History of Alcohol and Health

History of Alcohol and Health
Alcoholic beverages particularly wines were the prime medicinal agents of our ancestors from the ancient world into the early nineteenth century.

Wine was the most common ingredient in the medicine of ancient Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, other taken buy month or topically applied.

The Roman secular Pliny the Elder recommended a mixture of wine and rue –a strongly scented, bitter tasting shrub – for just about any type of insect sting or animal bite.

Jewish Talmudic tradition maintained that impotence could be cured by heating and drinking a mixture of wine and ground saffron.

The oddest prescription came from ancient Egypt; a combination of wine and ground up donkey testacies was fermented and used to treat epilepsy.

In addition to alcohol’s anesthetic properties, early physicians and folk healers recognized its ability to act as a disinfectant.

The doctors of olden times couldn’t see and don’t know about things like germs, single cell yeast, and antioxidants, but they did see cause and effect relationship.

Centuries ago people who drank alcohol (not to excess, of course) were healthier and hardier than those who did not due to its nutritional value. They lived longer and reproduced more.

Armies were “inoculated” against disease on their foreign campaigns by mixing wine with their local water supply to kill bacteria.

Early beer makers realized that unless their brew fermented for a certain time and reached an alcohol level of at least 5 percent, it would contain detrimental microorganism that produced “off” favors and odors and might even be dangerous to drink.

The curative compounds found in alcoholic beverages were not isolated and purified to be used on their own until the 1800s.