244 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



have seen above, in the words pagan and villain, remarkable 

 examples of the specialization of the meaning of words from 

 casual associations, as well as of the generalization of it in a 

 new direction, which often follows. 



Similar specializations are of frequent occurrence in the 

 history even of scientific nomenclature. " It is by no means 

 uncommon," says Dr. Paris, in his Pharmacologia,* " to find 

 a word which is used to express general characters subse- 

 quently become the name of a specific substance in which 

 such characters are predominant; and we shall find that some 

 important anomalies in nomenclature may be thus explained. 

 The term AJOCTEV/KOV, from which the word Arsenic is derived, 

 was an ancient epithet applied to those natural substances 

 which possessed strong and acrimonious properties, and as the 

 poisonous quality of arsenic was found to be remarkably 

 powerful, the term was especially applied to Orpiment, the 

 form in which this metal most usually occurred. So the term 

 Verbena (quasi Herbena) originally denoted all those herbs 

 that were held sacred on account of their being employed in 

 the rites of sacrifice, as we learn from the poets; but as 

 one herb was usually adopted upon these occasions, the word 

 Verbena came to denote that particular herb only, and it is 

 transmitted to us to this day under the same title, viz. Ver- 

 bena or Vervain, and indeed until lately it enjoyed the medi- 

 cal reputation which its sacred origin conferred upon it, for it 

 was worn suspended around the neck as an amulet. Vitriol, 

 in the original application of the word, denoted any crystal- 

 line body with a certain degree of transparency (vitrum) ; it 

 is hardly necessary to observe that the term is now appro- 

 priated to a particular species : in the same manner, Bark, 

 which is a general term, is applied to express one genus, and 

 by way of eminence, it has the article The prefixed, as The 

 bark : the same observation will apply to the word Opium, 

 which, in its primitive sense, signifies any juice (OTTOC, Succus), 

 while it now only denotes one species, viz. that of the poppy. 

 So, again, Elaterium was used by Hippocrates to signify 



* Historical Introduction, vol. i. pp. 66 8. 



