Horizon Information Portal

e-branch

Home

My Account/Renew Loans

Find Magazine Articles & more

Doctors and distillers : the remarkable medicinal history of beer, wine, spirits, and cocktails / Camper English.

by English, Camper.

View full image

Penguin Books, 2022.

Alcoholic beverages -- Therapeutic use -- History.

Drinking of alcoholic beverages -- Health aspects -- History.

Therapeutics -- History.

Medicine -- History.

9780143134923 (pbk)

Alternate title:

Remarkable medicinal history of beer, wine, spirits, and cocktails

xvii, 348 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Beer-based wound care, deworming with wine, whiskey for snakebites, and medicinal mixers to defeat malaria, scurvy, and plague: how today's tipples were the tonics of old. Alcohol and Medicine have an inextricably intertwined history, with innovations in each altering the path of the other. The story stretches back to ancient times, when beer and wine were used to provide nutrition and hydration, and were employed as solvents for healing botanicals. Over time, alchemists distilled elixirs designed to cure all diseases, monastic apothecaries developed mystical botanical liqueurs, traveling physicians concocted dubious intoxicating nostrums, and the drinks we’re familiar with today began to take form. In turn, scientists studied fermentation and formed the germ theory of disease, and developed an understanding of elemental gases and anesthetics. Modern cocktails like the Old-Fashioned, Gimlet, and Gin and Tonic were born as delicious remedies for diseases and discomforts. In Doctors and Distillers, cocktails and spirits expert Camper English reveals how and why the contents of our medicine and liquor cabinets were, until surprisingly recently, one and the same."--Publisher.

Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal