Health

In the history of mankind, the regular consumption of alcohol is directly related to cultivated agriculture, when people began to deliberately brew beer-like drinks from grain 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. People had individual experiences more or less by chance even before that, for example when fruits began to ferment in the first primitive vessels and the resulting alcoholic liquids were consumed. Very soon these were also used for soothing or healing purposes, because various positive effects were recognised by chance, but of course their cause could not be interpreted. This is attested in many ancient writings, including the Bible.

Alcohol as a medicine

The Jewish Talmud says (Rabbi Banal): Where wine is lacking, medicine is needed. For the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), wine played a role in almost all his medicines. Among other things, he prescribed it to cool fever, as a diuretic, as a tonic for convalescents, and as a painkiller and sedative. The Romans used the effectiveness of wine as an antibiotic, because during the conquests the soldiers were given water mixed with wine (or also vinegar). In some ancient cultures, alcohol consumption and even intoxication were also used as a means of communication. At the boisterous festivals in honour of the wine god Dionysus in ancient Greece, intoxication was regarded as a purifying ceremonial with psycho-hygienic effects (for related practices and customs, see Drinking Culture).