go TIMEHRI. 
o 
The name of alcohol so far as it is applied to the 
produ&t of the distillation of wine is modern. Up to 
the end of the seventeenth century, this word of Arabic 
origin signified any principle attenuated by extreme 
pulverisation or by sublimation. For instance, it was 
applied to powdered sulphuret of antimony (Koheul), 
employed to darken the eye-lashes, and to different other 
substances as well as tospirits of wine. In the thirteenth 
and even in the fourteenth century, no author is found 
who applies the name of alcohol to the produét of the 
distillation of wine. The word “spirit of wine,” or 
‘burning spirit,” although more ancient, was not known 
in the thirteenth century, for at that period the word 
spirit was reserved for only volatile substances, such as 
mercury, sulphur, arsenic sulphuret, or sal-ammoniac, 
capable of aéting upon metals and modifying their 
colours and properties. 
As to the denomination “ Eau de Vie’ this name 
was given during the 13th and 14th centuries to the 
elixir of life. ARMAND DE VILLENUVE was the first to 
employ it as designating the produét of the distillation of 
wine. He also employed it not as a specific name, but 
in order to mark its resemblance to the extracted produ& 
of wine. The “ elixir of life” of the old alchemists had 
nothing in common with our alcohol. This confusion 
has occasioned more than one error with the historians 
of Science. In faét, it is under the denomination of 
‘fire water,’ that is to say, inflammable water, that 
alcohol first made its appearance, and this name was 
given as well to the essence of turpentine. Let us 
endeavour to determine according to the ancient authors 
and those of the middle ages, the origin of the discovery 
