On the Cultivation of the Vine , 
VIII . Uses and Virtues of Wine . 
Wine lias become the most usual beverage of man, and 
is* at the same time, the most varied. Wine is known in 
all climates ; and the attraction of this liquor is so strong, 
that the prohibitory law respecting it, which Mahomet 
imposed on his followers, is daily broken. 
This liquor, besides being a tonic, and strengthened is 
also more or less nutritive : in every point of view, it 
must be salutary. The antients ascribed to it the pro- 
perty of strengthening the understanding. Plato, JEschy- 
lus, and Solomon, all agree in ascribing to it this virtue. 
But no writer has better described the real properties of 
wine than the celebrated Galen, who assigns to each sort 
its peculiar uses, and describes the difference they acquire 
by age, climate, &c. 
Excess in regard to the use of wine has at all times 
called forth the censure of legislators. It was customary 
among the Greeks to prevent intoxication by rubbing their 
temples and forehead with precious ointments and tonics. 
The anecedote of that famous legislator, who, to restrain 
the intemperance of the people, authorized it by an ex- 
press law, is well known $ and we read that Lycurgus 
caused drunken people to be publicly exhibited, in order 
to excite a horror of intoxication in Lacedaemonian youth. 
By a law of Carthage, the use of wine was prohibited in 
the time of war. Plato interdicted it to young persons 
below the age of twenty-two. Aristotle did the same to 
children and nurses. And we are informed by Pal- 
marius that the laws of Rome allowed to priests, or those 
employed in the sacrifices, but three small glasses of wine 
at their repasts. 
But, notwithstanding the wisdom of laws, the hideous 
picture of intemperance, and the fatal consequences with 
which it is attended, the attractions of wine have been so 
powerful among certain nations, that their fondness for it 
