ter....

QUESTION V. WHETHER WINE IS POTENTIALLY COLD.

ATHRYILATUS, PLUTARCH.

But now I would fain know upon what account you can imagine that wine is
cold. Then, said I, do you believe this to be my opinion? Yes, said
he, whose else? And I replied: I remember a good while ago I met with a
discourse of Aristotle's upon this very question. And Epicurus, in his
Banquet, hath a long discourse, the sum of which is that wine of itself
is not hot, but that it contains some atoms that cause heat, and others
that cause cold; now, when it is taken into the body, it loses one sort
of particles and takes the other out of the body itself, as it agrees
with one's nature and constitution; so that some when they are drunk are
very hot, and others very cold.

This way of talking, said Florus, leads us by Protagoras directly to
Pyrrho; for it is evident that, suppose we were to discourse of
oil, milk, honey, or the like, we shall avoid all inquiry into their
particular natures by saying that things are so and so by their mutual
mixture with one another. But how do you prove that wine is cold? And I,
being forced to speak extempore, replied: By two arguments. The first I
draw from the practice of physicians, for when their patients' stomachs
grow very weak, they prescribe no hot things, and yet give them wine
as an excellent remedy. Besides, they stop looseness and immoderate
sweating by wine; and this shows that they think it more binding and
constipating than snow itself. Now if it were potentially hot, I should
think it as wise a thing to apply fire to snow as wine to the stomach.

Again, most teach that sleep proceeds from the coolness of the parts;
and most of the narcotic medicines, as mandrake and opium, are coolers.
Those indeed work violently, and forcibly condense, but wine cools by
degrees; it gently stops the motion, according as it hath more or less
of such narcotic qualities. Besides, heat has a generative power; for
owing to heat the fluid flows easily and the vital spirit gets vigor
and a stimulating force. Now the great drinkers are very dull, inactive
fellows, no women's men at all; they eject nothing strong, vigorous, and
fit for generation, but are weak and unperforming, by reason of the bad
digestion and coldness of their seed. And it is farther observable
that the effects of cold and drunkenness upon men's bodies are the
same,--trembling, heaviness, paleness, shivering, faltering of tongue,
numbness, and