602 
Pharmacy  as  a  Hobby. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Sept.  1919. 
It  is  of  interest  to  note  that  this  earlier  and  original  meaning 
persists  in  the  title  "  alcoholized  iron,"  a  form  of  metallic  iron  re- 
sembling reduced  iron,  but  prepared  by  mechanical  and  not  by  chem- 
ical methods ;  the  word  "  alcoholized  "  in  this  title  signifying  simply, 
finely  divided,  and  having  no  reference  whatever  to  alcohol,  as  is 
mistakenly  supposed  by  many  who  have  handled  and  used  it. 
The  Latin  title  spiritus  vini  rectificatus,  so  long  used  for  alcohol, 
reminds  us  of  the  original  source  of  the  alcohol  of  commerce,  which 
was  wine.  This  title,  still  found  on  older  shop  furniture,  is  not  cor- 
rect as  applied  to  modern  alcohol,  which  is  the  produce  of  fermen- 
tation of  any  saccharine  material.  That  the  abbreviation  S.  V.  R. 
which  was  frequently  employed  in  former  times  to  designate  this 
substance  in  hastily  written  prescriptions,  is  no  longer  intelligible, 
was  lately  instanced  by  a  student  who  rendered  it,  in  answer  to  an 
examination  question,  "  Service  very  rapid." 
Phosphorus  (light-bearer)  corrupted  into  foxfire  by  country 
people  who  see  the  gleam  of  phosphorescent  decayed  wood  in  a 
forest  on  a  dark  night;  antimony  (against  monks);  vitriol  (glass 
like)  ;  sal  aeratus  (gas-  or  air-producing  salt)  ;  each  of  these  names 
alone  might  furnish  material  for  an  article,  yet  we  use  them  without 
a  thought  of  their  underlying  interest  and  origin. 
Of  the  many  synonyms  of  compound  tincture  of  benzoin,  which 
have  accumulated  during  the  centuries  in  which  it  was  esteemed  and 
used  as  a  vulnerary,  Jesuits'  drops  and  Friars'  balsam  give  it  a  re- 
ligious association  which  is  distinctly  different  from  the  martial 
thoughts  called  up  by  balsam  of  Maltha,  although  the  Knights  of 
Malta  probably  used  it  in  the  Crusades. 
Our  common  substance  sodium  sulphate,  now  almost  exclusively 
used  in  veternary  practice,  was  discovered  in  the  waters  of  a  Euro- 
pean spring  by  Glauber,  a  German  chemist,  whose  name  appears  in 
its  synonym  (Glauber's  salt)  and  so  highly  was  it  esteemed  as  a  rem- 
edy in  the  early  years  of  its  use  that  it  was  called  "sal  mirabile,"  or 
the  admirable  salt. 
Red  oxide  of  mercury  (erroneously  called  red  precipitate,  for 
it  is  not  made  by  precipitation)  conjures  up  visions  of  Priestley 
working  in  his  home  in  the  Susquehanna  Valley  with  the  crude  ap- 
paratus which  he  fashioned  from  glass  bottles,  kitchen  utensils  and 
an  old  gun  barrel,  for  it  was  from  this  substance  that  oxygen  was 
first  evolved  by  him  in  amounts  sufficient  to  identify  it  and  study  its 
properties. 
