Temperance prize essays / By Drs. Mussey and Lindsly.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Temperance prize essays / By Drs. Mussey and Lindsly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was more recently revived and promulgated by Fabbroni in the memoirs of the Florentine aca- demy. Gay Lussac however has refuted this opinion by separating the alcohol by distillation at the temperature of 66 degrees Fahrenheit, and~ by the aid of a vacuum it has since been effected at 56 degrees, and besides it has been shown by precipitating the coloring water and some of the other elements of wine by sub-acetate of lead, and then saturating the clear liquor with sub-car- bonate of potass, that the alcohol may be com- pletely separated without any elevation of tem- perature, and in this way Mr. Brande has been enabled to construct a table exhibiting the pro- portions of combined alcohol which exist in the several kinds of wine. No reasonable doubt therefore can remain upon this subject, and the difference in the effect of the same quantity of alcohol upon the human system in various states of combination is owing to the unintelligible power of chemical combination in modifying the activity of different substances. ‘In the present instance the alcohol is so combined with the extractive matter of the wine that it is probably incapable of exerting its full specific effects upon the stomach before it becomes altered in its properties, or, in other words, digested; and this view of the subject may be fairly urged in explanation of the reason why the intoxicating effects of the same wine are so liable to vary in degree in the same - individual, from the peculiar state of his digestive organs at the time of his potation. Hitherto we have only spoken of pure wine, but it is essential to state that the stronger wines of Spain, Portu-