CHAP. 24.—IN WHAT MALADIES WINE SHOULD BE ADMINISTERED; HOW IT SHOULD BE ADMINISTERED, AND AT WHAT TIMES.
We shall now proceed to speak of wine in relation to its
medicinal uses. The wines of Campania
1 which have the
least body, are the most wholesome beverage for persons of
rank and station; and for the lower classes
2 the best kind of
wine is that which is the most pleasant to the person who
drinks it, provided he is in robust health. For persons of all
ranks, however, the most serviceable wine is that the strength
of which has been reduced by the strainer;
3 for we must bear
in mind that wine is nothing else but juice of grapes which
has acquired strength by the process of fermentation. A mixture of numerous kinds of wine is universally bad, and the
most wholesome wine of all is that to which no ingredient has
been added when in a state of must; indeed, it is still better
if the vessels even in which it is kept have never been pitched.
4
As to wines which have been treated with marble, gypsum,
or lime,
5 where is the man, however robust he may be, that
has not stood in dread of them?
Wines which have been prepared with sea-water
6 are par-
ticularly injurious to the stomach, nerves, and bladder. Those
which have been seasoned with resin are generally looked
upon as beneficial to a cold stomach, but are considered unsuitable where there is a tendency to vomit: the same, too, with
must, boiled grape-juice,
7 and raisin wine. New wines sea-
soned with resin are good for no one, being productive of
vertigo and head-ache: hence it is that the name of "crapula"
8 has been given equally to new resined wines, and to
the surfeit and head-ache which they produce.
The wines above mentioned
9 by name, are good for cough
and catarrh, as also for cœliac affections, dysentery, and
the catamenia. Those wines of this sort which are red
10 or
black,
11 are more astringent and more heating than the others.
Wines which have been seasoned with pitch only, are not so
injurious; but at the same time we must bear in mind that
pitch is neither more nor less than resin liquefied
12 by the action
of fire, These pitched wines are of a heating nature, promote
the digestion, and act as a purgative; they are good, also, for
the chest and the bowels, for pains in the uterus, if there are
no signs of fever, for inveterate fluxes, ulcerations, ruptures,
spasms, suppurated abscesses, debility of the sinews, flatulency,
cough, asthma, and sprains, in which last case they are applied
in uncleansed wool. For all these purposes the wine is preferred which has naturally the flavour of pitch,
13 and is
thence known as "picatum:" it is generally agreed, however,
that the produce of the vine called "helvennaca,"
14 if taken in
too large a quantity, is trying to the head.
In reference to the treatment of fever, it is well known that
wine should never be given, unless the patient is an aged person, or the symptoms are beginning to abate. In cases of acute
fever, wine must never be given, under any circumstance,
except when there is an evident remission of the attack, and
more particularly if this takes place in the night, for then the
danger is diminished by one half, there being the probability
of the patient sleeping off the effects of the wine. It is equally
forbidden, also, to females just after delivery or a miscarriage,
and to patients suffering from over-indulgence of the sexual
passions; nor should it be given in cases of head-ache, of
maladies in which the attacks are attended with chills at the
extremities, of fever accompanied with cough, of tremulousness
15 in the sinews, of pains in the fauces, or where the disease
is found to concentrate itself in the iliac regions. Wine is
strictly forbidden, too, in cases of induration of the thoracic
organs, violent throbbings of the veins, opisthotony, tetanus,
asthma, and hardness of breathing attended with fever.
Wine is far from beneficial for a patient, when the eyes are
fixed and rigid, and when the eyelids are immoveable, or else
relaxed and heavy; in cases, too, where, with an incessant nictation, the eyes are more than usually brilliant, or where the
eyelids refuse to close—the same, too, if that symptom
should occur in sleep—or where the eyes are suffused with
blood, or congealed matter makes its appearance in the corners
of those organs. The same rule should be observed, also, when
the tongue is heavy and swollen, or when there is an impediment from time to time in the speech, when the urine is passed
with difficulty, or when a person has been seized with a sudden
fright, with spasms, or recurrent fits of torpor, or experiences
seminal discharges during sleep.