VOL. vr.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIOIT9. 573 



II. Joh. Henr. Melbomii* de Cerevisiis, potibtisque et ebriaminibus extra 

 Vinum aliis Commentarius, annexe libello Turnebi de Vino. Helmestadii, 

 l6(58, 4to. 



This author shows how and by whom, after the first use of water and milk, 

 were introduced the drinks made out of vegetables ; as the vine, barley, wheat, 

 maize, millet, oats, rice, apples, pears, pomegranates; and the various juices 

 tapped out of trees, as the palm, birch, sycamore, maple, and many more. 

 To which he adds those drinks that are prepared out of roots, berries, sugar, 

 and sugar-canes, and the like. Then he proceeds to that luscious drink, which 

 •is made out of that animal substance honey, called mead, and is mentioned in 

 some of the most ancient writers, amongst whom he cites Orpheus : 



*EuTf a,v Sri l^iv iSr\xi vtto S^v<riv \J^lny.o[^o^(^^v 

 ^EoysKTi y-i^vovTOi (XiXi(r(7Cx,uv l^iQoixQuv 



Postquam igitur cernes ipsum sub quercubus altis 

 Depositum, Succo ex Apibus mox vincula membris 

 Injice 



Which relates to the fable, in which the night is represented to have coun- 

 selled Jupiter, designing to dethrone and castrate his father Saturn, that he 

 should, by making him drunk with mead, cast him into a deep sleep, and so do 

 with him what he pleased. 



To these he subjoins many intoxicating drinks, made with narcotic and other 

 herbs ; as also the various stupifying fumes, among which tobacco is now so 

 famous and common ; to which he applies what Virgil sings of Cacus; 



Faucibus ingentemfumum, mirabile dictu, 

 Evomity involvitque domum caligine ccecd, 

 Prospectum eripiens oailis, glomerdtque sub auras -|- 

 Fumiferam noctemy commistis igne tenebris. 



* Meibomius was born at Helmstadt in 1590. After studying at various universities m (rermanjr 

 he visited Italy, and on his return was made professor of physiology in tlie university of Helmstadt j. 

 but was obliged to quit that place in l627, in consequence of the ti'oubles in which the country was. 

 then involved. He removed first to Schwerin, and afterwards to Lubeck, where he died in l655^ 

 Meibomius was a man of great erudition. Besides the treatise above-mentioned, and various acade- 

 mical dissertations, he wrote Commentar. in Hippocrat. jusjurandum, l643; De usu Flagrorum in re 

 Medica, 1643; Cassiodori formula comitis Archiatrorum. This was published after his deatli, in 16"68, 

 by his son. Other works were also written by this author, too numerous to be particularised here. 

 Meibomius had invitations, accompanied with the offer of a handsome salarj', at one time from Co- 

 penhagen, at anotlier time from Stockholm, to accept the appointment of physician to those courts, 

 but he declined both. 



+ Sub antro. Virg. JEn. VIII. 254. 



