Aqua Vitae

[Mission]

I am in the middle of a really interesting book called A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage and I came across a rather interesting description of the medicine Aqua Vitae. I always sort of knew that it was alcohol, but this explained the whole scenario quite well and I thought I'd share it with one and all.

"Wine was widely used as a medicine, so it seemed only logical that concentrated and purified wine should have even greater healing powers. By the late thirteenth century, as universities and medical schools were flowering throughout Europe, distilled wine was being acclaimed in Latin medical treatises [note - almost all medical texts at that time were in Latin] as a miraculous new medicine, aqua vitae, or "water of life."

One frim believer in the therapeutic power of distilled wine was Arnald of Villanova, a professor at the French medical school of Montpellier, who produced instructions for distilling wine around 1300. 'The true water of life will come over in precious drops, which, being rectified by three or four successive distillations, will afford the wonderful quintessence of wine,' he wrote. 'We call it aqua vitae, and this name is remarkably

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suitable since it is really a water of immortality. It prolongs life, clears away ill-humors, revives the heart, and maintains youth.'

Aqua vitae seemed supernatural, and in a sense it was, for distilled wine has a far higher alcohol content than any drink that can be produced by natural fermentation. Even the hardiest yeasts cannot tolerate an alcohol content greater than about 15 percent, which places a natural limit on the strength of fermented alcoholic drinks. Distillation allowed alchemists to circumvent this limit, which had prevailed since the discovery of fermentation years earlier. Arnald's pupil, Raymond Lully, declared aqua vitae 'an element newly revealed to men but hid from antiquity, because the human race was then too young to need this beverage destined to revive the energies of modern decrepitude.'

...

Aqua vitae's proponents believed it could preserve youth; improve memory; treat diseases of the brain, nerves, and joints; revive the heart; calm toothache; cure blindness, speech defects, and paralysis; and even protect against the plague." (Standage, p. 98-9)

[LadyBarbossa]

Hmmm... I like this, Mission. Now, if or when I be in your shadow in need of medical attention (heaven forbid), then administer WINE! LOTS OF IT!!! Preferably, through that hole in my face. Hehehehe

~Lady B

[Quartermaster James]

You may also then find this interesting:Alcohol and the Distillation of Wine in Arabic Sources From the Eighth Century Onwards

[Ransom]

Whenever I feel decrepitude sneaking up on me, I always reach for a glass of wine. Decrepitude always seems to creep up on me about the same time every day...around four of the clock.

[MarkG]

I am in the middle of a really interesting book called A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage and I came across a rather interesting description of the medicine Aqua Vitae. I always sort of knew that it was alcohol, but this explained the whole scenario quite well and I thought I'd share it with one and all.

"Wine was widely used as a medicine, so it seemed only logical that concentrated and purified wine should have even greater healing powers. By the late thirteenth century, as universities and medical schools were flowering throughout Europe, distilled wine was being acclaimed in Latin medical treatises [note - almost all medical texts at that time were in Latin] as a miraculous new medicine, aqua vitae, or "water of life."

One frim believer in the therapeutic power of distilled wine was Arnald of Villanova, a professor at the French medical school of Montpellier, who produced instructions for distilling wine around 1300. 'The true water of life will come over in precious drops, which, being rectified by three or four successive distillations, will afford the wonderful quintessence of wine,' he wrote. 'We call it aqua vitae, and this name is remarkably

__

suitable since it is really a water of immortality. It prolongs life, clears away ill-humors, revives the heart, and maintains youth.'

Aqua vitae seemed supernatural, and in a sense it was, for distilled wine has a far higher alcohol content than any drink that can be produced by natural fermentation. Even the hardiest yeasts cannot tolerate an alcohol content greater than about 15 percent, which places a natural limit on the strength of fermented alcoholic drinks. Distillation allowed alchemists to circumvent this limit, which had prevailed since the discovery of fermentation years earlier. Arnald's pupil, Raymond Lully, declared aqua vitae 'an element newly revealed to men but hid from antiquity, because the human race was then too young to need this beverage destined to revive the energies of modern decrepitude.'

...

Aqua vitae's proponents believed it could preserve youth; improve memory; treat diseases of the brain, nerves, and joints; revive the heart; calm toothache; cure blindness, speech defects, and paralysis; and even protect against the plague." (Standage, p. 98-9)

In the spring of 1621, an Indian walked into the Pilgrims' settlement. To their amazement he said, "Welcome Englishmen," and asked for beer. They had drunk all of their beer over the winter so they gave him some aqua vitae which seemed to satisfy him.

Mark

[Grymm]

During the prohibition in the US booze was still allowed on prescription from a doctor.