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Alcohol is arguably man's oldest medicine, observed by the ancient Greeks to be safer than water and used as an antiseptic from the 5th century BC until the discovery of penicilllin. Pliny the Elder wrote (AD 23-79) ' In vino sanitas, in wine there is health'.
The rennaissance of Alcohol
Alcohol has started to regain its stature as the temperate meal time beverage bringing pleasure, enjoyment and good health if drunk moderately.
It's rennaissance, in part, has been due to the growing body of evidence from eminent researchers and physicians that drinking in moderation is not only enjoyable and sociable but can prolong life by protecting against heart disease and stroke as well as late onset diabetes, alzheimer disease an in the words of Plato, the 'crabbedness of old age'!
Sir Richard Doll, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, sums up past attitudes well:
"The Belief that alcohol was bad for health was so ingrained that the idea that small amounts might be good for you was hard to envisage, and it is only in the past ten years that cardiologists and specialists in preventaive medicine have begun to take it seriously" |
