years 1811 and 1813, I have through the kindness of different friends had ample opportunities of extending my experiments, and to my former list of wines, already copious, a few additions have been made, of which I have from time to time given notice, and which are put down in the following table. It does not seem necessary, in this place, to allude to the experimental details, nor to notice the precautions required in conducting the distillations, as these are fully given in the papers above noticed, I have therefore omitted the column, which will be found in the Philosophical Transactions (1811, page 345.) showing the specific gravity of the distilled liquor, upon which the calculations are founded. Proportion of 26,47 19. Calcavella Proportion of Spirit per cent. by measure. by measure. 1. Lissa 19,20 Ditto 18,10 Average 18,65 2. Raisin wine 26,40 20. Vidonia. 19,25 Ditto 25,77 21. Alba Flora 17,26 Ditto 23,20 22. Malaga 17,26 Average 25,12 23. White Hermitage 17,43 3. Marsala . 26, 3 24. Rousillon 19,00 Ditto 17,26 Average 18,13 4. Madeira. 24,42 25. Claret Ditto 16,32 Ditto (Sercial) Ditto 19,24 Ditto 12,91 Average 5. Currant wine. 20,55 26. Malmsey Madeira. 16,40 6. Sherry Ditto Ditto Ditto 18,79 29. Syracuse 18,25 30. Sauterne 15,28 14,22 Average 19,17 31. Burgundy 16,60 7. Teneriffe 19,79 Ditto 15,22 8. Colares. 14,53 9. Lachryma Christi 11,95 10. Constantia, white 19,75 Average 14,57 18,94 Ditto 13,00 18,94 Ditto (old in cask). 8,88 18,49 Average 12,08 22,30 33. Nice 14,63 18,40 34. Barsac 13,86 20,35 35. Tent 13,30 18,25 36. Champagne (still) 13,80 17. Cape Madeira 22,94 Ditto (sparkling) 12,80 Ditto (red) 12,56 Ditto (ditto) 11,30 Average 12,61 Proportion of by measure. 55. Irish ditto 'Some omissions in the List of Wines given in the last Number will be found rectified in the following Table, exhibiting the average Quantity of Spirit (alcohol) in different kinds of Wine. By W. T. Brande, Esq. Sec. R. S. &c. Proportion of Spirit per cent. by measure. 1. Lissa Ditto 26,47 10. Lachryma Christi These tables are very important, in as much as they show the far more than suspected proportion of ardent spirit, which people take, who are habitually wine drinkers. Thus, a bottle of Madeira, appears from these experiments to contain at least one-fourth of a bottle of the strongest brandy. Now a man who being habitually a grog drinker, and who would take his beverage in the proportion of two or even three parts of water to one of fourth proof brandy, would be accounted very fond of the stimulus: but if three parts of wine be mixed with one part of such brandy, it passes off as a moderate liquor, very fit to make the dinner digest, which grave and sober men have indulged in. Thus verifying the old adage, that one man may more safely steal a horse, than another can look over the hedge! The subject has been taken up by judge Cooper, in another point of view. He experimented on the quantity of acid taken into the stomach by persons who indulged in the daily use of wine: being of opinion as it should seem, that acids were one of the chief causes, though not the only cause of the disease called gout. A disease, which proteus-like, sometimes appears in the form of rheumatism, sometimes of colic, of erysipelas, of phlegmon, of herpes and impetigines, of inflammation of the kidnies, stone and gravel, spasm of the stomach, opthalmia, &c. &c.; and which no quackmedicine is competent to cure, whether it be the compound of bitters called Portland powder, the ginger tea of sir Joseph Banks, the Eau Medicinale of Dr. Husson, the Hellebore of Mr. Moore, or the Colchicum of sir Everard Home. They are all founded in ignorance of the general laws that regulate the physiology and pathology of the human system. The forms of gout are various; and so dissimilar, as to make us hesitate whether we should give a common name to diseases of such heterogeneous appearances. The disease is a diathesis, or constitution that has gradually become morbid; habitually, the consequence of some years of imprudence and indulgence; which sometimes occasions one part and sometimes another to be affected, as the particular part affected is less liable to resist the effect of morbid action. This gouty diathesis, or habitual morbid action producing local irregularities of the circulating fluids, may be relieved by medicine, but can only be cured by regimen; not by a medicine that is to operate as a charm. If a fit of the gout be taken off by the eau medicinale for instance, it is only to reappear with more force at a shorter period than usual. Judge Cooper took up the theory of acidity as one of the primary causes of gout, induced I suppose by his professional habit of considering subjects in a chemical point of view, and the change induced in the chemical nature of the fluids by particular modes of diet: and there is no doubt of his facts; or of his reasoning upon those facts so far as they go. But gout depends, not merely on acid and an acid state of the bodily fluids, which I believe are always present in gouty persons, but also on morbid action of the overloaded and highly stimulated solids; stimulated if you please into morbid action by acid secretions; whereby the blood is irregularly impelled, and local plethora and inflammation, for the most part, excited. Hence a fit of the gout, is in most cases, a salutary effort of nature to relieve the system; and we ought not suddenly to remove it if we could, where it affects a part that puts life in no danger; as the toe or the ankle. In experimenting with wines, judge Cooper took four ounces by measure of the common vinegar used for domestic purposes, and saturated it with the salt of tartar of the shops, till it would no longer change the colour of litmus paper, either blue or red. Four ounces of vinegar required of this salt of tartar to saturate it very good claret, good port wine, Madeira Fayal, Massala from Sicily, 193 grains 19 21 1-3 24 24 25 1-3 25 1-3 Hence upon the average from to part of wine, consists of vinegar of the usual strength with that commonly used at table. This vinegar in wine, consists, partly of acetic acid, and partly of tartaric acid formed or developed during the fermentation of the juice of the grape, and which is contained in far greater quantity in new, than in old wines. Both these acids, appear to be con vertible by the usual processes of digestion and assimilation in the human body, into the lithic and phosphoric acids. The diathesis of gout occasions the lithic acid to be formed in morbid abundance. Hence the chalk stones of the gout, the gravel of the kidnies, and the stone in the bladder. Physicians who are chemists know this. Physicians who are not chemists, and who take for granted that the state and composition of the fluids of the body, have nothing to do with disease, will do well to reconsider their opinions. About a year afterwards, Dr. Anthony Carlisle of London, F. R.S. F.S.A. F.L.S. with half a dozen more titles of honour annexed to his professional name, published an Essay on the disorders incident to old age; in which he takes the same view of the subject as judge Cooper has done: and his experiments are well worth presenting to the reader. TABLE of the Medicinal Alkalis and Earths required to neutralize the Free Acids contained in certain Wines, and Malt Liquors. |