From Larry Sarmiento
Emsworth, Hampshire
While browsing through John Gerard’s The Herbal or General History of
Plants (originally published in 1633) I came across a reference on the
turpentine tree which may shed some light on why Stone Age people may have drunk
wine tainted with this substance (This Week, 8 June, p 5). It seems that a
concoction made from the turpentine “beans” blended with egg yolk and white wine
was a sure cure for gonorrhoea: “It helpeth most speedily the Gonorrhoea…
commonly at the first time, but the medicine never faileth at the second time of
taking it.”
However, as well as being a remedy for this disease, the fruit of the tree
may also be responsible for people catching it, as the same treatise claims it
“stirreth up fleshly lust”.
