Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/391

Rh formulæ, that the Carthusian and Benedictine monks used to distill hundreds of years ago to give to the sick and feeble at their convent doors, or sell to the wealthy invalid who sought their treatment.

But the curious part of it is not that it should have been used as a medicine, but that it should have been used as a medicine exclusively. There seems to have been little or no idea of its intoxicating power. In Shakespeare, for instance, there is abundant mention of drinking and drunkenness. But Cassio, and fat Sir John, and the rest got tipsy on sack, and canary, and sherry, or, if of lower rank, on ale and beer, but never on spirits. Indeed, the only mention of distilled liquors in all his plays is in Romeo and Juliet, where the old nurse sighs, "Oh, for some strong waters from Venice!" to restore her energies. As an example of how long this state of affairs continued I may mention a well-known book. The Countrie Farme, published in England in 1616. This large and important work discusses in great detail all the varied occupations of a large country place. It describes carefully the wine industry, the culture of the vines and grapes, the preparation and the varieties of wine, and, while highly praising good pure wine as a beverage, the author is extremely careful to describe fully and with much emphasis the many evil effects which come from intoxication, and from constant as well as from overmuch winebibbing.

A. few chapters further on the author describes the art of distillation. He explains that a still room was a necessary adjunct to a well-equipped country house, and shows curious illustrations of stills, some of them with sixty or eighty retorts on one oven. He mentions the great variety of vegetable and animal substances from which extracts could be and should be distilled, but spends most of his time upon the distillate from wine. "For," says he, "the virtues of aqua vitæ are infinite. It keepeth off fits of apoplexie—it driveth away venime. . . . In wet and malarial climates every one should take a teaspoonful, with sugar, before breakfast, to keepe off the ague," and so on. Not one word about intoxication—purely as a medicine.

It is not to be supposed from this, however, that the English