The Medicinal Purposes of WIne

​When I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah, I was astounded by the numerous uses of wine for “medicinal purposes.”  It seemed every household had its secret stash of wine for the occasional medical emergency.    Interestingly enough, these emergencies occurred precisely around the end of the day, in close proximity to dinner.   I don’t know why this was such a surprise, for I knew that wine had been used for therapeutic remedies for thousands of years. Specifically, in 3000 B.C., the Sumerians consumed wine and used medications made with wine for medicinal purposes.   Homer’s Iliad refers to wine being administered to wounded soldiers for wound dressings, as a cooling agent for fevers, and imbibed for use as a purgative and diuretic (JAMA, 1977).   In seventeenth-century England, wine was used as a tonic for preventing illness and as an important component of therapeutic remedies to provoke vomiting, sneezing and to clear imbalances in the upper body (Tree, 27).   In colonial America, wine was used to cure colic, worms and green sickness (A. Johns, 1947).   My personal favorite is for wine infused with sage as a cure for married women suffering from “melancholy.”    Did they prescribe 750 mls taken before your husband gets home for that malady?   I’ll have to remember wine for its purgative properties the next time I hear about the newly found wonders of Resveratrol.     

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