368 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



enough to show that the origin of beer had already been lost 

 in the mist of ages ; for Osiris was a legendary king of Egypt, 

 whose beneficent deeds had passed into mythology, and had 

 led to his deification at a period already remote beyond human 

 reckoning. 



The Ouestion of " Pure Beer " 



Beyond the vague account of Diodorus little is known of 

 the more ancient modes of preparing beer, but the frequent 

 references which occur in Pliny and other Latin authors show 

 that the drink was extensively used in Western Europe. It is 

 well known that the Saxons had it in common use long before 

 they settled in Britain and founded the English nation, of which 

 beer was for centuries almost the sole, and certainly the staple, 

 form of liquid food. Used at every meal, partaken of as a 

 matter of course by men, women, and children, beer was the 

 sole drink of all save the very wealthy. It was prepared as a 

 thing of common domestic use, like bread ; and the housewife 

 was expected to be skilled in brewing no less than in baking. 

 The process was largely traditional, recipes being handed down 

 in verbal form, and doubtless with some pretensions to secrecy 

 wherever a successful innovation had been discovered and a 

 variation of the common method had been found to have a 

 good result in winning approval from the family and neigh- 

 bours. Built up thus during many years of empirical practice, 

 the art of brewing appears to have called forth no systematic 

 treatise until the year 1585, when a certain Thaddeus Hagecius, 

 a native of Bohemia, wrote in Latin a booklet, De Cerevisia, 

 ejusque conficiendi, ratione, natura, viribus ct facultatibus, opus- 

 culum. This little work is full of interest, since it contains a 

 detailed account of the practice of brewing as followed at that 

 time, with a description of the preparation of beer from wheat 

 and barley in the first place and also some noteworthy informa- 

 tion as to the practice of using such substitutes as oats, millet, 

 anise, fennel, and currants. It will be observed that in this 

 little treatise there is a direct contradiction of the opinion, so 

 commonly held and expressed nowadays, that "pure beer" is 

 a product of hops and malted barley, and of these only. It 

 is evident that in the past the term "beer" was applied more 

 widely, and included any manufactured beverage prepared from 

 sugar-yielding materials. These latter were, for the most part, 



