THE HISTORY OF ALCOHOL. 



377 



THE HISTORY OF ALCOHOL. 



BY PROF. CHARLES ERNEST PELLEW. 

 II. 



IT is a curious fact that, although, intoxicating beverages have 

 been known and used from time immemorial, alcohol itself 

 was not discovered until after the fall of the Roman Empire, and, 

 when once discovered, it was not used for intoxicating purposes 

 for many hundred years. Pliny, in his Natural History, written 

 about A. D. 50, mentions that oil of turpentine could be extracted 

 from the crude pitch by boiling the latter in open vessels and 

 catching the vapors on fleeces, from which the condensed oil could 

 be pressed. This marks the first beginnings of the art of distilla- 

 tion, which progressed but slowly, for, two hundred years later, 

 we read that sailors were accustomed to get potable water from 

 sea water by similar crude methods. 



About this time there existed a flourishing school of alchemists 

 at Alexandria, and it is probable that some of them had, or soon 

 would have, developed the art further. But A. D. 287 the Em- 

 peror Diocletian destroyed their books and prohibited their 

 studies, for fear lest by discovering the philosopher's stone, and 

 hence learning to change base 

 metals into gold, they might 

 overturn the Roman rule. A 

 more serious disaster befell 

 the later Alexandrian School 

 of Philosophy in the destruc- 

 tion of the famous Alexan- 

 drian Library by the Moham- 

 medan general Amru, A. D. 984, 

 at the orders of the Caliph 

 Abu Bekr. "If the books agree with the Koran, they are not 

 needed ; if opposed, they are injurious." This was the argument 

 which helped to put back civilization some centuries, and gave 

 Literature, as well as science and medicine, a blow from which 

 she has not yet recovered. It is curious to speculate what would 

 be our present condition if only two or three of our recent ad- 

 vances the discovery of galvanic electricity, for instance, or the 

 germ theory of disease had been made but one hundred years 

 earlier. 



As it was, the study of science had to be begun over again 

 almost from the very foundation by the Arabians under a more 

 enlightened rule. The famous Geber about the close of the eighth 

 century mentions the term distillation, but it is doubtful whether 



VOL. LI. 29 



OLD STILLS USED BY ALEXANDRIANS. 



