A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)
TekstADULTERATION OF WINE
No adulteration of any article has ever been invented so pernicious to the health, and at the same time so much practised, as that of wine with preparations of lead; and as the inventor must have been acquainted with its destructive effects, he deserves, for making it known, severer execration than Berthold Schwartz, the supposed inventor of gunpowder.
The juice of the grape, when expressed, undergoes what is termed vinous fermentation and so becomes converted into wine, but very soon, if great care be not taken, it passes into a different kind of fermentation, called the acetic; its spirit then becomes changed into an acid, which renders it unfit to be drunk, and of much less utility. The progress of the fermentation may be stopped by care and attention; but to bring the liquor back to its former state is impossible. Ingenuity, however, has invented a fraudulent method of rendering the acid in spoilt wine imperceptible; so that those who are not judges are often imposed on, and purchase sweetened vinegar instead of wine. Were no other articles used for sweetening it than honey or sugar, the adulterator would deserve no severer punishment than those who sell pinchbeck for gold; but saccharine juices can be used only when the liquor begins to turn sour; and even then in very small quantities, else it would betray the imposition by its sweetish-sour taste, and hasten that change which it is intended to prevent. A sweetener therefore, has been invented much surer for the fraudulent dealer, but infinitely more destructive to the consumer; and those who employ it, undoubtedly, merit the same punishment as the most infamous poisoners.
Lead and its oxide or carbonate, dissolved in the acid which spoils wine, give it a saccharine taste not unpleasant, without any new, or at least perceptible tint, and arrest the progress of the acid fermentation. The wine, however, occasions, according as it is used in a great or small quantity, and according to the constitution of the consumer, a speedy or lingering death, violent colics, obstructions and other maladies; so that one may justly doubt whether, at present, Mars, Venus, or Saturn is most destructive to the human race.
The ancients, in my opinion, knew that lead rendered harsh wine milder, and preserved it from acidity, without being aware that it was poisonous. It was therefore long used with confidence; and when its effects were discovered they were not ascribed to the metal, but to some other cause. When more accurate observation, in modern times, fully established the noxious property of lead, and when it began to be dreaded in wine, unprincipled dealers invented an artful method of employing it, which the law, by the severest punishment, was not able wholly to prevent.
The Greeks and the Romans were accustomed to boil their wine over a slow fire, till only a half, third, or fourth part remained, and to mix it with bad wine in order to improve it. When, by this operation, it had lost part of its watery particles, and had been mixed with honey and spices, it acquired several names, such as mustum, mulsum, sapa, carenum, or caroenum, defrutum716, &c. Even at present the same method is pursued with sack, Spanish, Hungarian, and Italian wines. In Italy, new wine, which has been thus boiled, is put into flasks, and used for salad and sauces. In Naples it is called musto cotto; but in Florence it still retains the name of sapa. Most of those authors who have described this method of boiling wine expressly say that leaden or tin vessels must be employed; because the wine, by these, is rendered more delicious and durable, as well as clearer. It is, however, certain that must and sour wine by slow boiling, for according to their directions it should not be boiled quickly, must dissolve part of these dangerous metals, otherwise the desired effect could not be produced717. Some also were accustomed to add to their wine, before it was boiled, a certain quantity of sea water, which by its saline particles would necessarily accelerate the solution718.
That the acid of wine has the power of dissolving lead was not unknown to the ancients; for when the Greek and Roman wine-merchants wished to try whether their wine was spoiled, they immersed in it a plate of lead719. If the colour of the lead was changed, which undoubtedly would be the case when its surface was corroded, they concluded that their wine was spoiled. It cannot, however, be said that they were altogether ignorant of the dangerous effects of solutions of that metal; for Galen and other physicians often give cautions respecting white lead. Notwithstanding this, men fell upon the invention of conveying water for culinary purposes in leaden pipes720; and even at present at London, Amsterdam, Paris, and other places water is conveyed through lead, and collected in leaden cisterns, though that practice has, on several occasions, been attended with alarming consequences721. This negligence in modern times makes us not be surprised when we read that the ancients employed leaden vessels. It appears, however, that it was not merely through negligence that this practice prevailed. They were acquainted, and particularly in Pliny’s time, with various processes used in regard to wine722; and among these was that of boiling it with lime or gypsum723; and the ancient physicians, who had not the assistance of our modern chemistry, thought it more probable that their wine was rendered noxious by the addition of these earths724, than by the vessels in which it was boiled; and they were the more inclined to this opinion, as they had instances of the fatal effects produced by the use of them725. They decried them, therefore, so much, that laws were afterwards made by which they were forbidden to be used, as poisonous and destructive to the human body.
