Qualities. Odour, strong, peculiar and unpleasant; Taste, warm, bitter, and sub-acrid. Chemical Composition. Extractive, gum, resin, fecula, tannin, and a peculiar essential oil which seems to contain camphor, and on which its virtues probably depend. Solubility. Its active matter is extracted by boiling water, alcohol, and the solutions of the pure alkalies. Incompatible Substances. The salts of iron. Med. Uses. It is antispasmodic, tonic, and emmenagogue; and it is highly beneficial in those diseases which appear to be connected with a morbid susceptibility of the nervous system, as in hysteria, hemicrania, and in some species of epilepsy; and it would appear that its virtues in such complaints may be frequently increased by combining it with cinchona. Forms of Exhibition. The form of powder is the most effectual, and next to this a strong tincture made with proof spirit; by decoction its powers are considerably impaired, and consequently the extract is an inefficient preparation. Dose of the powder ℈j to ʒj; when the flavour disgusts, the addition of a small portion of mace or cinnamon will be found to disguise it. See Form. 25, 31, 38. Officinal Preparation. Infus. Valerian. D. Tinct. Valerian. L.D. Tinct. Valerian. ammoniat. L.D. Adulterations. The roots of a species of crowfoot are sometimes mixed with those of valerian; they may be distinguished by a caustic taste on chewing them; the roots have also often a disagreeable smell from the urine of cats, who are allured and delighted by their odour; and they are sometimes inert, from not having been taken up at a proper season, or from not having been carefully preserved.
VERATRI RADIX. L.E. (Veratrum Album.)
Helleborus Albus. D.
White Hellebore Root.
Qualities. Odour, strong, and disagreeable; Taste, bitter, and very acrid; by drying, the odour is dissipated, and in this state it is found in the shops. Solubility. Its active principles are soluble in water, alcohol, and the alkalies. Chemical Composition. Pelletier and Caventou have lately discovered in this vegetable a new alkaline principle, white, crystalline, and acrid, to which they have given the name of Veratria: it appears to exist in combination with gallic acid. Med. Uses. The effects of this root are extremely violent and poisonous; the ancients employed it in various obstinate cases, but they generally regarded it as their last resource; it acts as a violent emetic and cathartic, producing bloody stools, great anxiety, tremors, and convulsions. Etmuller says, that the external application of the root to the abdomen, will produce vomiting; and Schroeder observed the same phenomenon to take place in a case where it was used as a suppository, and its juice has been applied to the purpose of poisoning arrows; notwithstanding these effects however the veratrum has been very safely and successfully administered in cases of mania, epilepsy, lepra, and gout:[[696]] but the most ordinary use of white hellebore is as a local stimulant; as an adjunct to errhine powders; or in the form of decoction, as a lotion; or mixed with a lard, as an ointment in scabies,[[697]] and herpetic eruptions: great caution however is required in its application, for several authors affirm that as an errhine, it has caused abortions, floodings which could not be restrained, and fatal hemorrhages from the nose. Dose, gr. iij to v, obtunded by the addition of twelve times its weight of starch, a pinch of which may be taken for several successive evenings; for internal administration it ought not to exceed gr. ij. Officinal Prep. Decoct. Veratri. L. Tinct. Veratri albi. E. Unguent. Veratri. L. Unguent. Sulphur. comp. L.
VINUM. Wine.
The term wine is more strictly and especially applied to express the fermented juice of the Grape, although it is generally used to denote that of any sub-acid fruit. The presence of Tartar is perhaps the circumstance by which the grape is most strongly distinguished from all the other sub-acid fruits that have been applied to the purpose of wine making. The juice of the grape, moreover, contains within itself all the principles essential to vinification, in such a proportion and state of balance as to enable it at once to undergo a regular and complete fermentation, whereas the juices of other fruits require artificial additions for this purpose; and the scientific application and due adjustment of these means, constitute the art of making wines.[[698]] It has been remarked, that all those wines that contain an excess of malic acid are of a bad quality, hence the grand defect that is necessarily inherent in the wines of this country, and which leads them to partake of the properties of cider, for in the place of the tartaric, the malic acid always predominates in native fruits.
