Acqua Ardente: A Medicine Fit For the Gods
Long before people drank spirits
for pleasure, they called them Acqua Ardens, or the Quintessence (an alchemical
term meaning "the true essence"), and considered them to be the most powerful
of remedies.
Indeed, Taddeo di Alderotti, the great Early Renaissance physician who introduced the scholastic method of teaching medicine to the University of Bologna, explored the subject at length, explaining how to distill spirits, and then telling how they may be used to cure a myriad of ills.
As Dr. Gambacorta, a professor emeritus of anesthesiology
observes, many of the remedies suggested by Taddeo were still used until well
into this century, and some still are. Dr. Gambacorta recently discovered a
14th century transcription, in Italian, of Taddeo's chapter on cures
in Siena's Biblioteca degli Intronati. It's an important document, because it's
the first known reference to spirits in Italian, and because it shows that the
use of distillates in medicine was thoroughly codified early on. Taddeo
suggests, among other things, that spirits be used:
- Locally, as a disinfectant for wounds;
- With rosemary and sage, as a tincture for worms;
- With white wine and honey, to improve memory;
- As a rinse, for toothaches;
- In cold compresses, to cure ailments of the breasts.
The chapter has been transcribed into modern Italian and reprinted, in a beautifully illustrated volume by the Casa Editrice Ascelpio of Milano.
Read about modern Tuscan
Distilleries