Wine as Therapy

In recent years, especially in 2020, imbibers of wine thought that they had found a new therapy. With the growth of the social media meme, wine has become the internet therapy for ... well, almost everything. 

Alright people, did you know this is not new? The internet part is, but the therapy part is not. In fact, wine as therapy in 2020 or now 2021 can't hold a candle to the Middle Ages. This, despite my favorite wine line of 2020: "Wine -- the glue holding the shitshow known as 2020 together."

But, to understand the therapeutic uses of wine, we need to understand the progression of medicine. It's only been in the last 100 years or so that the process to become a medical doctor has evolved anywhere near its current state. As recently as early in the 20th century, a man (women were generally excluded) who wanted to become a doctor simply found a school that we would now call a medical school to train him. And, then he would set up shop and he was a doctor. There was no requirement of an undergraduate degree as we know them today, no MCATs, no Boards. And, in the scope of medicine, this was pretty modern medicine.

But, let's take a trip back in time to the end of the 14th century at L'Hôpital Civil de Strasbourg, One of the pillars of then modern civilization, Strasbourg was home to this, one of the oldest continuously operating hospitals in the world. Renowned for its abilities to cure patients of some of the unusual maladies afflicting patients back then and having done so for at least 300 years, this hospital may be the oldest known purveyor of medicinal wine therapy.

How serious were they about this? They dug a wine cellar in order to always have a supply of wine with which to cure patients.

Among the more curious of the treatments was for depression, then known as melancholia. Depression was treated with white wine. Why white wine? Beats me. But, a depressed patient was given the opportunity to smell white wine, to inhale the aromas (note that Strasbourg was at the time the capital of Alsace, home, of course to many of the world's great aromatic white wines). And, patients who were not overly depressed were then allowed to consume some of it. Rumor has it, though, that any leftover wine was to be consumed by the doctors treating the patients.

White wine was not alone in its treatment of 14th century maladies. Red wine was used as a cure for herpes and high cholesterol Now, one thing that I find curious is how did they know in the 14th century that a patient had high cholesterol and how did they know is what dangerous. But, in any case, there are handwritten annals showing the recommendations of red wine to cure both of these ills.

But, wine eventually fell out of favor as medicine. Writings indicate that it was found that patients, particularly those treated for herpes with wine were falling sick with liver disease while no longer suffering from herpes. It was initially thought that the red in the red wine was somehow reacting with the herpes virus to turn the skin yellow, but later concluded that this was in fact liver disease.

Anyway, while 2020 might have brough back wine as therapy, remember it was nothing new. In fact, it was more than 600 years old.