8 WINE AND THE ART OF WINE TASTING. 



disease which Caesar cured by allowing all the soldiers to get solemnly 

 drunk. From that day they all commenced to recover. 



Certainly among the curative resources at the disposal of hygiene 

 and medicine there is none more frequently used than wine. We 

 always, as it were by instinct, say to a convalescent: "You should 

 drink wine." 



Hippocrates says: " Wine is a liquid marvelously adapted to man, well 

 or ill, providing he take it at the proper time and in quantities suitable 

 to his constitution." 



Liebig, too, is of the same opinion, for he writes: "Wine is unsur- 

 passed by any product, natural or artificial, as a restorer of the vital 

 forces when they are exhausted; it animates and revives the saddened 

 spirits, it serves as a corrective and antidote in all irregularities of the 

 animal economy, which it preserves from the passing ills to which inor- 

 ganic nature subjects it." 



Wine considered from an alimentary point of view has its chief 

 importance in the union of alcohol with an acid liquid; the acid mod- 

 erates the too energetic action of the alcohol, especially its action on the 

 nervous system. 



The tannin and coloring matter, when present in due proportion, exer- 

 cise a very favorable influence on the stomach by animating the energies 

 of the digestive functions. 



The aroma, the bouquet, the " seve" of a wine are also useful, as many 

 facts tend to prove, among others, the fact that well-flavored substances 

 in general have a favorable influence on nutrition. 



Wine has a density nearly equal to that of water, and is absorbed into 

 our system with much less rapidity than spirits; this fact is of great 

 importance to the animal economy, because the effects of wine are thus 

 felt for a longer time and without the danger accompanying the rapid 

 effects of brandy. 



Wine is absorbed by our digestive organs without any change but 

 that of being mixed with the gastric juice. There is no need of the in- 

 tervention of the digestive ferments to facilitate the absorption of the 

 wine in its last office of nutrition. This explains its utility in certain 

 diseases. 



The complexity of the organic matters that enter into the composition 

 of wine, which up to a certain point resembles that of the human body, 

 explains its restorative action in the case of individuals weakened by 

 anaemia or insufficient nourishment, etc. 



Wine, then, is produced and drunk, and of all fermented beverages it 

 is the most healthful, and the one that most harmonizes with our organ- 

 ism. If nature had gifted man, as it has all other animals, with a surer 

 instinct in the choice of the food that was best suited to his constitution, 

 certainly without any hesitation among the first substances he would 

 have selected wine; however, having a less reliable instinct than he 

 might have, he has allowed himself to be greatly influenced by tradition 

 and imitation in the choice of his beverages. 



