112 YEAST 



IV 



is brought in contact with a flame. The Al- 

 chemists called this volatile liquid, which they 

 obtained from wine, " spirits of wine," just as they 

 called hydrochloric acid " spirits of salt," and as 

 we, to this day, call refined turpentine " spirits of 

 turpentine." As the " spiritus," or breath, of a 

 man was thought to be the most refined and 

 subtle part of him, the intelligent essence of man 

 was also conceived as a sort of breath, or spirit ; 

 and, by analogy, the most refined essence of any- 

 thing was called its " spirit." And thus it has 

 come about that we use the same word for the 

 soul of man and for a glass of gin. 



At the present day, however, we even more 

 commonly use another name for this peculiar 

 liquid — namely, " alcohol," and its origin is not 

 less singular. The Dutch physician, Van Helmont, 

 lived in the latter part of the sixteenth and the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century — in the 

 transition period between alchemy and chemistry 

 — and was rather more alchemist than chemist. 

 Appended to his " Opera Omnia," published in 1707, 

 there is a very needful " Clavis ad obscuriorum 

 sensum referendum," in which the following 

 passage occurs : — 



"Alcohol. — Chymicis est liquor ant pulvis siimme subtili- 

 satns, vocabulo Oiientalibus quoque, cum primis Habessinis, 

 familiari, quibus cohol speciatim pulverem impalpabilem ex 

 antimonio pro oculis tingendis denotat . . . Hodie autem, ob 

 analogiam, quivis pulvis tenerior, ut pulvis oculorum cancri 



