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The Swarm: Honied

Galen, however, did not despise honeyed vinegar, but gives a simple recipe for making it, unflavored by severe remarks: - "Let the best honey be clarified, then add so much winevinegar to it, that it may please the sick man's palate, boyl them till they are well mingled; and when you will use it, mingle as much water as you please: it is boyled enough when it sends forth no more scum." "Honied wine" is frequently referred to by the ancient writers, who attribute remarkable properties of preserving life to it, and Pliny tells us: "Many persons have attained an extreme old age by taking bread soaked in honied wine, and no other diet - the famous instance of Pollio Romilius, for example. This man was more than one hundred years old when the late Emperor Augustus, who was then his host, asked him by what means in particular he had retained such remarkable vigor of mind and body. 'Honied wine within, oil without,' was his answer."