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Wine Destroys Family Succession.

273

and that knowledge to be gained by bitter experience.

The self-made and self-elevated prince in intellectual position and in money-fortune, must have his wine-vault, and his dinner accompaniment supplied from its stores. The writer in the Talmud, who had the vision of Eden's tempter passing by the garden of Noah, the only family saved from the flood, when the arch-foe smiled and went away sure of his victim-that writer was not a seer only, but a student of history. How soon that Noah is a beast in his drunkenness, and Ham, his son, is making sport of his idiotic father! The family fails in the first generation. Only one cause is assigned for this by the inspired writer! That cause should startle aspiring American fathers. They are repeating, just as if there were no law of wines, the same insane folly of seeking to maintain position for themselves by violating the very law through whose observance they attained it. Yea, more; they are even dreaming that their sons and daughters are to be exalted by that luxury which, without exception in the world's history, has ensured family downfall. The wise in American, and even more in European courts and families are reviewing the history of the Catoes; whose ancestor wrote the earliest preserved recipe for "preserving wines always unfermented."

MODERN CHEMISTS ON THE LAW OF WINES.

In America, popular science embodied in Text Books is a valuable guide to more exhaustive treatises. Most of the Chemical TextBooks, as those of Silliman, Youmans, Wells, and of Rolfe and Gillet, treat of the process of fermentation. They describe the formation of alcohol as a transition stage, in which, if nature be allowed to complete her work, undiverted by human devices, she will, like her Divine Author, change the evil into good; as promptly destroying, as she had created, the lurking, but short-lived "poison in the cup." The more profound works of men like the American Dalton, the English Huxley, the French Pasteur and Engel, and the German Mayer and Helmholtz, trace to its germinal development, the series of processes; first, from life to death, and, second, from death to life, in the two successive fermentations of the juice of the grape. In these embryological observations, traced by the aid of the microscope, the same palpable fact is made conspicuous; that the alcoholic fermentation develops the virus found in all decay; which virus, as a deadly poison, none but the most reckless man of science would allow to taint his blood.

To the practical truth as to unfermented

Modern Chemists on the Law of Wines. 275

wines, special attention was given by Baron Liebig, one of the most eminent writers on Chemistry, applied to Agriculture, to the Arts, and to the laws of Health; whose superior merit, Baron Humboldt brought out in 1824, and whose fidelity to his early promise was attested till his death, in 1873. Among his numerous treatises, the most popular has been his "Chemishe Briefe," published in 1844, and soon translated into English and widely sold in Great Britain and America, under the title, "Familiar Letters on Chemistry and its Relations to Commerce, Physiology and Agriculture." In Letter XX. Liebig indicates, that practical experiment now attests the effectiveness of the methods employed by the Romans before and after Christ's day, in obtaining "unfermented wines." The Roman method was to separate the watery saccharine juice from the glutinous pulp before applying the pressure which forced out the pulp. The Romans, after corking and sealing, immersed the bottles of strained saccharine juice in cold cistern-water. Liebig states his method thus: “If a flask be filled with grapejuice, and be made air-tight and then kept for a few hours in boiling water, or until the contained grape-juice has become thoroughly heated to the boiling point, the wine does not ferment, but remains perfectly sweet until the

flask is again opened, and its contents brought in contact with the air." The careful reader will observe, that Liebig in this experimental proof has not, like the ancients, first separated the albuminous pulp from the saccharine juice; that he applies extreme heat, in place of moderate cold, to arrest ferment; and that then it is not permanently arrested because the albuminous pulp was not at the outset excluded. The practical science of the Romans is thus thrown all the more into relief. Apparently self-guided, Liebig also re-discovered the Roman method of correcting failure in ill-corked bottles by the use of sulphur or sulphur fumes. In his edition of Turner's Chemistry, Liebig treats fully on the subject of fermentation.

MODERN

ENCYCLOPÆDISTS ON THE LAW OF

WINES.

Modern encyclopædists, of whom Pliny was the ancient type, while, presenting on each topic, the results of recent scientific investigation, trace also, more or less fully, the history of the sciences and arts of which they treat. The encyclopædists of France, England and America have indirectly gathered testimony of great value as to the observed dangers from alcoholic liquors, and the means of preserving wines exempt from alcoholic admixture. In the popular

Modern Encyclopædists on Wines.

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French Cyclopædia, published at Paris, in 1855, Colin states the origin of alcoholic fermentation as arising from the presence of the glutinous pulp in the saccharine juice; and he describes how sweet wines (vins doux) are obtained by separation of the saccharine or sugary material (matiere sucrée) from the albuminous or nitrogenous matter. He especially declares the alcoholic fermentation to be but a stage of nature in converting "vins doux," sweet wine, into "vin-aigre," sour wine, or vinegar.

In the English Cyclopædia of Charles Knight, London, 1859, the process of obtaining sweet wines is described with these remarks: "If sugar predominates, the wine is sweet; if gluten, it is liable to acetic ferment, forming sour wine. This divides wines. While the vinous fermentation goes on. . . the acetous can not commence." Liebig's methods of securing wines free from alcohol are then described.

In the American Cyclopædia of the Appletons, published in 1874, Liebig's theories and results of fermentation are presented; and a rare Byzantine work, describing the methods of securing sweet and unintoxicating wines during the early Christian centuries, is cited. The relation of "Lachrymæ Christi" to old Falernian wines is alluded to, and the return to scientific methods in wine-making throughout Italy is noted.

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