a cure for various ailments ranging from diarrhea and lethargy to pain during childbirth. The medical practices of the Romans involved the use of wine in a similar manner. In his 1st-century work De Medicina, the Roman encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus detailed a long list of Greek and Roman wines used for medicinal purposes. While treating gladiators in Asia Minor, the Roman physician Galen would use wine as a disinfectant for all types of wounds, and even soaked exposed bowels before returning them to the body. During his four years with the gladiators, only five deaths occurred, compared to sixty deaths under the watch of the physician before him. Religion still played a significant role in promoting wine's use for health. The Jewish Talmud noted wine to be "the foremost of all medicines: wherever wine is lacking, medicines become necessary." In his first epistle to Timothy, Paul the Apostle recommended that his young colleague drink a little wine every now and then for the benefit of his stomach and digestion. While the Islamic Koran contained restrictions on all alcohol, Islamic doctors such as the Persian Avicenna in the 11th century AD noted that wine was an efficient digestive aid but, because of the laws, were limited to use as a disinfectant while dressing wounds. Catholic monasteries during the Middle Ages also regularly used wine for medical treatments. So closely tied was the role of wine and medicine, that the first printed book on wine was written in the 14th century by a physician, Arnaldus de Villa Nova, with lengthy essays on wine's suitability for treatment of a variety of medical ailments such dementia and sinus problems. Risks of consumption The lack of safe drinking water may have been one reason for wine's popularity in medicine. Wine was still being used to sterilize water as late as the Hamburg cholera epidemic of 1892 in order to control the spread of the disease. However, the late 19th century and early 20th century ushered in a period of changing views on the role of alcohol and, by extension, wine in health and society. The Temperance movement began to gain steam by touting the ills of alcoholism, which was eventually defined by the medical establishment as a disease. Studies of the long- and Short-term effects of alcohol consumption caused many in the medical community to reconsider the role of wine in medicine and diet.