The technological vocabulary of pharmacy is very voluminous, and has been recruited from all languages. Many of the names of vegetable drugs literally household words in English, have been transferred direct from savage tongues. Guaiacum, ipecacuanha, and jalap may be cited as examples. Other names of drugs cover histories which well repay investigation.

Take, for example, the word hyoscyamus and its English equivalent henbane (which I select because it does not happen to be alluded to elsewhere in this work). The obvious and usual explanation of these names is that hyoscyamus is the Greek genitive hyos, of a hog, and kyamos, a bean, and in fact the name of hog’s bean is applied to it in several languages. Henbane, too, is supposed to be self-explanatory. But there is good reason to believe that neither of these interpretations is correct. Dioscorides, who calls the plant hyoscyamos, also mentions that its almost obsolete name was dioskyamos; and henbane is well known to be a corruption of henne-bell. The obsolete name is obviously more likely to convey the original meaning than its corruption, and therefore hyoscyamos is more likely to have meant the bean of the gods than the bean of the pigs. Possibly its name was traceable to the idea that the delirium which the drug produced was the condition induced in human beings when the gods communicated with them, or that some priests used it to produce that condition in which messages presumably from the higher powers could be transmitted. Henbane, again, is not satisfactorily accounted for by its surface meaning. There is no evidence that hens ever eat the herb or the seeds. But the Saxon name henne-bell suggests some sort of a musical instrument, and it is a curious fact that in mediæval Latin henbane was sometimes known as Symphoniaca Herba; the Symphoniaca being a rod with a number of little bells on it. This description might be appropriately applied to the plant, and we have only to suppose a Saxon term “hengebelle” to clear up the mystery.

I am indebted for the foregoing notes to three very suggestive articles in The Chemist and Druggist of October and November, 1877, and February, 1878, by Mr. W. G. Piper.

Next we come to the fanciful and poetic names of metals and their salts, and of all sorts of chemical compounds, invented by the alchemists. They gave the names of aquila alba, mercurius dulcis, panchymagogum minerale, manna metallorum, draco mitigatus, and others to calomel; regulus, or the little king, to antimony (gold being king); lunar caustic, ethiops martial, and salts of Saturn; vitriol, tartar, pompholix, and scores of others, not selected without judgment, but intended rather to mystify the public than to instruct them.

Chemical nomenclature of the present day has gone to the opposite extreme. The ingenious laboratory devisers of synthetic products have developed a nomenclature which it is impossible to use. It explains itself to the initiated, but even for intercommunication between chemists, pharmacists, and physicians words like tetrahydroparamethyloxyquinoline or calcium betanaphthol-alphamonosulphonate insist on being simplified if the substances they describe come into medicinal use; and to do them justice it must be admitted that the inventors of the products are always ready to meet this requirement with a more or less expressive title which can be protected as a trade mark. This forces other manufacturers to devise other distinct names for the same article, so that among the new chemicals which have become popular within the past thirty years there are sometimes a dozen designations for the same substance.

A Pharmaceutical Vocabulary.

The subjoined list of technical terms is limited to the names of pharmaceutical processes, products, and apparatus; and only (as a rule, with some exceptions) of such as are not dealt with in other sections. Many of the terms are obsolete, but are to be met with in old treatises. Occasionally rather more than a bare definition has been thought desirable.

Acetabulum. Originally a vessel used by the Romans for holding vinegar at the table. Then a liquid measure about 2½ oz.

Acetum Philosophicum. Vinegar made from honey.

Acopon. A stimulating or anodyne liniment, almost of the consistence of an ointment. If acopa contained aromatics they were called myracopa.

Adept. An alchemist who “had attained.”

Adust. A dried up condition of the humours.

Aggregatives. Pills devised by Mesué which were intended to purge all the humours.

Alabaster. A special kind of carbonate or sulphate of lime used by the ancients for ointment containers which were sometimes called alabastra. The name is supposed to have been derived from a town in Egypt.

