# Spirit of wine

**Acqua di vita**

**Known today as.** Distilled alcohol.

Kind: Food & Drink

## What did Canale use it for?

A solvent in the oil (ch. 9).

## What does modern science say?

A solvent. Ethanol is the extraction solvent of liquid extracts and tinctures, “necessary for extraction of some constituents”; rectified spirit is distilled at 96–96.5 per cent.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **ethanol**: 

**Mechanism.** Ethanol is a central nervous system depressant; as a 70 per cent solution it kills microbes better than pure ethanol, dissolving their membranes and denaturing their proteins. Its metabolite acetaldehyde is a known carcinogen, and many symptoms of intoxication are put down to it.

**Dose.** Anaesthetic coma at a blood level of 0.4 per cent.

**Standing.** Ethanol in alcoholic beverages is classed by IARC as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1); the solvent of the pharmacopoeia’s tinctures.

## What lore surrounds it?

*Aqua vitae* is Latin for “water of life,” and the name passed to the local spirits: whiskey from the Irish *uisce beatha*, *eau de vie* in France, *acquavite* in Italy, *akvavit* in Scandinavia.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Arnald of Villanova.** The physician of the Crown of Aragon (c. 1240–1311), by the reference article’s account the first physician to use alcohol as an antiseptic, wrote a short treatise, *De vinis*, on the medicinal use of wine.

**John of Rupescissa.** The fourteenth-century alchemist held the newly found spirit to be an imperishable, life-giving “fifth essence,” or quintessence, and studied its medical properties.

## Sources

- “Aqua vitae.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “Arnaldus de Villa Nova.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “Rectified spirit.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “Ethanol.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- Canale, F. (1622). *Del modo di conoscer et sanare i maleficiati*. Brescia.
- IARC (2010). *Monographs*, vol. 96: alcohol consumption and ethyl carbamate.

---

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

Historical description, not medical advice.