[223] Zijnde een iopen vat, aen den bodem stucken ghevroren—which, being a cask of spruce beer, had burst at the bottom through the frost.
From a very early period a decoction, in beer or water, of the leaf-buds (gemmæ seu turiones) of the Norway spruce fir (Abies excelsa), as well as of the silver fir (Abies picea), has been used, formerly more than at present, in the countries bordering on the Baltic Sea, in scorbutic, rheumatic, and gouty complaints. See Magneti Bibliotheca Pharmaceutico-Medica, vol. i, p. 2; Pharmacopœia Borussica (German translation by Dulk), 3rd edit., vol. i, p. 796; Pereira, Elements of Materia Medica, 3rd edit., vol. ii, p. 1182.
These leaf-buds are commonly called in German, sprossen, and in Dutch, jopen; whence the beer brewed therefrom at Dantzig—cerevisia [[115]]dantiscana, as it is styled in the Amsterdam Latin version of 1598—acquired the appellations of sprossenbier and jopenbier, of the former of which the English name, spruce-beer, is merely a corruption.
The “Dantzig spruce” of commerce, which is known at the place of its manufacture by the names of doppelbier, jopenbier, and even “sprucebier”, is the representative at the present day of the medicated sprossenbier of former times; though, curiously enough, the ingredient from which it derived its distinctive appellation (i.e., the sprossen or jopen) appears to be now left out in its preparation. [↑]
[225] Den bodem—the bottom. [↑]
[227] In de selvighe vochticheyt was de cracht vant gantsche bier—in that liquid part lay the whole strength of the beer. [↑]