WINE. 
cohol. Cote Rotie or Verinay resembles white 
Hermitage in colour and flavour, but does not 
contain quite 13 per cent. of alcohol. Frontignac 
has a light colour, a luscious taste, and a grape 
flavour, and contains 12°79 per cent. of alcohol. 
Lunel or Clos-Mazet has a bright yellow colour, 
and is less luscious than Frontignac, and contains 
15°52 per cent. of alcohol. Red Rousillon, in all 
its principal varieties, has great body and colour, 
and becomes tawny when old, and contains 18°13 
per cent. of alcohol. Among other French wines 
may be mentioned white Rousillon, of a bright 
golden colour, a fragrant aroma, and a quince 
flavour; Clarette of Die, of light colour and cha- 
racter, sparkling, and delicate; Seyssuel, of a 
light colour and violet perfume; Cornas, of full 
rich red colour, and of the flavour of ratafia; Vin 
de Cotillon, of violet colour and sprightly cha- 
racter: and Tavel, Chuzlan, and Beaucaire, of 
bright rose colour, and of delicate flavour and 
aroma, 
The far-famed Tokay wine is produced near 
the town of Tokay in Hungary ; but is now scarce 
and dear in Britain, very seldom used, and diffi- 
cult to be got genuine at any price. It is much 
more fit for a cordial than for a beverage. It is 
rich, luscious, and of exquisite aroma; and has 
a brownish-yellow colour when new, and a green- 
ish colour when old; and contains only 9:88 per 
cent. of alcohol. A kind called Tokay Essence 
is syrupy, thick, and muddy. Another Hunga- 
rian wine, called Menser, resembles Tokay and is 
sweet; and a fourth kind, called Ansbruck, is 
thinner and more vinous. 
The Vino Santo of Cyprus has a pale straw 
colour and a sweet taste. The Rithymo or wine 
of Candia is a fine flavoured white wine. The 
red wine of Ithaca has a flavour similar to Her- 
mitage. The wine of Tenos is sweet and luscious. 
The white Muscadine of Smyrna is also sweet and 
luscious; and the red Muscadine of Tenedos re- 
sembles Tokay. The modern wines of Greece 
and the Levant, in general, are comparatively 
poor; though the ancient wines of these regions 
were rich and diversified,—and though, so late 
as the times of the Venetian Republic, Cyprus 
and Candia alone supplied all Europe with the 
choicest dessert wines. : 
The grape wine of England resembles Rhenish, 
and contains, according to Brande, 18°11 per cent. 
of alcohol. Our raisin wine is diversified, and 
contains, on the average, about 25°12 per cent. 
Our currant wine is still more diversified, and 
contains about 20°5 per cent. Our gooseberry 
wine has a briskness similar to that of Cham- 
pagne, and contains 11°84 per cent. Our elder 
wine is thick and narcotic, and contains 9°87 per 
cent. Our orange wine is sweet and luscious, 
and has a flavour similar to that of raw oranges, 
and contains 11:26 percent. And our apple and 
pear wines are simply cider and perry, and con- 
tain respectively 9°87 and 7°26 per cent. 
IV. 
dence of the greatest benefit, 
“ Wine when good, and of a proper age,” says Dr. 
Anthony Todd Thomson, “is cordial and tonic; 
but when new, it is flatulent, debilitating, and 
purgative, and intoxicates sooner than old wine. 
In a dietetical point of view, the temperate use 
of wine promotes digestion, and gives additional 
energy to the action of the heart and arteries, 
strengthens the animal functions, exhilarates the 
spirits, sharpens the wit, and calls into action all 
the intellectual powers. But when taken in ex- 
cess, it intoxicates, producing sickness, headach, 
vertigo, and diarrhoea, with nervous tremors, 
which continue for two or three days; and, 
like ardent spirit, its habitual excessive use ex- 
tinguishes the faculties of both body and mind, 
producing dyspepsia, emaciation, and debility, 
hepatic and pulmonary inflammation, palsy, gout, 
dropsy, delirium, tremors, and a long train of 
diseases and wretchedness. We nevertheless hear 
of very extraordinary quantities of wine being 
drunk with impunity by some individuals. I 
knew a man who had not retired sober to bed 
for twenty years; and yet lived to upwards of 
eighty years of age. Drunkenness, however, is 
the vice of barbarians; and, as nations merge 
from that state, it evidently becomes less preva- 
lent. In Britain it is now happily confined to 
the dregs of the people. As a remedy, wine is 
stimulant, antiseptic, tonic, and anti-spasmodic. 
Its stimulating properties are less diffusible, but 
more permanent, than alcohol; and thence its 
dose is more easily regulated, and its effects are 
more certain. In all diseases accompanied with 
much debility, as typhoid fevers, and in cases of 
extensive ulceration or gangrene, wine is not 
only the best addition to cinchona bark and 
opium, but is a remedy on which alone there is 
much reliance; in some convulsive affections, as 
symptomatic tetanus, and chorea, much benefit 
has been derived from its use; and in the con- 
valescences from all severe diseases, it is the most 
efficacious and the quickest mean we can employ 
for restoring the exhausted strength and vigour. 
Wine operates less powerfully on the system in a 
state of disease than in health; the quantity, 
however, to be given, and the proper period of 
exhibiting it, require to be regulated with much 
judgment. The skin being open, and not dry or 
hot, the strength sinking, and the ulcerations, if 
any exist, assuming a gangrenous appearance, in- 
dicate the use of wine; and when, in the event 
of the pulse being low and fluttering, wine re- 
stores its firmness without increasing delirium, 
and induces sleep, it may be given with a confi- 
But if, on the con- 
trary, it renders the pulse quicker, increases heat, 
thirst, delirium, or watchfulness, its exhibition 
ought immediately to be discontinued. The quan- 
tity to be given depends entirely on the nature 
of the disease, and the intentions for which it is 
administered. In typhus, the proper rule is to 
give it till the pulse fills, the delirium abates, 
The Dietetical and Medicinal Uses of Wine.— | 
and the extremities warm; and it should be re- 
3A 
