Polytechnic Association. 793 



influence on the nervous system ; so that in small doses it exhilarates, 

 while in larger it stupefies, and may even destroy life. 



Moreover, if the original fluid is put into a still and heated for a 

 while, the first and last product of its distillation is simple water ; 

 while, when the altered fluid is subjected to the same process, the 

 matter which is first condensed in the receiver is found to be a clear 

 volatile substance, which is lighter than water, has a pungent taste and 

 smell, possesses the intoxicating powers of the fluid in an eminent 

 degree, and takes fire the moment it is brought in contact with a 

 flame. The alchemists 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 then 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 Dutc^h physician, Yan 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 obscu- 

 riorum sensum* referandum," in which the following passage occurs: 



"Alcohol. — Chymicis est liquor aut pulvis summe subtilisatus, 

 vocabulo Orientalibus quoque, cum primis Habessinis, familiari, qui- 

 bus cohol speciatum pulverem impalpabilem ex antimonio pro oculis 

 tingendis denotat. * * * Hodie autem, ob analogiam quivis 

 pulvis tenerior, ut pulvis oculorum caneri summe subtilisatus alcohol 

 ludit, haud aliter ac spiritus rectificatissimi alcolisatl dicuntur." 



Robert Boyle similarly 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 publica- 

 tion of Lavoisier's u Traite Eleinentaire de Chiraie," 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 



