36 VITIS, OR 



only when the body is ripe, and always with modera- 

 tion, avoiding all those adulterated by brandy or perni- 

 cious ingredients, as are Madeira, Port, and Sherry, 

 which are never pure ; the best wines for daily use be- 

 ing the French wines, Clarets, Burgundy, Malaga, Lis- 

 bon, Fayal, Samos, Cyprus, besides our own American 

 wines. 



In old age good wines become more needful, they 

 support strength and life. Plato called them the milk of 

 old age. An old Italian proverb says, that milk is the 

 wine of youth, but wine the milk of old age. Aged peo- 

 ple can indulge with benefit in their daily use, but never 

 to excess, and always with water in large proportion. 



Temperance does not consist in abstaining from wine, 

 but in using with moderation, and with water, none but 

 the good and mild. The Temperance Societies lately 

 established with us, have done a great deal of good in 

 checking the vile habit of drinking spirituous liquors, 

 but have done wrong in proscribing such wines : they 

 ought merely to proscribe the vile trash called Port and 

 Madeira, which are not Wines, but impure brandy mix- 

 tures or Wine Grogs! and encourage the importation 

 and cultivation of mild healthy wines for substitutes. 

 Christians and Jews can never abstain altogether from 

 wine like the Mahometans, since it is needful in some 

 of their religious rites. 



When wines are drank in extra doses, they produce 

 hilarity, and in excess intoxication. In both cases they 

 quicken the pulse, stimulate all the organs, inflame the 

 fluids, excite tlie mind, the nerves and head are more 

 or less affected ; but this excitement is followed by 

 drowsiness, head-ache, sleep, dejection, relaxation, stu- 

 por, diarrhoea, stupidity, or madness. All these effects 

 are owing to the brandy or alcohol contained in the 

 wines, thus they depend on their amount in each dose or 

 glass, and on the habit of the drinker. Children may be 

 intoxicated by a single small glass. Drunkards get gra- 

 dually used to wines, and require more and more to 

 affect them, thus losing for them altogether its medical 

 effects. At last their bloated red face shows the appetite 

 to have become a disease, Oinomania, or craving for 

 wine, and they become liable to a multitude of chronic 



