Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1876 — History of Alcohol [ARTICLE]

History of Alcohol

Alcohol was invented 950 years ago, in Arabia. Ladies used it with a powder to paint themselves that they might appear more beautiful, and this powder was called alcohol. During the reign of William and Mary an act was passed encouraging the manufacture of spirits. Soon after, intemperance and profligacy prevailed tn such an extent that the retailers of intoxicating drinks put up signs in public places, informing the people that they might get drunk for a penny, and have some straw to get sober on. In the sixteenth century distilled spirits spread over the continent of Europe. About this

time it was introduced into the Colonies, as the United States was then called. The first notice we have of its use in public life was among the laborers ia the Hungarian mines, tn the fifteenth century. In 1761 it was used by the English soldiers as a cordial. The alcohol frt>m Europe was made from grapes and sold in Italy and Spain as a medicine. The Genoese afterwards made it from grain, and sold it as a medicine in bottles, under the name of the “Water of Life.” Until the sixteenth century it was kept by apothecaries as a medicine. During the reign of Henry VIII. brandy was first known in Ireland- and, soon its alarming effects induced the Governor to pass a law prohibiting its manufacture. About 120 years ago it was used as a beverage, especially among the soldiers in the English Colonies in North America, under the preposterous notion that it prevented sickness and made men fearless in the field of .Rattle. It was looked upon as a sovereign cure. Such is the brief history of its introduction into society as a beverage.— American Manufacturer.