Re: OT - who discovered alcohol

On 16 Jun, 10:55, Alan Hope <not.alan.h...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jethro goes:

ISTR the Egyptians refined th eart of brewing. The Arabs isolated al-
cohol sometime in the 7th century using a still called an alembic [al-
embic]).

Ironically both Egypt and Arabia (Christ knows which part) are muslim
countries !

What a stupid point. Funny how English has a word for fornication, yet
England's supposed to be a Christian country.

Alcohol was certainly discovered long before then, since we know the
Romans and the Greeks drank it. It's probably as old as human
settlements, when things like fruit juice or barley mash were allowed
to stand around for a while. Beer was invented before bread, I
believe, which will also have been an accidental discovery.

No, Alcohol was not "Discovered before then". As I said, the ancient
Egyptians used to brew beer and mead. BUt that doesn't mean then knew
what it was in it that made you pissed.

from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol):

"The word "alcohol" almost certainly comes from the Arabic language
(the "al-" prefix being the Arabic definite article); however, the
precise origin is unclear. The Persian physician and scientist Rhazes
discovered this substance, but because he wanted his book to be
published in most of the then-known world, he used the Arabic language
instead of Persian (although he made copies in Persian). The word was
introduced into Europe, together with the art of distillation and the
substance itself, around the 12th century by various European authors
who translated and popularized the discoveries of Islamic and Persian
alchemists [1]."

If you want to separate alcohol from water (as in fermented drinks)
you need to distill.

Perhaps we should remove the entry about Joseph Priestly, as
neanderthal man "clearly knew about oxygen". ?

.

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