use in medicine, and introduce into our beers, contain them all, so that all the virtues of the hop, in whichever of the ingredients it resides, are present in them in a greater or less degree. Hence well-hopped beer is aromatic, tonic, soothing, tranquillising, and in a slight degree narcotic, sedative, and provocative of sleep. The hop also aids in clarifying malt liquors, arrests the fermentation before all the sugar is converted into alcohol, and thus enables them to be kept without turning sour.

Ale was the name given to unhopped malt liquor before the use of hops was introduced. This is alluded to in the passage already quoted from Parkinson, and in the two old lines

The words of Gerard, also, show the original meaning of the two words. "The manifold virtues in hops do manifestly argue the wholesomeness of beer above ale; for the hops rather make it physicall drinke, to keep the body in health, than an ordinary drink for the quenching of our thirst." When hops were added, it was called beer by way of distinction; I suppose, because we imported the custom from the Low Countries, where the word beer was still in use. *

*This word is found both in the new and old dialects of the high and low German, Dutch, and Flemish, in the form of bier. In France it is bière, and in Italy birra. In these latter countries it has superseded the old word cervoise, still used in Languedoc; cervogia, still heard in Italy-both of which, like the Spanish cerveza, are from the Latin cervisia, a word used by Pliny for a drink made from malt.

In Anglo-Saxon it was beor; in new and old Norsk, bior; in Gaelic, beôir; in Breton, ber or bier; and the Bretons are said by Tacitus to have made a sort of wine from barley which they called baer.

But this word for the drink disappeared from England, and ale took its place, till it was brought in again to denote hopped ale, a sense which it did not originally bear. It disappeared also from the Welsh, whose name for beer is owrw. But though it has penetrated into France and Italy, öl is still the only word in use in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian name, which prevailed among us after the Romans left, points, like so many other relics, to the race which has chiefly predominated in the Island since.

DEFECTS IN OUR KNOWLEDGE.

49

Ground ivy (Nepeta glechoma) called also alchoof and tunhoof, was generally employed for preserving ale before the use of hops was known.

To the general reader it may appear remarkable-perhaps he may even think it a reproach to science--that the chemistry of a vegetable production in such extensive use as the hop should still be so imperfect, our knowledge of its nature and composition, and of the special physiological ef fects of its several constituents, so unsatisfactory. But the well-read chemist, who knows how wide the field of chemical research has become, how rapidly our knowledge of it as a whole is progressing, and who endeavours in his daily studies to keep up with that progress, he will feel no surprise. He must wish, indeed, to see all such obscurities and difficulties cleared away; but he will feel more inclined to thank and praise the many ardent and devoted men who in every country are now labouring in this department, and to encourage them in what they are doing, than to blame or reproach them for being obliged to leave a part of the exten sive field for the present uncultivated.

The hop, as we have seen, is to be placed among the most largely-used narcotics, especially in England. It dif fers, however, from tobacco and the other favourite narcotics to be hereafter mentioned, in being rarely employed alone except medicinally. It is added to infusions like that of malt, to impart flavour, taste, and narcotic virtues. Used in this way it is unquestionably one of the sources of that pleasing excitement, gentle narcotic intoxication, and healthy tonic action, which well-hopped beer is known to produce upon those whose constitutions enable them to drink it. Other common vegetable productions will give the bitter flavour to malt liquors. Horehound, wormwood, gentian, quassia, camomile, fern leaves of different species, broom tops, ground ivy, common gale, the bark of the box-tree, VOL. II.-3

dandelion, chicory, orange peas, picric acid, chirayta, the poisonous strychnia,* and many other substances, have been employed or recommended in England, to replace or supplant the use of the hop. But none of these are known to approach it in imparting those peculiar properties which have given the English bitter beer of the present day its high reputation.

