The evolution against alcohol appears to have proceeded on lines and under conditions very similar to those under which the evolution against zymotic diseases, particularly against tuberculosis, proceeded. We have seen that in early times the environment must have been very unfavourable to the tubercle bacillus, but that with the advance of civilization it must have grown increasingly favourable, till in the most civilized communities it is, at the present day, extremely favourable; and that concurrently with the change of environment favourable to the bacillus, but unfavourable to the races attacked, these races underwent a protective evolution, which has proceeded so far that they are now able to persist under conditions so favourable to the bacillus and unfavourable to themselves, that races which have not undergone the same evolution perish under like conditions. Similarly in early times the conditions must have been very "unfavourable" to alcohol. It must have been very scanty as to quantity and dilute as to quality.
"The ancient wines were of various kinds, some being the pure and unfermented juice of the grape, preserved either by sulphuring or inspissation; others sour, in which some or all of the alcohol had undergone acetous fermentation. But even the most alcoholic wine did not contain more than 15 per cent, of alcohol, and many contained much less. There was no such practice as 'fortification,' at all events not with alcohol, though there is evidence that some other drugs were sometimes added to increase the intoxicating quality. All, or almost all, the intoxication of which we read in classical and Biblical history was produced by what we now call 'natural wine,' or by a kind of beer made from malted grain, or by a few other alcoholic drinks (such as mead from honey, &c.), which are of minor importance."—J.J. Ridge, Alcohol and Public Health, p. 3.