Wine which has once begun to spoil cannot be perfectly restored by lime; for it cannot bring back to it the spirituous part which it has lost, neither can it remove the acid with which it is incorporated; but it can render it imperceptible to the tongue by uniting with it, and forming an earthy salt of an almost insipid taste. This method of improving sour wine is still practised in the island of Zante726, in Spain727, on the coast of Africa728, and in many other countries. It is, however, condemned by several physicians and chemists; because obstructions and other bad effects are to be apprehended from it. Some, on the contrary, consider it as harmless729; and I must confess that I should expect no bad consequences from such a small quantity of lime as would be necessary for that purpose. It will produce a salt which will have the same effects as that tartareous crust called wine-stone, and will act as a laxative, like the salts which our apothecaries prepare from that calcareous stone crab’s-eyes, by means of vinegar or lemon-juice. The lime, which the acid of the wine cannot dissolve, will fall to the bottom as a sediment, and assist to clarify the wine. Used however in too great quantity, it may hasten the destruction of the still remaining spirituous part, and render the wine weak; a caution which has been given to wine-merchants by Neumann.
Gypsum is a compound of sulphuric acid with lime, and were it always pure, its effects upon wine would be imperceptible; but as the most kinds of common gypsum contain abundance of carbonate of lime, they effervesce with acids, are dissolved in part by them, and form that salt which I have before said I consider as harmless. By means of this carbonate gypsum improves sour wine, as well as common wine. I took half an ounce of that gypsum which at Osterode is pounded and used as mortar, and which is hard, white, and shining, and almost of the nature of alabaster. When I had pounded it, I put it into strong vinegar in a glass vessel, and suffered it to boil for a few minutes. I then strained it through filtering-paper; and what remained, after it was washed and dried, weighed 215 grains; so that the vinegar had dissolved 25 grains, which were precipitated afterwards by carbonated alkali. I pursued the like process with half an ounce of burnt gypsum, such as is used here for floors; and I found that two ounces of the same vinegar dissolved half a drachm of it, which was somewhat more in proportion than of the former. Every one whom I caused to taste of this vinegar remarked that both had lost a considerable share of their acidity; but that the vinegar which had been boiled with burnt gypsum had lost the most. Few kinds of native gypsum are perfectly pure; and at any rate we have no reason to suppose that the ancients sought pure gypsum for their wines. This method is not yet disused. We are told by Arvieux, that it is still employed in the island of Milo; and I shall here take occasion to observe that salt water also is added to wine there, even at present. Christopher Vega, whom I have before quoted, reproaches the Spaniards with the use of gypsum; and it has been condemned by the modern as well as the ancient physicians. An Englishman of the name of Hardy seems to suspect that gypsum contains lead and arsenical earth730; but it appears that this writer doubted whether our gypsum be the same as that of the ancients; and indeed it is necessary, before we use their information respecting natural objects, to examine carefully whether they understood by any name what we understand by it; and what they meant by gypsum has been determined neither by Stephanus, Ferber, nor Gesner. We however know this much, that the ancients burnt their gypsum, and that they formed and cast images of it731. In my opinion wine cannot be poisoned by gypsum; and wine-merchants who employ it and lime deserve no severer punishment than brewers, who, in the like manner, render sour beer fitter to be drunk and more saleable.
That the ancients were accustomed to clarify their wine with gypsum, is proved by different passages of the Greek writers on husbandry. They threw gypsum into their new wine; stirred it often round, then let it stand for some time, and, when it had settled, poured off the clear liquor732. It would, however, appear that they had remarked that gypsum caused the spirituous part to disappear; for we read that the wine acquired by it a certain sharpness which it afterwards lost, but that the good effects of the gypsum were lasting733. This process in modern times has been publicly forbidden, in many countries, as it was in Spain in the year 1348.
