Wine in the different forms of anaemia and atonic gout.

  • Bégin, M.E.
Date:
[1874]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wine in the different forms of anaemia and atonic gout. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    as a means of renovation when the energies of life are exhausted ; it animates and revives the spirits in days of sadness; it corrects and counterbalances the effects of any disturbances in the economy of our nature, and even serves as a preservative against passing troubles, caused by inorganic nature/' But in the employment of wine as a means of restoring the system and defending its organisation against the effects of debility, it is necessary to know what wine to choose, and that it should be used with prudence. It is a law of therapeutics that tannin, which is the basilic element of Peruvian bark, is one of the sovereign agents of restoration, one of the surest elements in tonic action. Serving as an intimate basis to some of the agents of nutrition, and par- ticularly to wine, tannin is not precisely a means of medication, but rather a means of hygiene, none the less precious when it is proved that hygiene is above all a restorer of health. Good wine is, therefore, not the same for all; but it is certain that wane which is the best for every one, is that in the com- position of which there is the greatest proportion of tannin ; that which, with tannin, contains a rela- tively proportioned dose of alcohol; not of additional alcohol produced by factitious means, but of alcohol in suspension, developed by the normal fermentation of the grape. The wines of France are, in the opinion of com sumers and hygienists of all countries, those which, in the whole world, best unite the equitable ad- mixture of acids necessary for reviving the stomach* of natural alcohol from wdiich this organ borrows its