The information supplied by Galen on this subject is most ample, but in too diffuse a shape to suit our narrow limits. Upon the whole, he states, thin wines are diuretic, but supply little nourishment, whereas the thick are proportionally nutritious. He says that the Falernian, especially the sweeter kind, is one of the most wholesome wines. Athenæus gives an interesting account of the Falernian, upon the authority of Galen. He says it is fit to be drank after it is ten years old, and from fifteen to twenty; but that, when older, it occasions headach and affects the nerves. He describes two kinds of it, the sweet and the austere. The latter, he adds, is of a tawny colour, that is to say, a colour intermediate between the white and black. Dr. Henderson concludes, that the modern Madeira is a near approach to the ancient Falernian. Brasavolus and C. Avantius compare it to a wine known in modern Rome by the name of _greco di soma_. Galen gives very minute directions for forcing this wine, or giving it premature age by heat. (De Antid. i, and de Simpl. iv.) Vitruvius, for this purpose, gives directions for building the wine-cellar close to the kitchen. (vi.) Athenæus says, that wine digests the food, and, being of a subtle nature, promotes the distribution of it. We learn from him that the ancients sometimes used their wines cooled with ice. (Deipnos. iii, 99.) He thus describes the different characters of the wines used in his time; that is to say, about the middle of the second century, P. C. Of wines, some are white, some tawny, and some dark coloured. The white is in nature the thinnest, diuretic, and heating, and being digestible it inflames the head, for it is a wine that has a tendency upwards. A dark-coloured wine, which is not of a sweet nature, is very nutritious and astringent. Sweet wines, whether of a white or tawny colour, are very nutritious; for they lubricate the passage, and thickening the humours, prove less troublesome to the head. The nature of sweet wines is to remain for a time in the præcordia, and to prove expectorant, as Diocles and Praxagoras tell. Mnesitheus the Athenian says dark-coloured wine is very nutritious, the white very diuretic and very subtle, and the tawny dry, and of all wines the one that most promotes the digestion of food. Wines carefully prepared with salt water are not of an intoxicating nature, they loosen the belly, occasion pains of the stomach, and produce flatulence, but promote digestion. Such are the Myndian and the Halicarnassian. The Coan is well prepared with salt water; the Rhodian has a less proportion of it; the Cnidian engenders blood, is nutritious, and laxative, but when drunk in large quantities it upsets the stomach; the Lesbian has less astringency and is more diuretic; the Chian is a most delicious wine, and especially the kind called Ariusian; but there are three varieties of it, the austere, the sweet, and the intermediate.—Of the Italian wines,