Album Rhasis. White lead ointment, which Rhazes was believed to have introduced.

Alembic. The Arabic name for a still. It was adapted by the Arabs from the Greek ambix, a vase, to which was prefixed the particle al. The word became corrupted in English to Limbeck.

Alembroth. Sal Alembroth was the double chloride of mercury and ammonium. Also called the salt of wisdom. The word has not been traced, but has been supposed to be a Chaldaic term meaning the key of art.

Alexipharmic (in Greek alexipharmakon). A remedy against poison.

Alexiteria. Remedies against the bites of venomous animals.

Alhandal. The Arabic name for colocynth which was applied to certain lozenges or tablets of that drug.

Alkahest. The universal solvent, or menstruum. The word has an Arabic appearance, but cannot be traced to that language. It is believed to have been one of Paracelsus’s many etymological inventions. The derivation has been guessed to have been from the German al-geist, all spirit, Paracelsus said it was a liquid to cure all kinds of engorgements. Van Helmont’s Alkahest was capable of restoring to their first life all the bodies of nature. Glauber’s Alkahest was nitrate potash which had been detonated on live coals. It was carbonate of potash.

Alkali, in Arabic al-qaly. Qaly meant to fry, and the technical term was applied to the ashes of plants after frying or roasting.

Alkekengi. The Winter Cherry, formerly in much esteem as a remedy in kidney and urinary complaints.

Alkool. This name was given to powders of the finest tenuity. It was also applied to spirit of wine rectified to the utmost extent. Boerhaave employed the term to indicate the purest inflammable principle.

Aloedarium. A purgative medicine with aloes as the principal ingredient.

Aludels. Pear-shaped pots constructed so that they could be fitted one into another, a series of them being used for sublimations. The name is supposed to have had an Arabic origin, or it may have meant “not luted.”

Amalgam. A compound of mercury and some other metal. Believed to have been a perversion of malagma, a soft ointment, with the Arabic article prefixed.

Amphora. An earthenware vessel with two handles wherewith to carry it. Used by the Greeks and Romans for wine and oil. The Greek vessel contained about 9 gallons; the Roman amphora was equivalent to nearly 7 gallons.

Analeptica. Restorative remedies.

Anoyntment. An old term for ointment.

Antidotary. A frequent title of books of formulas for medicines.

Antidote. Something “given against.” Originally, perhaps, an adjective, and in old medicine employed for various remedies; now limited to substances which will counteract the effect of poisons.

Apozems. Strong decoctions or infusions. A Greek word meaning “boiled off.”

Aqua Mirabilis. Once a popular household remedy. Water distilled from cloves, cardamoms, cubebs, mace, ginger, and other spices.

Aquila Alba. An old name for calomel.

Arcana meant secrets. The original idea of the word was things shut up and protected as the occupants of Noah’s Ark were shut up. The alchemists used the word arcanum freely, but it came to be applied to medicines of known composition but of mysterious action. Arcanum tartari was acetate of potash. Arcanum duplicatum was another name for the Sal de Duobus or sulphate of potash which was supposed to combine the virtues of nitre and vitriol.

Athanor was a self-supplying furnace, the coals or fuel being provided in a reservoir above the fire and intended to be supplied to the furnace automatically.

Balm and Balsam, which are words with the same origin, have always been suggestive of medicinal and healing virtues. Probably balsam has descended through the Greek and Latin from Semitic terms meaning spices. The Hebrew Besem or Bosem, often translated “spices,” in one place “cinnamon,” in another “calamus,” always meant some grateful aromatic. But the opobalsamum or juice of the Balsam tree, the famous Balm of Gilead, was Tsori in Hebrew. Old etymologists, supported by Littré and other moderns, consider that Baal-schaman, prince of oils, was the original word from which balsam was derived. The Arabic Abu-scham, father of perfumed oils, was a name for the balsam tree. Paracelsus taught that the human body contained a natural balsam which tended by itself to heal wounds.

