# Honeyed wine and honeyed water

**Mulsa**

**Known today as.** Wine or water sweetened with honey.

Kind: Food & Drink

## What did Canale use it for?

The vehicle for powdered seeds and roots in the vomits (ch. 5).

## What does modern science say?

A vehicle only; honey’s own antibacterial action is documented in wound dressings.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **fructose and glucose**: the honey
- **ethanol**: in the mulsum
- **hydrogen peroxide and methylglyoxal**: the antibacterial of honey

**Mechanism.** Mulsum and hydromel, the vehicles for powdered roots and seeds: honey makes the dose palatable and the wine adds alcohol, and Pliny says hydromel taken warm promotes vomiting, which suited the vomits. Honey’s antibacterial action is documented on wounds.

**Dose.** A food.

**Standing.** A vehicle; several medical-grade honey dressings are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for minor wounds and burns.

## What lore surrounds it?

*Mulsum*, wine and honey, was the aperitif of the Roman dinner, offered with the *gustus*; *hydromel*, from the Greek for “water-honey,” is also a name for mead, made by fermenting honey with water.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Pliny.** Says honied wine, *mulsum*, is best made with old wine, and that Pollio Romilius, past a hundred, told Augustus he kept his vigour with “honied wine within, oil without”; hydromel, he adds, “taken warm, it promotes vomiting.”

**Hippocrates.** Gives hydromel in acute diseases as moderately expectorant and diuretic, and would have it boiled when the honey is bad.

## Sources

- Pliny, *Natural History* XXII.
- Pliny the Elder. *Natural History* 22.52, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855). Perseus Digital Library.
- “Mulsum.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “Mead.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- Hippocrates. *On Regimen in Acute Diseases*, trans. F. Adams (1849). Wikisource.
- Canale, F. (1622). *Del modo di conoscer et sanare i maleficiati*. Brescia.
- “Honey.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- Molan, P. C. (1992). “The antibacterial activity of honey.” *Bee World* 73.

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*Honeyed wine and honeyed water.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/honeyed-wine-and-honeyed-water

Historical description, not medical advice.