[Wine and alcohol in apothecaries' shops during the Middle Ages in Southern countries]

Alcohol, wine and their derivatives do not play during the Middle Ages the role they played during Antiquity. The reading of ancient authors by Arab doctors was probably at the origin of this lack of interest for wine. As ordinary wine, medicinal wines were a matter of conviviality more than of therapeutics. Vinegar was more often used, maybe because of its lack of inebriating properties. Alcohol, this mysterious product, was probably more pertinent in the area of alchemy. Doctors and pharmacists of the enlightened age gave it a new importance. The influence of Islam on Middle Age medicine in Christian occident could explain this lack of interest for wine.