A brief historical account of alcohol and alcoholism

Alcohol was present on Earth much earlier than the first humans appeared. It developed 1.5 billion years ago, when bacteria produced alcohol by consuming plant cells.

Humans began consuming alcohol at least 7,000 years ago. Remains of pottery from this time have been found, in the pores of which archaeologists have found the remains of beer and wine.

Some cattle tribes in Asia made alcoholic drinks from mare's milk, which they left to boil. Mead was made by the Greeks and Romans. In India and Africa, in ancient times, wine was made from palm trees. The grapevine was transferred from its homeland, south of the Caspian Sea via Asia Minor, to Greece, and from there all over the world. Some nations, including the Romans and the Greeks, had their own God of Wine. Ancient peoples believed that alcoholic beverages were products of the gods or given by the gods, and that they could help them fight unknown forces, adversities and diseases.

Old written documents show records of the use of wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages. In addition to the production of wine and beer, milk fermentation was widespread, as well as honey fermentation. They mixed different types of drinks. That is why the wine and beer were sweet, dark in color and with a lot of sediment.

From three thousand years BC. e. documents found in Mesopotamia (present-day Iran) say that alcohol was on the list of necessities of life along with other foods.

In Egypt 2700-1200 BC. e. beer was an important part of the diet.

The pharaohs were forbidden to consume any alcoholic beverage.

Early written documents about beer contain: commercial messages about alcoholic beverages, warning young people not to overdo drinking, as well as a series of prohibitions regarding the use of alcohol. The earliest known written law on alcohol is the Code of Hammurabi from Babylon (2000 BC). It regulates the sale of beer and wine, sets standards for measure, protection of those who consume alcohol and the responsibility of those who sell alcohol.

Archaeological research in China suggests that wine and beer were used in religious ceremonies.

The only parts of the world where alcohol has not been used extensively are North America and Oceania. They did not have alcoholic beverages until they came in contact with European colonizers.

In Sparta, 3000 years ago, by order of the king, drunks had their legs amputated.

The Roman state specifically forbade drinking by people under the age of 30, because those years were considered to be the most important for creating a family and complete physical and intellectual maturation.

In Greece and Rome, alcohol played an important role for medical and religious purposes. Hippocrates, one of the most important physicians of the ancient Greeks, advocated the healing effects of wine. However, he wrote, "Drunkenness is a deliberate, arbitrary insanity."

In Greece and Rome, heavy drinking was part of religious orgies dedicated to Dionysus and Bacchus.

It is interesting that the Romans considered alcoholics to be sick people.

Alcohol played an important role among Jews and Christians. Moses forbids the use of alcohol. Jesus chose wine to symbolize His blood. Muhammad forbids the use of alcohol.

The South Slavs knew about beer in their original homeland, while they met the vine, and with it the wine, only when they came to the Balkans.

The oldest written trace of alcoholic beverages among Serbs is found in a letter from King Vladislav (ruled from 1233 to 1242) and refers to the legal regulation of the obligatory delivery of hops needed for beer production.

In addition to beer and wine, the production of mead was also widespread. The use of "September wine" has been noted in many folk songs. And Marko Kraljevic has a very "awkward nature" when he overdoes drinking.

The defeat of the Serbian army in the Battle of Marička in 1371 was attributed to the intoxication of Serbian soldiers the night before the battle.

The production of brandy among Serbs begins only with the arrival of the Turks. Brandy quickly spread among the people and completely suppressed beer production.

In the next few centuries, Serbia became the country with the largest number of plum trees, and the production of plum brandy was constantly growing.

One article in Dusan's code is dedicated to punishing alcoholics.

Until the 8th century, when Arab doctors discovered distillation and called the resulting distillate "alcohol", alcoholic beverages were obtained by natural fermentation, fermentation of milk, fruits and certain cereals. Pure alcohol was produced 600 years later, when in 1400 the Benedictine Basilus Valentinus obtained pure alcohol by distillation and called it "spiritus vini", and later it was widely used in medicine. It is important to mention that history records many cases of battles won thanks to the fact that the opposing army was under the influence of alcohol. While the use of alcohol has a special place in the history of maritime affairs, there were several reasons for that. Thus e.g. due to stagnant and unhealthy water, which was kept in wooden barrels, entire crews suffered from infectious diseases, and therefore drank hard liquor to prevent infections or alleviate interference. It was also drunk due to bad weather, e.g. cold, although it had the opposite effect. Alcohol was also thought to cure or prevent a disease called scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) and some other diseases.

During 1500, distillation technology spread from Russia to Europe, and cheap vodka and gin were mass-produced.

The problem of excessive alcohol consumption has been known since the Middle Ages, so in order to combat it, even then, there had to be laws for acts committed while intoxicated.

During urbanization and industrialization, the problems caused by alcohol have grown to enormous proportions. That is why the states have introduced various prohibitions and taxes. All this led to prohibition in many countries in the first half of the 19th century. Due to the prohibition, the illegal production of alcohol of poor quality developed, and organized crime spread.

With industrial production, alcoholism spread especially in mining areas and future industrial centers, which is why sober societies began to form at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In the mining settlement of Vareš, as early as 1860, that is, in the Turkish era, the Sober Society was founded, which operated continuously for 18 years.

Nowadays, most countries have an active policy towards alcohol, trying to minimize the effect of alcohol by limiting consumption with rules, taxes, treatment and prevention.