Frequently, the passage across the Alps was too narrow for Hannibal's huge elephants, as he marched across the Alps to Rome. Hannibal's solution was for his soldiers to cut tree limbs and stack them around the boulders which blocked their way. Then the limbs were set afire. When the rocks were good and hot, vinegar was poured onto them. This turned the stones soft and crumbly. The soldiers could then chip the rocks away, making a passage for the troops and elephants.

Earliest Uses

An early Assyrian medical text described the treatment for ear pain as being the application of vinegar.

In 400BC, Hippocrates (considered the Father of Medicine) used vinegar to treat his patients. This naturally occurring germ killer was one of the very first "medicines."

Vinegar was used as a healing dressing on wounds and infectious sores in Biblical times.

"Thieves Vinegar" got its name during the time of the Great Plague of Europe. Some enterprising thieves are said to have used vinegar to protect them from contamination while they robbed the homes of plague victims.

Vinegar is credited with saving the lives of thousands of soldiers during the U.S. Civil War. It was routinely used as a disinfectant on wounds.

Cleopatra's Meal

Cleopatry, queen of Egypt, made culinary history when she bet that she could consume, at a single meal, the value of a million sisterces. To many, this seemed an impossible task.

Cleopatry was able to consume a meal worth so very much by dropping a million sisterces worth of pearls into a glass of vinegar. Then she set it aside a while during the banquet preparations. When the time came to fulfill her wager, she simply drank the dissolved pearls.