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YEAST 118 



summe subtilisatus alcohol audit, baud aliter ac spiritus rectifi* 

 catissimi alcolisati dicimtur. " 



Similarly, Robert Boyle speaks of a fine powder 

 as " alcohol " ; and, so late as the middle of the 

 last century, the English lexicographer, Nathan 

 Bailey, defines " alcohol " as " the pure substance 

 of anything separated from the more gross, a very 

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

 rectified spirit." But, by the time of the publi- 

 cation of Lavoisier's " Traite Elcmentaire de 

 Chimie," in 1789, the term "alcohol," "alkohol," 

 or " alkool " (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 " fermentation " ; 

 a term based upon the apparent boiling up or 

 " effervescence " of the fermenting liquid, and of 

 Latin origin. 



Our Teutonic cousins call the same process 

 " gahren," " gasen," " goschen," and " gischen " ; 

 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 X 



