11-11-2011, 07:15 AM
Quote:Just how much wine do you need to get an elephant drunk anyway, without making them even more unpredictable in battle than they already are?
What did we do without the internet? There is real peer-reviewed science on this. Morris et al. ('Myth, marula, and elephant: an assessment of voluntary ethanol intoxication of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) following feeding on the fruit of the marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea). link to abstract) estimate between 10 and 27 litres of 8% alcohol in a short period. Anecdotal evidence, at least, says that elephants do like a drink (even if they can't get drunk on fruit). So yes, it would be possible to get an elephant drunk on wine before battle.
As for controlling the thing once you'd got it drunk, I'd imagine that would be tricky. Presumably you just put it in a position where any damage done happened to the opposition infantry! For what it's worth, early versions of the japanese game shogi actually had a piece called the drunken elephant - it could move in any direction, except backwards
Tom Wrobel
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email = [email protected]
