568 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



densed was drinkable, we might expect that it was but a step to the 

 extraction of the inflammable exhalation. But a long step it proved 

 to be! An attempt at condensation was in fact made at that time 

 with the result that wine upon evaporation became water. 



It was not until the fourth century of the Christian era that an 

 adequate distilling apparatus was perfected; and this, although used in 

 the distilling of various substances, seems not to have been employed 

 for the production of alcohol. Not until the writings of Marcus 

 Grsecus, in fact (twelfth or thirteenth century), 1 do we get unmis- 

 takable evidence of the distillation of alcohol — the distillate obtained 

 being called " aqua ardens." 



An explicit account of the process of distillation and a description 

 of the characteristics of the alcohol thus obtained occur in a Latin 

 manuscript published about 1438 — but which according to Berthelot 

 contained older excerpts. In this the preparation of alcohol is de- 

 scribed as follows : 



Take good old wine, any color; distil it over a slow fire (in a still and an 

 alambic closely joined). The product of distillation is called "aqua ardens." 



To " aqua ardens " are ascribed the following characteristics which 



we to-day associate with alcohol. 



Moisten a linen cloth in it, and light it. It will produce a great flame; when 

 it has gone out the cloth will remain intact. If you put your finger in this 

 aqua (ardens) and light it, it will burn like a candle without causing injury. 

 If you put a lighted candle in it the candle will not be extinguished. 



Thus from the time of Aristotle to the period immediately follow- 

 ing that of Marcus Graacus there elapsed an interval of considerably 

 more than a thousand years in which through extended effort, the 

 exhalation of wine was eventually obtained. As time passed methods 

 were devised by which aqua ardens was procured in greater concentra- 

 tion. It should be stated, however, that the word " alcohol " as apply- 

 ing to present-day alcohol was not used until the sixteenth century and 

 further that alcohol in the purity in which it is now obtained is a 

 product of the century just passed. 



The second of the early discoveries made in the study of wine was 

 that of its stimulating effect on man. An interpretation of this effect 

 in later years greatly influenced the use of alcohol. Prominent in this 

 interpretation stands the name of Arnaldo de Villaneuva. In his work 

 entitled "The Conservation of Youth" (1309) after speaking of the 

 delicacy of the nature of the spirit of wine, and enumerating the various 

 maladies cured by it, he adds that the spirit of wine should be called 

 " eau de vie," 2 for it prolongs life. 



From the time of Arnaldo de Villaneuva to the present there has 

 been growing a counter belief in the minds of many that the prolonga- 

 tion of life is not one of the characteristics to be associated with " eau 



1 Some give the date of Marcus Grsecus in the eighth century. 

 8 Eau de vie — The elixir of life. 



