272 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIAKY TO INDUCTION. 



in boiling water, with which it forms a gelatinous 

 solution. This indefinite meaning of the word fecula 

 has created numerous mistakes in pharmaceutic che- 

 mistry ; Elaterium, for instance, is said to be fecula, 

 and, in the original sense of the word, it is properly 

 so called, inasmuch as it is procured from a vegetable 

 juice by spontaneous subsidence, but in the limited 

 and modern acceptation of the term, it conveys an 

 erroneous idea; for instead of the active principle of 

 tliie juice residing in fecula, it is a peculiar proximate 

 principle., sui generis, to which I have ventured to 

 bestow the name of Elatin. For the same reason, 

 much doubt and obscurity involve the meaning of the 

 word Extract, because it is applied generally to any 

 substance obtained by the evaporation of a vege- 

 table solution, and specifically to a peculiar proximate 

 principle, possessed of certain characters, by which it 

 is distinguished from every other elementary body." 



A generic term is always liable to become thus 

 limited to a single species, or even, individual, if 

 people have occasion to think and speak of that indi- 

 vidual or species much oftener than of anything else 

 which is contained in the genus. Thus, by cattle, a 

 stage-coachrnan will understand horses; beasts, in the 

 language of agriculturists, stands for oxen; and birds, 

 with some sportsmen, for partridges only. The law 

 of language which operates in these trivial instances, 

 is the very same in conformity to which the terms 

 060S-, Deus, and God, were adopted from Polytheism 

 by Christianity, to express the single object of its own 

 adoration, in lieu of the ancient and specially appro- 

 priated name Jehovah. Almost all the terminology 

 of the Christian Church is made up of words originally 

 used in a much more general acceptation: Ecclesia, 

 Assembly ; Bishop, Episcopus, Overseer; Priest, Pres- 



