Greek Physicians on Wines.

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honey of the early Greeks, was, like the debsh of the Hebrews, a syrup made from grapes and other juicy fruits. Thus, among the Babylonians on the Euphrates, he says (i. 193) that, of the fruit of the palm "they make bread, wine, and honey." Again, of honey among the Lybians on the Nile, he relates (iv. 194): "Amongst them bees make a great quantity; and it is said that the confectioners make much more." The meaning of the Greek meli, and of the Syrian debsh, is found in the "meli agrion," or "wild honey" of the Greek translation of the Old Testament (see Gen. xliii. 11; Judges xiv. 8); of the New Testament (Mat. iii. 4; Mark i. 6), and of Roman writers such as Diodorus (xix. 94).

Æschylus in his Eumenides (v. 108) alludes to “oblations without wine, unintoxicating propitiatory offerings;" showing the depth and permanence of the Greek sentiment which forbid the use of intoxicating wines in religious rites. Sophocles, to the same effect, in his Edipus Colonæus, commends his prayer to the avenging furies, by the mention, " I, abstemious, come to you who abstain from wine;" thus implying that the vengeance they wreaked would be unjustifiable if either he who asked for it, or they who inflicted it, were excited by wine; a sentiment emphasized by the chorus (v. 481), who warn Edipus that he bring only oblations of honey, or

grape-syrup, and offer no "inebriating beverage" (methu). This profound sentiment of the tragic poets is thrown into stronger relief by the half sincere, half censorious cavils of Aristophanes, the comic poet; as when in his "Acharnanians" he represents the guests as saying, "we drank against our will . . . . sweet undiluted wine," when in another place he pretends to ridicule the women who "swear over the cup to put no wine in it,” because "they like their own undiluted;" and when, yet again, he makes an inebriated young Athenian say (Lysist. v. 1228), "When we are abstinent we are not in vigor."

The testimony of the great Greek physician of his age, Hippocrates, is specially noteworthy. In his "Aphorisms," so permanently valuable in their correct analysis that they are still published as a pocket companion for French medical students, are numberless suggestions as to the value of abstemiousness in a variety of diseases; while the suggestion of the use of wine (Aph. vii. 48) in a single instance leads to an important principle. The direction is: "Strangury and retention of urine stupefaction and blood-letting relieve." The Greek thorexis (Latin translation vini potus) indicates that an anesthetic, essential in such a painful disease, was sought by the Greeks in stupefying alcoholic drinks. In his

Diate Oxeon," or Treatment of Acute Diseases,

Greek Philosophers on Wines,

III

Hippocrates' prescriptions of various products of the vine have called forth criticism in every succeeding age. He minutely describes symptoms in fever which may determine when "sweet, strong, or black wines, and when hydromel (honey and water), or oxymel (honey and vinegar), should be given." He says, "The sweet affects the head less, attacking the brain more feebly; while it evacuates the bowels more," a fact made noteworthy in the statements of Roman and Rabbinic writers of later date. He says again, “ There is a difference as to their nutritive powers between undiluted wine and undiluted honey (or syrup)." "If a man drink double the quantity of pure wine," he will find himself no more strengthened than from half the same quantity of "honey." Both the hygienic and nutritive effects of unintoxicating and of intoxicating products of the vine thus brought into contrast by Hippocrates, are discussed by his Grecian, Roman and mediæval commentators. Alexander Trallienus says, that as the "use of wine" is " attended with certain evil consequences. . . . it is the part of a prudent physician to weigh their good and bad effects." Athenæus quotes the following as a further direction of the great Greek physician: "Take syrupy-wine, (glukun, distinct from oinon edun), either mixed with water or heated, especially that called protropos, the sweet

Lesbian; for, the syrupy sweet wine (glukazon oinos) does not oppress the head and affect the mind, but passes through the bowels more easily than sweet wine" (oinou edeos). The distinction between the terms glukus and edus, as applied by the Greeks to wines, is here manifest.

Protropos, or prodromos, as Dioscorides, the great botanist of a later age, explains, is the premature oozing juice which bursts the grape skin and flows out spontaneously; a product composed almost entirely of the saccharine or unfermenting, as distinct from the albuminous or fermenting portion of the grape-juice.

THE LAW OF WINES AS DISCUSSED IN GREEK

PHILOSOPHY.

Among the leaders in the now prepared age of philosophy, Socrates the moralist, Democritus the materialist, Plato the idealist, and Aristotle the practical logician, are prominent. Xenophon in his Banquet (ii. 14-16) puts into the lips of Socrates this comprehensive statement: "I too, my friends, should be agreeably affected by drinking; as the mandragora puts men to sleep, and as oil feeds flame. If we, in like manner, pour into ourselves drink in too great quantities our bodies and minds will soon become powerless, and we shall be scarcely able to breathe, much less to articulate anything. But, if our

Spartan Law against Wine-Drinking. 113

servants refresh us from time to time with small cups . . . then, not being forced to become intoxicated with wine, . . . . we shall arrive at more agreeable mirth." Two facts are to be observed in this statement. First, Socrates here, as was his wont, teaches a principle by appealing to its influence when uncontrolled; and second, he alludes to the degrading idea that a wise man must be guarded by "servants," having no selfcontrol, when "athletes" can restrain themselves and never touch wine.

The spirit of Democritus, the materialist, is indicated by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xiv. 2) in his scathing irony on the pride of this philosopher in "professing to know all the kinds of wines in Greece," as if this were a triumph of science.

The reasoning of Plato, the idealist, as to wine, though alluded to elsewhere, is chiefly found in his Laws. In this lengthy dialogue there are three chief speakers; first a Cretan, from the isle where Minos made the first collection recognized as natural law by the Greeks; second, a Spartan, wedded to the stern military code of Lycurgus; and third, an Athenian, representing the republican city where at an early day the philosophic code of Solon was elaborated, from which the Roman civil code derived its first germs. The Cretan is the inquirer, drawing out the advocates of the two extremes; the rigid discipline of

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