L'éloge du vin chez Rousseau. Entre franchise et salubrité

that sober people may be potential cheats or hypocrites. Drunkenness deprives man of his rational mind, but it erases most of his hypocrisy. As the Ancients said, in vino Veritas. Medicine might agree with this, for neither wine nor water were reliable at the time. The classical dispute over which was the healthiest continued and many authors document the poor quality of water as well as the danger of adulterating wine by additives. In spite of existing rules about selling water, scientists recommended ways of purifying it and demanded laws prohibiting lead vessels or taps and protecting towns from filthy workshops and rivers from pollution. Fear of being poisoned increased, revealing a new awareness of urban ecology. Saint-Preux, praising the "wines from all the universe" made by Julie from her vineyards at Clarens, called for a reexamination of the notions of "nature" and "natural".Crogiez Michèle. L'éloge du vin chez Rousseau. Entre franchise et salubrité. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°29, 1997. Le vin, sous la direction de Jean Bart et Élisabeth Wahl. pp. 185-197