Calcined shells were in ancient times used instead of lime734. Potters-earth was also thrown into wine, in order to clarify it by carrying the muddy particles with it to the bottom. This method I have seen employed in the breweries at Amsterdam, to purify the water. In the south of France it is used for clarifying wine-stone ley; and in my opinion it might be useful on many other occasions735.
The ancients poisoned their wine with lead without knowing it; but at what period did that pernicious practice begin of employing sugar of lead and litharge? Litharge was not unknown to the ancients; for it is mentioned by Dioscorides, Aëtius, and others. Sugar of lead is, indeed, more modern; but I have found no information respecting the invention of it, except that it was known to Paracelsus, who died in 1541, and who ventured to prescribe it for some disorders. It was known also to Angelus Sala, one of the most ingenious of the early chemists. In the Roman laws no particular orders occur against the adulteration or poisoning of wine; for what we read in the Institutiones736 is applicable only to the spoiling of another person’s wine, and thereby occasioning a loss to him; and this explanation is confirmed by the Digesta737. The German prohibitions against the adulteration of wine began in the fifteenth century, and were from time to time renewed with additional severity. In that century, we find complaints against this practice with lime, sulphur, and milk; but no instance occurs of the poisoning with lead. I however conjecture that the use of litharge was introduced in the twelfth or thirteenth century; but the framers of the laws were not acquainted with the real poison; and instead of causing it to be examined by the chemists, who it must be confessed had not advanced far in their art, they contented themselves with prohibiting the use of those things which they found considered by the ancients as dangerous.
Among the oldest German prohibitions against the adulteration of wine is that of Nuremberg in the year 1409; in which however there is no notice taken of litharge. Another of the year 1475 is mentioned by Datt738; but some Imperial ones of an earlier period may have been lost739. In the year 1487 the emperor caused an order against the adulteration of wine to be published by the governments in Swabia, Franconia and Alsace; and this practice was a subject of deliberation at the diet of Rothenburg the same year, and also at the diet of Worms, under Maximilian I., in 1495. At the diet of Lindau the use of sulphur was in particular prohibited, and also at Freyburg in Brisgau in 1498. In the year 1500 the same affair was discussed at Augsburg, and again at that city in 1548, under Charles V. It appears that this business was left afterwards to the care of the different princes, who from time to time issued prohibitions against so destructive a fraud.
Older and severer prohibitions are however to be found in other countries. By an order of William count of Hennegau, Holland and Zeeland, of the year 1327, we find that long before that period it was customary to adulterate wine with noxious and dangerous substances. In the year 1384 the government at Brussels issued a severer order of the like kind, in which vitriol, quicksilver and lapis calaminaris are mentioned740. In France we find an old ordonnance du prevôt de Paris, for the same purpose, dated September the 20th and December the 2nd, 1371, in which no minerals are mentioned; but in that of 1696 litharge is particularly noticed741.
Conrade Celtes, who in the year 1491 was first crowned in Germany as a poet, gives in his panegyric on Nuremberg some information respecting the adulteration of wine, from which we learn that he considered it as a new invention, and ascribed it to a monk called Martin Bayr; but his expressions are so figurative, that little can be gathered from them742. We are however told by Zeller, that it was believed that this dangerous fraud was invented in France743. Martin Zeiler, in his Chronicle of Swabia (p. 65), says, “In the year 1453, the citizens of Augsburg began to observe this fraud in the wine-market; for during four years before, Martin Bayr, at Schwarzen-Eychen in Franconia, first taught the German tavern-keepers and the waggoners to preserve new wine from becoming sour; to clarify wine by sulphur; and likewise to counterfeit it by spices, to the great prejudice of people’s health.” In this passage there is no mention of litharge, but of other mixtures. The oldest account of the poisonous sweetening of wine is that which occurs in the French ordinance of 1696744; and Zeller’s conjecture that it was invented or first remarked in France, seems to me the more probable, as it appears that it was practised at Wurtemberg about the same period. In the year 1697 it was known there that some wine-merchants, particularly Hans George Staltser at Goppingen, used litharge for refining wine, and by these means deprived many persons of life, and occasioned the loss of health to others. Staltser pleaded in excuse, that he considered the process he had employed as harmless, and that Masskosky, physician to the town of Goppingen, who was accounted a man of knowledge, had employed the same for his wine. Brugel also, physician to the town of Heidenheim, had declared that litharge was not prejudicial; and as he was a person of reputation, his opinion had tended not a little to establish the use of that practice. This report was so hurtful to the wine-trade of Wurtemberg, which at that time brought a great deal of money into the duchy from other countries, that the wine at Ulm remained unsold; and duke Everhard Louis was obliged to cause experiments to be made to ascertain the nature of the substances mixed with it. Solomon Keysel, the duke’s physician, and J. Gaspar Harlin, physician to the court, both declared that litharge was noxious, but that sulphur besprinkled with bismuth was still more so. They strongly advised, therefore, that both these substances should be forbidden to be used, under the heaviest penalties; and this prohibition was put in force with the greater severity as some persons of the first rank had for several years before caused their spoiled and sour wine to be made sweet and clear in this manner by a weaver of Pforzheim, who resided at Stutgart. An order was issued on the 10th of May 1697, forbidding this adulteration under pain of death and confiscation of property, as well as of being declared infamous; and the duke requested the neighbouring states, particularly Bavaria and Eychstat, to keep a more watchful eye over their wine-merchants and waggoners, by which means it was supposed all danger would be avoided.
