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 invention[751]. 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 Grecians[752]. But in the opinion of Von Rohr milk cannot be employed for that purpose[753]. “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 health[754]. 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 commences[755]. 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_.