The history of drink : $b A review, social, scientific, and political

Description

"The pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria" by of Alexandria Hero is a scientific treatise written in the 1st century AD. It sets out the principles and marvels of air, steam, and water pressure through practical devices such as siphons, automata, temple mechanisms, fountains, and the aeolipile, blending theory with hands-on craft. Readers can expect systematic descriptions of experiments and apparatus designed to demonstrate pneumatic laws and to entertain and instruct. The opening of the book you provided presents an 1870s essay that surveys the social, scientific, and political history of intoxicating drinks, with the author positioning it as a concise, popular outline rather than an exhaustive study and acknowledging Morewood’s earlier work. The preface declares a temperance-leaning but “impartial” aim, sketches a global plan from prehistoric traces through ancient China, India, Persia, Hebrews, Egypt, Greece, and Rome to Germany, England, Sweden, and America, and signals later debates on causes, remedies, and legislation. Chapter I disputes the claim that there is no instinct for alcohol, citing children, animals (notably monkeys), natural fermentation, and indigenous intoxicants among “savages” worldwide; it contrasts interior African drunkenness with relative coastal sobriety, labels drunkenness a “savage vice,” and notes prehistoric European lake-dwellers had grapes and cereals implying early fermentation. Chapter II uses Chinese classics to show ritual and social drinking was once widespread (including an imperial edict against excess), while Buddhism later encouraged abstinence among clergy; modern China features rice spirits, “wine clubs,” and some imports, with opium more prevalent and poverty limiting drink. Chapter III details Vedic soma rites that sacralized intoxication (especially with Indra), the later Brahmanic backlash in Manu’s severe penalties, the persistence of many liquors and imports, and a modern India largely temperate except among lower castes and festival saturnalia (arrack, toddy, bhang). Chapter IV outlines Zoroastrian homa, strictures against drunkenness, Persian wine culture ancient and modern despite Islam’s ban, and notes that Bombay Parsees are reputable yet significantly involved in the liquor trade. Chapter V opens a scriptural debate on Hebrew terms for wine, arguing against overreading total-abstinence proof texts. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• Temperance -- History
• Drinking of alcoholic beverages -- History
• HV