The times., 1898-11-20
TIPS FOR T1pPLERs.
How the Ancients Used to Mix Their
Drinks.

Drinks.
(From the London Standard)
An interesting little monograph on In
ebriety Among the Ancients" has been is
sued from the Aberdeen University Press
by Mr.. w. l.. Brown. He traces it's prog
ress. and though he adds to his title
''and how they cured it," he shows us
that their specifics were far from success
full. The evil is no novelty. Was not the
Patriarch Noah its victim soon after the
Deluge? But. if We can restrict ourselves
to secular history, we can trace the use
of wine. and with 1t the ABUSE to Il very
early period. When the Akkadians set
boundaries to their lands they brought
forth the god of corn and wine. a SIM
liar deity was worshiped In Egypt in
very ancient days. The Phoenicians had
their divinity of drink, who was decorated
with ears of wheat and clusters of grapes.
The wanderings of the Greek Dlonysus or
the Latin Bacchus. the revels of his fol-
lowers and the penalties they inflicted on
the Good Templars of their day are IA
miliar to all those who read their clas-
sizes at school A similar divinity was
worshiped in distant Japan and among
the Indians of the Rocky Mountains IN
olden times Norsemen, Teutons and
Flemings We're mighty drinkers. even If
the Scandinavians had no representative
of the joyial god. Not only the use of
fermented liquors, but also the habit of
drinking to excess, can plead in their de-
fense antiquity and something approach
ing to universally. Where the grape
would not grow some kind of beer was
brewed, and If corn was not TO be got
another substitute was generally found.
Even the negro in Central Africa has
contrved the wherewithal to make him
ban &c
sometimes no less true than drunk as a
lord used to be in England. But to look
on the wine when 1t is red entailed the
same natural penalties in olden times as
in later days. Hot coppers'' were known
to Horace and his friends well as to
the reveler of today, and the doctor in
ancient Rome was sometimes confronted
with the problem of alcoholic poisoning.
In these times. however, so far as We can
learn. men get intoxicated in company
for festivity and good fellowship. The
secret drinker was then a rarity almost
unknown. But he is far the most hope
less case. Our great-grandfathers, who
led active lives, and now and then got
royalty drunk, do not seem to have been
much the worse for their bouts. The
points to which the faculty of the period
directed their attention was to prevent
the wine getting into the patients head
and to assuage his subsequent sufferings.
Ancient Greeks and Romans, as is well
known. almost invariably mixed their
wine with fresh water, but sometimes also
with that from the seattle latter being
supposed to promote digestion and to
keep the wine from mounting upward.
Mr.. Brown thinks II possible that salt
may have the effect not of promoting
thirst. and so encouraging drinking. but
of modifying the action of alcohol. For
this purpose also vinegar and other acids
We're administered-even a crabapple
was supposed to be beneficial. Bltters
also, of many kinds We're used, so that
gin and bitters" may claim the sanction
of antiquity. Rue was another important
specific. at any rate as far back as the
days of Pliny, and a number of vegetable
extracts and oils were in favor as rene
dies for next mornings headache. The
last-named author even goes so far as to
make water an antidote for overmuch
wine. He was, in fact, an embryonic
temperance lecturer who had not yet thor
Oughly mastered his subject. All these
medicaments, however, were admittedly
failures, and those which were meant as
deterrents were too repulsive to be often
adopted. The penal cure was, indeed,
tried by some ardent and despotic reform
ers, but failed like the other methods of
treatment There is, in fact. only one
cure for over-drinkins-to give 1t up.