Basilicon ointment is first met with in Celsus. It means royal ointment but no explanation of the origin of the term is given. He compounded it of panax, (perhaps opopanax), galbanum, pitch, resin, and oil. Mesué made a basilicon minus, composed of wax, resin, pitch, and oil. This he also called unguentum tetrapharmacum, because it was made from four drugs. Both of these were black ointments. Later the pitch was omitted and the ointment was then named yellow basilicon. A green basilicon ointment was also formulated in the early London Pharmacopœias, containing verdigris, and used as a detergent. It is sometimes stated that the ointment acquired its name because it contained the plant basil (Ocimum basilicum) among its ingredients; but I find no authority for this statement.

Baths. The most usual form of digesting substances in a gentle heat was in a Balneum Mariæ, Bain-Marie, or as old English writers translated it a St. Mary’s bath. It was supposed to have been derived from balneum maris, as if sea water was used; but there is no justification for this guess. Littré thinks it was called the bath of Mary because of its gentleness. Sand-baths, cinder-baths, horse-dung baths, and iron-filings baths were also ordered.

Bezoards. Mineral bezoard was diaphoretic antimony. Silician earth was also called mineral bezoar.

Blisters. Freind says these were introduced into medicine in Venice and Padua during the plague of 1576. Jerome Mercuriali wrote about them. They superseded dropaxes and metasyncretics.

Bolus was a medicine of the consistence of an electuary or rather stiffer, taken in pieces about the size of a bean. The Greek word meant a lump of earth, and it was used medically by the Romans. It was the same as katapotia.

Calx was the name applied to lime which had been burnt, and from this it came to be applied to the white powdery product yielded by burning metals. Thus came the calx Lunæ, the calx Saturni, the calx Jovis, the calx Mercurii, and others. The ancient theory was that in burning the metal the sulphur principle was driven out, and this was the parent of Stahl’s phlogiston theory.

Caput mortuum and terres damnées were names applied to residues in retorts after operations.

Carminative. A medicine which expels winds. One theory traces it to carmen, a charm, but most authorities consider that it was an application to medicine of the term carminare, to card wool, and suggested that the remedy acted by combing through the humours.

Cataplasm. From Greek kata-plassein, to apply over. Used originally for both poultices and plasters. Cataplasmata were perfumed powders sprinkled over the clothes, or sometimes depilatories.

Catholica. Electuaries which purged all the humours.

Cerates were ointments made solid by wax, but not so hard as plasters.

Cerevisiæ (Beers). Medicinal preparations made by adding medicines to malt wort and letting them ferment together were popular in the early part of the 18th century. It was believed that the process of fermentation extracted the properties of drugs more effectively than mere digestion. Quincy (1739) names thirty cerevisiæ, aperient, antiscorbutic, diuretic, hysteric, stomachic, &c. Many of these were compounded with numerous drugs.

Ceruse. Old Latin name for white lead. Flowers of antimony were called ceruse of antimony. The name is supposed to have had some association with wax, but the connection is not clear.

Cochleare. The usual prescription term for a spoonful, was in Latin the twenty-fourth of a cyathus or wineglassful. It was an egg-spoon, but owed its name to a pointed tip used to extract winkles from their shells as we use pins, and, the cochlear being a small snail, the name was transferred to the instrument. From it has descended the French cuillier, a spoon.

Cohobation came to mean only the repetition of distillation, the distillate being poured on the material from which it had already been distilled, and again distilled. Paracelsus uses the term cohob to signify a repetition of the same medicine.

Colcothar. The name was applied to the prepared rust of iron now called rouge, but originally to the residue left in the retort after oil of vitriol had been distilled from sulphate of iron. Paracelsus used, and some say invented, the word; but Murray traces it through the Spanish to an Arabic origin, qolqotar, which Doxy believes to have been a corruption of the Greek Chalcanthos, a solution of blue vitriol (from chalkos, copper, and anthos, flower). Colcothar was the same as crocus Martis.

