Boiled honey is rather nutritious than laxative; but when unboiled the
contrary. It agrees with cold and humid temperaments, but in the warm
it is converted into bile. Honied water does not agree well with those
who are affected with bitter bile, being converted into bile. In such
constitutions the honied water ought to be very weak; but it is not
proper for those whose bowels are easily affected. The honied water may
be prepared by adding eight parts of water to the honey, and thus boiling
it until it cease from frothing. It is expedient also to clear away the
scum as soon as formed.
* * * * *
COMMENTARY. Honey, says Hippocrates, when eaten with other food, is
nutritious, and improves the colour; but, when taken alone, it rather
attenuates than recruits. Actuarius says that scummed honey, when taken
with other food, is nutritious and laxative. Democritus said, that health
was best promoted by lubricating the inside with honey, and the outside
with oil. Honey and bread formed the favorite food of the Pythagoreans.
Athenæus (Deipnos. ii, 7.) See also Oribasius (Synops. iv, 38); Haly
Abbas (v, 27); Simeon Seth (in voce Mel.)
Galen gives the following account of the phenomenon of a _honey shower_:
“I have sometimes known in the season of summer a great quantity of
honey to be found upon the leaves of trees, shrubs, and certain herbs,
so that the country people said, jesting, ‘Jupiter has rained honey.’ A
cold night, as for summer, had preceded (for it happened in summer); but
the temperature of the former day had been hot and dry. It was thought,
therefore, by those who were skilled in nature, that an exhalation from
the earth and waters, finely attenuated and concocted by the heat of
the sun, had been condensed and collected by the cold of the succeeding
night. This phenomenon occurs rarely with us; but it takes place
frequently in Mount Lebanon every summer.” (De Alim. Facult.) See also
Fragmentum Theophrasti (de Melle, ed. Heinsius.) Ernestus Faber states
that the honey here described is the manna of cedars. (De Manna Ebræorum,
12.)
A wine prepared from honey and aromatics is much commended by an
intelligent writer on dietetics as possessing more heat and dryness
than any other species of wine, and improving the appetite and colour.
(Anonym. Tract. de Cibis ap. Ermerins Anecdota Græca, p. 237.)
Our author has given one method of preparing the hydromel, or honied
water. Different modes are described by other authors. Thus, Mesue
recommends seven parts of water to one of honey. It appears from
Hippocrates, however, that it was taken more or less diluted. Pliny and
Dioscorides make mention of hydromel prepared by mixing two parts of
water with one of honey. This seems to have been the strongest hydromel.
A species of hydromel carefully prepared, and kept for a considerable
time, was esteemed a delicious beverage. Ludovicus Nonnius compares it to
the mead used by certain nations of the north. They prepare it with hops
and yeast, so that it is made to emulate the nature of wine. The Greeks
and Romans did not make use either of hops or yeast.
In imitation of Galen, who, under the head of honey (de Simpl.), treats
also of _sugar_, we shall give a brief account of the latter in this
place. The _saccharum_, then, which is mentioned by Theophrastus (Frag.
l. c.), Dioscorides (ii, 104), Galen (l. c.), Strabo (Geogr. xv), Pliny
(H. N. xii, 17), and other ancient authors, was a natural concretion
forming on various reeds, but more especially upon the bamboo cane
(_bambusa arundinacea_.) The bamboo is noticed by Herodotus (Hist. iii,
98), and by Ctesias (Photii Lex.) Moses Chorenensis, a writer of the
fifth century (Geogr. Armen.), is the first who makes mention of sugar
procured from the cane by boiling.