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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We have every reason to suppose that iia ‘entirely unknown to the sacred writers of the old Testament, as no mention of it is any where to be found among them: and we cannot doubt that it would have been referred to had any such pro- cess been in vogue during the period at which these works were written. It has been asserted by some that the use of the still was partially known in our Lord’s time, as, say they, he alluded to the distillation of herbs for medicinal purposes, when he employed, in Matthew vi. 50, the word amtar, Speaking of the grass of the field ‘ which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven,? or according to others it should be translated ‘into the still? But this idea seems rather fan- ciful, as there is nothing in any other author to corroborate it.* : The most ancient physicians, whose writings have descended to us, seem entirely ignorant of the mode of extracting any of the essential oils by steam or vapor. | In the works of Hippocrates, who flourished 400 years before the Christian era, not a single word can be found which would in- duce us to think that an alembic or retort had been used by him for medicinal or any other pur- poses. Although the ancients were thus ignorant of the mode of obtaining by distillation a liquor of a stronger intoxicating power than their wines, yet they contrived to add somewhat to the strength of the latter by other means. In order to increase the inebriating effect of wine, as well as to im- * Morewood’s Essay, p, 11.