. Meth. ed. Ideler.)