S02 
On Wine . 
nervous irritation, and muscular debility are induced by excess in 
spiritous, liquors there can be no doubt ; and whether this quantity 
be excess or not, may fairly be left to the unbiassed judgment of the 
reader. 
The preceding remarks are sufficiently obvious to every 
body, but the following additional observations, I owe to your- 
self. 
The liquid that the alcohol is combined with in wine, is not 
Hear so innocent as water : it is literally in the very best wines, 
Madeira for instance, Vinegar. Wine is vinegar, holding in so- 
lution, alcohol, sugar, mucilage, and vegetable gelatine. 
Every man who drinks a bottle of prime London particular 
Madeira wine, drinks a bottle of vinegar mixt with brandy. It 
is the same with Sherry, Marsala, Teneriffe, Lisbon; with Port, 
Claret, Burgundy, and Champain. I have tried them all. 
All wines are made from the fermented expressed juice of the 
grape: and so is all vinegar. The fermentation is pushed a little 
further in vinegar than in wine, but the difference is only more 
and less acid : time and access of air, destroys this difference al- 
together, and converts wine into vinegar. 
Now for the proof of this. 
For the purpose of ascertaining the minutest portion of acid 
in any liquor, the chemist relies implicitly on pajier or cloth dip- 
ped in the juice of litmus, or in the juice of red cabbage. The 
lichen or moss from whence litmus is made, is infused in water 
to which a very small quantity of a solution of pearl-ash is added, 
just sufficient to make the tinge rather blue than red. 
Or, water is added to the red part of the skin of the stalks of 
red cabbage, and a small quantity of solution of pearl-ash is added, 
just sufficient and no more, to produce a blue tinge. This blue 
tinge is discharged by all acids ; and a red colour produced, that 
encreases in intensity according to the strength of the acid, of 
which it is made the test. 
Upon a piece of muslin or white paper thus tinged blue, drop 
one drop of common vinegar ; at some distance, drop one drop 
of good wine of any kind ; then (at some distance) one drop of 
good cogniac brandy; then one drop of Spanish brandy; then one 
drop of peach or apple brandy ; then one drop of good rye whisky. 
The vinegar will give the strongest red tinge — the wine, the next 
in depth of colour — then the Spanish, apple, and peach brandies— 
then the cogniac will be still weaker— and the rye whisky if gObd, 
