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.