Vine


The fruit of the Vine (Vitis vinifera) has already been treated of

here under the heading Grapes, as employed medicinally whether

for the purgation of the bilious--being then taken crude, and scarcely

ripe,--or for imparting fat and bodily warmth in wasting disease by

eating the luscious and richly-saccharine berries.



It should be added that the fumes exhaled from the wine-presses

whilst the juice is ferm
nting, prove highly beneficial as a

restorative for weakly and delicate young persons (an example

which might be followed perhaps at our home breweries).



Consumptive patients are sent with this view to the Gironde, where

the vapour from the wine vats is more stimulating and curative than

in Burgundy. Young girls who suffer from atrophy are first made to

stand for some hours daily in the sheds when the wine pressing is

going forward. After a while, as they become less weak, they are

directed to jump into the wine press, where, with the vintagers and

labourers they skip about and inhale the fumes of the fermenting

juice, until they sometimes become intoxicated, and even senseless.

This effect passes off after one or two trials, and the girls return to

their labour with renewed strength and heightened colour, hopeful,

joyous, and robust. The [589] vats of the famous Chateau d'yquem

are the most celebrated of all for the wondrous cures they have

effected even in cases considered past human aid.



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