Collutories. Medicines of the consistence of honey for applying to the gums and mouth. Honey and borax is an example. A fluid mouth-wash was called a collution.

Collyrium. Collyria were “dry,” or powders such as alum, sulphate of zinc, or calomel, which were insufflated into the eye; soft, or pomades applied to the eyelids; and liquid, or eye lotions. The term kollyrion was used in Greek medicine with the same meaning; it was originally derived from kollyra, a roll of bread.

Conserves properly consisted of only one medicament and sugar.

Crocus (Saffron). The term was applied to certain metallic combinations of a saffron colour, such as crocus Martis (rust of iron), crocus Veneris (a copper oxide), and crocus Metallorum (liver of antimony). Damocrates left a formula for Crocomagma, tonic cakes or trochiscs, of which saffron was the principal ingredient.

Crucible. A vessel in which metals are melted. The word is generally attributed to a supposed association with crux, crucis, a cross; but this is not proved. It was originally the name of a night-lamp, and several authorities consider it owes its name to the crossing of the wicks.

Cucupha. A cap to be worn on the head in which certain aromatic drugs were fixed with the idea of curing headaches.

Cucurbit. A gourd-shaped vessel of glass or earthenware used as a retort.

Cyathus, translated wineglassful when the word appears in prescriptions, was the ladle with which the wine was scooped out from the cratera into the poculum. It was also a Roman measure, about the twelfth part of a pint.

Decocta have been attributed to Nero as the inventor. At least they appear to have originated in his household. They were simply boiled water refreshed by ice, and often flavoured by fruits. These were employed as beverages. “Et hæc est Neronis decocta” exclaimed the fallen tyrant as he fled from Rome and allayed his thirst by scooping some dirty water from a pond.

Deliquium. Deliquescence; as when salt of tartar was resolved into “oil of tartar” by mere exposure to the air. This was called “deliquium per se.”

Despumation. The removal of the froth from boiling honey or syrup.

Dia in the “Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman” written by Langland in 1377 occur the lines:

Translated into modern English these lines would read “Life believed that leechcraft should let (hinder) age, and drive away death with dyas and dragges.” The dyas and dragges were evidently the means which leechcraft employed. At that time and for long afterwards a large number of compounded medicines bore titles with the prefix dia-. Diachylon, diagrydium, diabolanum diakodion, diasulphuris are examples of scores. Dia was the Greek preposition, meaning through or from, which appears in a multitude of English words. In medicine it always implies a compound, and in old English it is occasionally found alone as in the instance quoted from “Piers Plowman.” Another given in the Historical English Dictionary is from Lydgate (1430) “Drug nor dya was none in Bury towne.”[5] In combination a few survivals remain in the language as Diachylon, Diapente, and Diacodion, but in the old medical formularies its use is very frequent. Generally it meant an electuary or confection. Thus for example the P.L. of 1746 changed the old Diascordium into Electuarium e Scordio. Apparently the dia- was then going out of fashion.

Diagredium or Diagrydium. This term was often applied to scammony but it was correctly reserved to a prepared scammony (see Dia); the object being to modify the purgative action. One method was to place some scammony in the hollow of a quince and keep it for some time in hot ashes. This gave Diagredium cydoniatum. Or sulphur was burned under a porous paper on which scammony was spread, and the preparation was known as Diagredium sulphuratum. It was also combined with liquorice and called Diagredium glycyrrhisatum.

Dropax was the name of a plaster employed as a depilatory. It was applied warm and pulled off, with the hairs, when cold. It was the Greek term for a pitch plaster.

