TV 



YEAST llo 



siimme subtilisatus alcohol audit, baud aliter ac spiritns rectifi- 

 catissimi alcolisati dicuntur. &quot; 



Similarly, Robert Boyle speaks of a fine powder 

 as &quot; alcohol &quot; ; and, so late as the middle of the 

 last century, the English lexicographer, Nathan 

 Bailey, defines &quot; alcohol &quot; as &quot; the pure substance 

 of anything separated from the more gross, a very 

 fine and impalpable powder, or a very pure, well- 

 rectified spirit.&quot; But, by the time of the publi 

 cation of Lavoisier s &quot; Traite Elementaire de 

 Chimie,&quot; in 1780, the tenii &quot;alcohol,&quot; &quot;alkohol,&quot; 

 or &quot; alkool &quot; (for it is spelt in all three ways), which 

 Van Helmont had applied primarily to a fine 

 powder, and only secondarily to spirits of wine, had 

 lost its primary meaning altogether; and, from 

 the end of the last century until now, it has, I 

 believe, been used exclusively as the denotation of 

 spirits of wine, and bodies chemically allied to that 

 substance. 



The process which gives rise to alcohol in a 

 saccharine fluid is known to us as &quot; fermentation &quot; ; 

 a term based upon the apparent boiling up or 

 &quot; effervescence &quot; of the fermenting liquid, and of 

 Latin origin. 



Our Teutonic cousins call the same process 

 &quot;gahren,&quot; &quot;giisen,&quot; &quot;goschen,&quot; and &quot;gischen&quot;; 

 but, oddly enough, we do not seem to have 

 retained their verb or their substantive denot 

 ing the action itself, though we do use names 

 identical with, or plainly derived from, theirs for 



VOL. VIII I 



