VITIS VINIFERA. ORD. VII. Hederacee. 147. 
The general effects of wine are, to stimulate the stomach, exhila- 
rate the spirits, warm the habit, quicken the circulation, promote 
perspiration, and in large quantities to prove intoxicating, and 
powerfully sedative. 
In many disorders wine is universally admitted to be of important 
service, and especially in fevers of the typhous kind, or of a putrid 
tendency; in which it is found to raise the pulse, support the 
strength, promote a diaphoresis, and to resist putrefaction; and in 
many cases it proves of more immediate advantage than the 
Peruvian bark. Delirium, which is the consequence of excessive 
iritability, and a defective state of nervous energy, is often entirely 
removed by the free use of wine. It is also a well-founded obser- 
vation, that those who indulge in the use of wine, are less subject 
to fevers, both of the malignant and intermittent kind. In the 
putrid sore throat, in the small-pox, when attended with great 
debility and symptoms of putrescency, in gangrenes, and in the 
plague, wine is to be considered a principal remedy. And in 
almost all cases of languors, and of great prostation of strength, 
wine is experienced to be a more grateful and efficacious cordial 
than can be furnished from the whole class of aromatics. 
The Tartar, which is thrown off from wines to. the sides and 
bottom of the cask, is also an officinal article, and consists of the 
vegetable alkali supersaturated with acid. When taken from the 
cask, it is found mixed with an earthy, oily, and colouring matter: 
‘that obtained from red wine is of deep brown colour, and com- 
monly called red, and when it is of a paler colour, white tartar. © 
It is purified by dissolving it in boiling water, and separating the 
earthy part by filtering the boiling solution. On cooling the 
solution, it deposits irregular crystals, containing the colouring 
matter, which is separated by boiling the mass with white clay. 
The tartar, thus purified, is called cream of tartar. If this be 
exposed to a red heat, its acid flies off, and what remains is the 
vegetable alkali, or salt of tartar. 
Crystals of tartar are in common use as a laxative and mild. 
cathartic; they are also esteemed for their cooling and diuretic 
