Prize essay on ardent spirits and its substitutes as a means of invigorating health / by Reuben D. Mussey.

  • Reuben Dimond Mussey
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prize essay on ardent spirits and its substitutes as a means of invigorating health / by Reuben D. Mussey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Fermented liquors derived from the juices of fruits, and from the farinaceous grains, were used in periods of high antiquity. The first JESSE* authentic record we have of wine, re- fers to a period scarcely less remote than that of the deluge. Noah planted a vineyard and drank of the fruit of it; and the hypothesis that he was the inventor of wine, receives coun- tenance from the assertion of Hecataeus, the Mi- lesian historian, that the use of wines was first discovered in JEtolia by Orestes the son of Deuca- lion. This last personage, it is well known, was the hero of the deluge among those heathen nation?. whose records and traditions recognise that great event. The early history of alcohol in its uncombined state, or in the form of ardent spirit, is obscure. The period at Had Mahometan fanaticism spared wmch distilled the Alexandrian library, the curiosity invented—ob- of our own times might perhaps have been gratified by a knowledge of the period of its discovery, as well as with the name and residence of the individual whose researches gave to the world a poison, which, in countries where its use has become general, has caused more human suffering than any other invention of man. There is indeed some probability that China may claim the discovery of the process of distilla- Distmation tlon' 'In that country,' says More- covered in wood, • which has preserved its civil * r A' .-nP. J f manj thm»and years, the art of distillation was known far beyond the date of its authentic records.' The same writer refer- ring to the authority of Du Halde, Martini. Gro-
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