In the following year, the city of Ulm discovered a poor man at Giengen, within its own jurisdiction, who had sweetened with litharge some sour wine purchased at Wurtemberg. He was accordingly banished from the country; and several other persons in the duchy were condemned to labour at the fortifications. This example was attended with so good an effect, that for some time adulteration was not heard of; but eight years after, John Jacob Ehrni of Eslingen introduced that practice again with some variation, and not only employed it himself, but induced others to follow it in several other places. Greater severity was at length exercised. Ehrni was beheaded; the possessors of adulterated wine were fined, and the wine was thrown away. After this second example, which was followed in other parts of the country, the art of adulterating wine seems to have been more carefully concealed, or to have been entirely abandoned. But in the present century treatises have been published on the management of wine, in which the art of improving it by litharge has been taught, as a method perfectly free from danger745.
For detecting metal in wine, the arsenical liver of sulphur is commonly employed; a solution of which is called liquor probatorius Wurtembergicus746. This appellation, in my opinion, has been given to it because it was first applied for that purpose by a public order in the duchy of Wurtemberg; though the invention is ascribed to one of the duke’s physicians747. The use of it however is not attended with certainty, because it precipitates several metals black without distinction, and lead is not the only one that we have reason to suspect in wine.
The operation of fumigating wine with sulphur is performed by kindling rags of linen dipped in melted brimstone, and suffering the vapour to enter a cask filled, or partly filled, with that liquor. I do not know at what period this process was invented; but it is worthy of remark, that we are told by Pliny748, that in his time some employed sulphur in the preparation of wine. On this subject he quotes Cato; but the passage to which he alludes is not to be found in the works of that author handed down to us; and the method in which it was really used is consequently unknown. Reason and experience show that the vapour of sulphur stops the fermentation so hurtful to wine, and prevents it from spoiling; and many writers on the management of wine allow the free use of it for that purpose749. It can certainly do no injury to the health; and it was not necessary for the police in different countries to distribute prescriptions for employing it, to forbid it, or to limit the quantity750.
Some wine-dealers are accustomed to sprinkle over with bismuth the rags dipped in sulphur used for fumigating wine, and this addition is a German invention751. It has been severely forbidden by express laws; and there are undoubtedly sufficient grounds for its being reprobated. At any rate this metallic addition is of no use in any point of view, as the most experienced dealers in wine have long since acknowledged.
In an old Imperial ordinance, milk also is mentioned as an article used in the adulterating of wine. This method was known to and practised by the ancient Grecians752. But in the opinion of Von Rohr milk cannot be employed for that purpose753. “One can scarcely comprehend,” says he, “how the framers of laws should ever imagine that a wine-dealer would be so simple as to adulterate wine with milk; and those who do so, deserve not to be punished for their folly. As they will find no purchasers to wine adulterated by so strange a mixture, that punishment will be sufficient.” The effects of milk however may be easily comprehended. It causes the wine to throw up a scum, which carries with it every impurity; and this being taken off along with it, the wine must of course be rendered much clearer. However, though this mixture cannot be called an adulteration, it is certain that wine may be refined much better by isinglass, and that method is followed at present.