It is interesting to observe how men carry with them their early tastes to whatever new climate or region they go. The love of beer and hops has been planted by Englishmen in America. It has accompanied them to their new empires in Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape. In the hot East their home taste remains unquenched, and the pale ale of England follows them to remotest India. Who can tell to what extent the use of the hop may become naturalised, through their means, in these far-off regions? Inoculated into its milder influence, may not the devotees of opium, and the intoxicating hemp, be induced hereafter to abandon their hereditary drugs, and to substitute the foreign hop in their place? From such a change in one article of general consumption, how great a change in the character and habits of the people might we not anticipate?

III. COCCULUS INDICUS can scarcely be classed among the narcotics in which we voluntarily indulge, and yet it is one which our humbler beer-drinkers involuntarily consume to a very considerable extent. It is the fruit or berry of the Anamirta cocculus (fig. 62), a beautiful climbing-plant, which is a native of the Malabar coast and of the Indian

* Strychnia is an intensely bitter substance contained in nux vomica; chirayta, an intensely bitter plant from India; and picric acid, an almost equally bitter substance produced by the action of nitric acid upon indigo. The latter two have only recently been tried for giving bitterness to beer. The first is too poisonous for any but very reckless people ever to recommend. It is so bitter that its taste can be de tected when dissolved in 600,000 times its weight of water.

Archipelago. It is sometimes called the Levant nut, or the

Bacca orientalis.

It has some resemblance to the bay berry, and in 1850 was imported into this country to the extent of 2,359 bags, of one hundredweight each. It is chiefly used for adulterating cheap beer, and it is really. wonderful in how many ways this singular substance is fitted to aid the dishonest brewer in saving both malt. and hops. I mention three of its

Anamirta cocculus-The Cocculus indicus plant.

properties which offer temptations too strong to be resisted by many unscrupulous people.

If the bruised seeds are digested in water, they yield an extract which, when added to beer, produces the following effects:

First. It imparts to it an intensely bitter taste, and can thus be substituted cheaply for about one-third of the usual quantity of hops, without materially affecting the flavour of the beer.

Second. It gives a fulness and richness in the mouth, and a darkness of colour, to weak and inferior liquors. In these respects, a pound of Cocculus indicus is said to be equivalent to a sack (four bushels) of malt. Or to a thin

brewing of beer, a pound of this drug will give an apparent. substance equal to what would be produced by an additional sack of malt.

Third. It produces upon those who drink it some of the symptoms of alcoholic intoxication, and thus adds to the apparent strength and inebriating quality of the liquor. Like hops, it also prevents second fermentation in bottled beer, and enables it to keep in warm climates.

This array of tempting qualities causes it to be used largely by some brewers, chiefly of the disreputable class, who seek to gratify, at a cheap rate,* certain wishes and desires of their customers. The use of it is forbidden by act of Parliament, under a penalty of £200 to the brewer, and £500 to the druggist who sells it to a brewer. But an extract is prepared and sold, and there is reason to believe that it is extensively used-(PEREIRA). Some writers on brewing give plain directions for using the drug; and the quantity recommended by Morrice to the honest brewer (!) is 3 pounds of Cocculus indicus to every 10 quarters of malt. By the dishonest, as much as 1 pound is sometimes added to the barrel of 54 gallons, with Calamus aromaticus and orris root to flavour it. If 1 pound really save 4 bushels of malt, the 2,359 cwt. imported in 1850, if all employed for this purpose, must have saved to the adulterators who used it the enormous quantity of 1,056,000 bushels!

It is chiefly the humbler classes upon whom this fraud is practised. The middle classes in England prefer the thin wine-like ales and bitter beers. The skilled labourer prefers what is rich, full, and substantial in the mouth; and the poor peasant, after his day's toil, likes to find at the bottom of his single pot what will sensibly affect his head. It is thus chiefly among the working men that the heavy drugged beer of the adulterator is relished and consumed; and it is

* It is sold at 19s. to 21s. a hundred weight, or 24d. a pound.