ETHNOBOTANY of W NE As MEDICINE in the ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD
THE ETHNOBOTANY of W NE as MEDICINE IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD By Mark Plotkin, PhD, LHD “Wine [is] one of the oldest, perhaps the oldest, of all medicines.” –S.P. Lucia, MD (1963) Wine is not only one of humankind’s most ancient drinks, it also may be the first recorded medicine.1 It is not merely a beverage but has served as an analge- sic, antiseptic, menstruum (solvent), soporific (seda- tive), valuable economic commodity, water purifier, social lubricant, and even an inspiration. Wine is, for some, the ultimate creative juice. In fact, this author proposes that wine, and the wine grape (Vitis spp., Vitaceae) from which it is prepared, has played a greater role in the evolution of human society than any plant other than cereal grains. Many people associate the beginnings of wine culture with the Greeks and Romans of the ancient Mediterranean world. However, this is incorrect, both biologically and historically. “Catching a buzz” from alcohol from fermented fruits did not originate with the Greco-Roman world of 2,000 years ago and did not even begin with our own species. Alcohol consumption presumably predates the emergence of Homo sapiens by millions of years, since fermented fruits are known to be consumed by insects like bees, butterflies, and fruit flies, birds like cedar waxwings and robins, and mammals as diverse as bats, chimpan- zees, elephants, howler monkeys, and tree shrews.2,3 Undoubtedly, a complete list of animals that experi- ence altered states induced by alcohol from fermented Photo ©2021 Matthew Magruder fruit would be much longer.
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