I shall observe in the last place, that in the year 1472, Stum-wine, as it is called, was prohibited as a bad liquor prejudicial to the health754. By this term is understood wine, the fermentation of which has been checked, and which on that account continues sweet; seldom becomes clear; and, even when it clarifies, turns muddy when exposed to the air, because the fermentation, which has been stopped, again commences755. Wines of this kind are allowed at present. They are called vina muta or suffocata, and have a great resemblance to a sort of wine made principally at Bordeaux, to which the French give the name of vin en rage.
[In no country of the world has the adulteration and brewing of wines attained to such a pitch of perfection as in this “tight little island.” So impudently and notoriously are these frauds practised, and so boldly are they avowed, that there are books published called ‘Publican’s Guides’ and ‘Licensed Victuallers’ Directors,’ in which the most infamous receipts imaginable are laid down to swindle their customers756. One of these recommends port wine to be manufactured, after sulphuring a cask, with twelve gallons of strong port; six of rectified spirit; three of cognac brandy; forty-two of fine rough cider; making sixty-three gallons, which cost about eighteen shillings a dozen. Another receipt is forty-five gallons of cider; six of brandy; eight of port wine; two gallons of sloes stewed in two gallons of water, and the liquor pressed off. If the colour is not good, tincture of red sanders or cudbear is directed to be added. This may be bottled in a few days, and a tea-spoonful of powder of catechu being added to each, a fine crusted appearance on the bottles will quickly follow. The ends of the corks being soaked in a strong decoction of brazil-wood and a little alum, will complete this interesting process, and give them the appearance of age. Oak-bark, elder, brazil-wood, privet, beet, turnsole, are all used in making fictitious port wine.
The wines of Madeira are in like manner adulterated or wholly manufactured in England, which from these devices may justly claim the title of a universal wine country, where every species is made if it be not grown. The basis of the adulteration of madeira is vidonia, mingled with a little port, mountain, and cape, sugar-candy and bitter-almonds, and the colour made lighter or deepened to the proper shade, as the case may require. Even vidonia itself is adulterated with cider, rum, and carbonate of soda to correct acidity. Bucellas, cape, in short every species of wine that it is worth while to imitate, is adulterated or manufactured in this country with cheaper substances. Common Sicilian wine has been metamorphosed so as to pass for tokay and lachryma christi; even cape wine itself has been imitated by liquids, if possible inferior to the genuine article.
Gooseberry wine is often passed off for champagne; the very bottles are bought up for the purpose of filling with gooseberry wine, and are then corked to resemble champagne. It has also been made from white and raw sugar, citric or tartaric acid, water, home-made grape wine or perry and French brandy – cochineal or strawberries have been added to imitate the pink. In fact vegetation has been exhausted, and the bowels of the earth ransacked to supply trash for this most vicious practice.
Redding observes, in his valuable and most interesting work on the History and Description of Modern Wines, that the clumsy attempts at wine-brewing made a century ago would be scorned by a modern adept. It is said that when George the Fourth was in the “high and palmy” days of early dissipation, he possessed a very small quantity of remarkably choice and scarce wine. The gentlemen of his suite, whose taste was hardly second to their master’s, finding it had not been demanded, thought it was forgotten, and, relishing its virtues, exhausted it almost to the last bottle, when they were surprised by the unexpected command that the wine should be forthcoming at an entertainment on the following day. Consternation was visible on their faces; a hope of escaping discovery hardly existed, when one of them, as a last resource, went off in haste to a noted wine-brewer in the city, numbered among his acquaintance, and related his dilemma. “Have you any of the wine left for a specimen?” said the adept; “O yes, there are a couple of bottles.” “Well then, send me one, and I will forward the necessary quantity in time; only tell me the latest moment it can be received, for it must be drunk immediately.” The wine was sent, the deception answered; the princely hilarity was disturbed by no discovery of the fictitious potation, and the manufacturer was thought a very clever fellow by his friends. What would Sir Richard Steele have said to so neat an imitation, when in his day he complains that sinister fabrications were coarsely managed with sloe-juice? the science of adulteration must then have been in its infancy.]