Vine

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 fermenting, 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 laborers 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 labor with renewed strength and heightened color, hopeful, joyous, and robust. The 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.