“The characteristic ingredient of all wines is _alcohol_, and the quantity of this, and the condition or state of combination in which it exists, are the circumstances that include all the interesting and disputed points of medical inquiry. Daily experience convinces us that the same quantity of alcohol, applied to the stomach under the form of natural wine, and in a state of mixture with water, will produce very different effects upon the body, and to an extent which it is difficult to comprehend: it has, for instance, been demonstrated that Port, Madeira, and Sherry contain from one-fourth to one-fifth of their bulk of alcohol, so that a person who takes a bottle of either of them, will thus take nearly half a pint of alcohol, or almost a pint of pure brandy! and moreover, that different wines, although of the same specific gravity, and consequently containing the same absolute proportion of spirit, will be found to vary very considerably in their intoxicating powers; no wonder, then, that such results should stagger the philosopher, who is naturally unwilling to accept any tests of difference from the nervous system, which elude the ordinary resources of analytical chemistry; the conclusion was therefore drawn, that alcohol must necessarily exist in wine, in a far different condition from that in which we know it in a separate state, or, in other words, that its elements only could exist in the vinous liquor, and that their union was determined, and, consequently, alcohol produced by the action of distillation. That it was _product_ and not the _educt_ of distillation, was an opinion which originated with Rouelle, who asserted that alcohol was not completely formed until the temperature was raised to the point of distillation: more lately, the same doctrine was revived and promulgated by Fabbronni, in the memoirs of the Florentine Academy. Gay-Lussac has, however, silenced the clamorous partisans of this theory, by separating the alcohol by distillation at the temperature of 66° Fah., and by the aid of a vacuum, it has since been effected at 56°; besides, it has been shown that by precipitating the colouring matter, and some of the other elements of the wine, by _sub-acetate_ of _lead_, and then saturating the clear liquor with _sub-carbonate_ of _potass_, the alcohol may be completely separated without any elevation of temperature; and by this ingenious expedient, Mr. Brande has been enabled to construct a table, exhibiting the proportions of combined alcohol which exist in the several kinds of wine: no doubt, therefore, can remain upon this subject, and the fact of the difference of the effect, produced by the same bulk of alcohol, when presented to the stomach in different states of combination, adds another striking and instructive illustration to those already enumerated in the course of this work, of the extraordinary powers of chemical combination in modifying the activity of substances upon the living system.