# Vinegar

**Acetum**

**Known today as.** Soured wine.

Kind: Food & Drink  
Qualities: Cooling and astringent (Lémery).

## What was it used for?

Cooling and astringent: to whet the appetite, help digestion, allay the heat of choler, and guard against a bad air.

## What does modern science say?

Hippocrates used it as an antiseptic, by the reference articles’ account; today, two to four tablespoons with a meal may slightly lower the rise of blood sugar and insulin in people with diabetes.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **acetic acid**: 4–18 per cent by volume

**Mechanism.** Acetic acid at a meal: two to four tablespoons of vinegar may slightly lower the rise of blood glucose and insulin in people with diabetes. Hippocrates used vinegar on wounds.

**Dose.** Too much “doth very much prick the Stomach” (Lémery); swallowed in excess, cider vinegar has damaged tooth enamel, and its tablets the gullet.

**Standing.** A food.

## What lore surrounds it?

See [the vinegar of the four thieves](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/four-thieves-vinegar).

## What did the older authorities say?

**Livy.** Tells how Hannibal’s men, cutting a way down a cliff of the Alps, built a fire on the rock and poured vinegar on the heated stones to make them “soft and crumbling.”

## Sources

- Livy, *History of Rome* XXI.
- “Vinegar.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “Apple cider vinegar.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “Acetic acid.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- *The British Pharmaceutical Codex* (1911), “Acetum. Vinegar.” As transcribed at Henriette’s Herbal Homepage.
- Lémery, L. (1745). *A Treatise of All Sorts of Foods, both Animal and Vegetable; also of Drinkables*, trans. D. Hay. London: T. Osborne.
- Johnston, C. S., and Gaas, C. A. (2006). “Vinegar: medicinal uses and antiglycemic effect.” *Medscape General Medicine* 8.

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

Historical description, not medical advice.