The characteristic ingredient of all wines is Alcohol, and the quantity of this, and the condition or state of combination in which it exists, are the circumstances that include all the interesting and disputed points of medical enquiry. Daily experience convinces us that the same quantity of alcohol, applied to the stomach under the form of natural wine, and in a state of mixture with water, will produce very different effects upon the body, and to an extent which it is difficult to comprehend; it has, for instance, been demonstrated that Port, Madeira, and Sherry, contain from one-fourth to one-fifth their bulk of alcohol, so that a person who takes a bottle of either of them, will thus take nearly half a pint of alcohol, or almost a pint of pure brandy! and moreover that different wines, although of the same specific gravity, and consequently containing the same absolute proportion of the spirit, will be found to vary very considerably in their intoxicating powers; no wonder then that such results should stagger the philosopher, who is naturally unwilling to accept any tests of difference from the nervous system, which elude the ordinary resources of analytical chemistry; the conclusion was therefore drawn, that alcohol must necessarily exist in wine in a far different condition from that in which we know it in a separate state, or in other words, that its elements only could exist in the vinous liquor, and that their union was determined, and consequently alcohol produced, by the action of distillation. That it was the product, and not the educt of distillation, was an opinion which originated with Rouelle, who asserted that alcohol was not completely formed, until the temperature was raised to the point of distillation; more lately the same doctrine was revived and promulgated by Fabbroni, in the memoirs of the Florentine Academy. Gay Lussac has, however, silenced the clamorous partisans of this theory, by separating the alcohol by distillation at the temperature of 66° Fah. and by the aid of a vacuum, it has since been effected at 56°: besides, it has been shewn that by precipitating the colouring matter and some of the other elements of the wine by sub-acetate of lead, and then saturating the clear liquor with sub-carbonate of potass, the alcohol may be completely separated without any elevation of temperature; and by this ingenious expedient Mr. Brande has been enabled to construct a table, exhibiting the proportions of combined alcohol which exist in the several kinds of wine: no doubt therefore can remain upon this subject, and the fact of the difference of effect, produced by the same bulk of alcohol, when presented to the stomach in different states of combination, adds another striking and instructive illustration to those already enumerated in the course of this work, of the extraordinary powers of chemical combination in modifying the activity of substances upon the living system. In the present instance, the alcohol is so combined with the extractive matter of the wine, that it is probably incapable of exerting its full specific effects upon the stomach, before it becomes altered in its properties, or, in other words, digested: and this view of the subject may be fairly urged in explanation of the reason why the intoxicating effects of the same wine are so liable to vary in degree, in the same individual, from the peculiar state of his digestive organs at the time of its potation.[[699]] Hitherto we have only spoken of pure wine, but it is essential to state that the stronger wines of Spain, Portugal, and Sicily, are rendered remarkable in this country by the addition of Brandy, and must consequently contain uncombined alcohol, the proportion of which however will not necessarily bear a ratio to the quantity added, because, at the period of its admixture, a renewed fermentation is produced by the scientific vintner, which will assimilate and combine a certain portion of the foreign spirit with the wine: this manipulation, in technical language, is called fretting-in. The free alcohol may, according to the experiments of Fabbroni, be immediately separated by saturating the vinous fluid with sub-carbonate of potass, while the combined portion will remain undisturbed: in ascertaining the fabrication and salubrity of a wine, this circumstance ought always to constitute a leading feature in the inquiry; and the tables of Mr. Brande would have been greatly enhanced in practical value, had the relative proportions of uncombined spirit been appreciated in his experiments, since it is to this, and not to the combined alcohol, that the injurious effects of the wine are to be attributed. “It is well known,” observes Dr. Macculloch, “that diseases of the liver are the most common, and the most formidable of those produced by the use of ardent spirits; it is equally certain that no such disorders follow the intemperate use of pure wine, however long indulged in: to the concealed and unwitting consumption of spirit, therefore, as contained in the wines commonly drunk in this country, is to be attributed the excessive prevalence of those hepatic affections which are comparatively little known to our continental neighbours.” Thus much is certain, that our ordinary wines contain no alcohol, but what is disarmed of its virulence by the prophylactic energies of combination.
The odour, or bouquet, and flavour which distinguish one wine from another, evidently depend upon some volatile and fugacious principle, soluble in alcohol; this in sweet and half fermented wines, is immediately derived from the fruit, as in those from the Frontignan and Muscat grapes; but in the more perfect wines, as in Claret, Hermitage, Rivesaltes, and Burgundy, it bears no resemblance to the natural flavour of the fruit, but is altogether the product of the vinous process; and in some wines it arises from the introduction of flavouring ingredients, as from almonds in Madeira wines, as well as in those of Xeres and Saint Lucar, and hence their well known nutty flavour. Among the ancients it was formerly, and in modern Greece it is to this day, the fashion to give a resinous flavour, by the introduction of Turpentine into the casks.[[700]] These wines are supposed to assist digestion, to restrain ulcerous, and other morbid discharges, to provoke urine, and to strengthen the bowels; but Dioscorides also informs us that they were known to produce vertigo, pain in the head, and many evils not incidental to the same quantity of vinous liquor when free from such admixtures.[[701]]
Wines admit of being arranged into four classes.[[702]]