Drug. The word “dragges” in the “Vision of Piers Plowman” (refer to “Dia”) has been generally supposed to have been an earlier form of drugs; but Skeat contended on philological grounds that the two terms could hardly be the same. Dragges occurs also in Chaucer in the description of the Doctour of Phisike:—

and Skeat presumed that the dragges were a kind of medicinal sweetmeat corresponding with the French dragées. But Murray has shown that in most of the texts of Chaucer the word is droggis or drugges. So that it is probable that the poet was using the term which we now almost invariably confine to the raw materials of pharmacy. It might easily be shown that in the past it was more generally applied. The etymology of drug is doubtful. The majority of philologists trace it to Anglo-Saxon dryg, and Dutch droog, both meaning dry, the sense originating from dried herbs. There is, however, a Celtic word, drwg, in Irish, droch, which has the meaning of something bad. But Littré suggests that the primary signification of that word is that of an ingredient, and therefore might have been the derivation of our drug. Most likely it is the original of the word when employed as indicating something worthless, as “a drug in the market.” It may well be therefore that the word used in different senses has distinct derivations. (Two interesting articles on this subject will be found in The Chemist and Druggist for February and March, 1882.)

Eclegma. Thick syrups given on a piece of liquorice root to suck with the object of relieving coughs. (See Electuary for Derivation.)

Ecussons. Compounds of theriaca with some added opium used as plasters.

Edulcorate. To deprive substances of their acrid taste. Generally by the addition of syrup.

Electuary. Old dictionaries give the origin of this word as from the Latin electus, on the theory that an electuary was a composition of selected drugs. It is, in fact, a Latin corruption of the Greek ekleikton, which meant something that could be licked. See Eclegma.

Elixir. An Arabic word, al-iksir, which Littré says signified the essence or the quintessence. Murray suggests that it may have had a Greek origin. Xerion, a late Greek medical term, meaning a desiccative powder for wounds, is the word which he supposes the Arabs may have adopted. It is probable that elixir was from the first used to denote a medicine; perhaps the medicine, the great panacea which Arab chemists sought for. For although alchemy, the name at least, may be traced to their laboratories, it is certain that their early efforts were rather in the direction of the discovery of remedies than in that of the production of gold. By the alchemists of Europe and England, however, elixir was understood in both senses. It meant both the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life. In “The Alchemist,” Ben Jonson (1610) alludes to an old superstition thus:

The word has been a useful one for empirics many times since.

Emplastra are noted by Celsus, many of his formulæ being made with a lead plaster basis as ours are to this day, litharge (spuma argenti) and olive oil being boiled together.

Emulsion, from emulsus the past participle of emulgere, to milk out, was originally applied to the milky liquid extracted from almonds. Subsequently extended to other milky fluids.

Enchrista. Liquids, Celsus says, “quæ illinuntur,” but the word linimentum had not been formed in his time. He uses the word Linamentum for a sort of lint. Acopa were a kind of liniment.

Enema or clyster or glyster are all used to signify either the injection or the instrument by which the injection is applied. Enema (properly pronounced with the accent on the first syllable) means something sent; clyster was the Greek word for the instrument.

Ens. A favourite term with old metaphysicians and alchemists with the same meaning as essence. Supposed to have been derived from Esse, to be.

Epithema. An alcoholic fomentation or liquid medicine applied to the heart and stomach as a stupe.

Epithemation was the name of an application described by Galen as of a consistence between that of a cerate and that of a plaster.

Errhines, called Nasalia in Latin, are substances snuffed up the nostrils to excite sneezing.

Gas was a word invented by Van Helmont. Several guesses have been hazarded as to the idea which suggested the term. The Dutch geest, spirit or ghost, seemed the most likely. The German gäschen, to ferment, has also been proposed. But in 1897 Dr. F. Hurder discovered a paragraph in Van Helmont’s writings which stated definitely that he had derived the word from chaos.

Gilla Vitriola. The name first given to white vitriol. Gilla meant simply salt.

Gutteta. A term for epilepsy. Pulvis de Gutteta was a remedy against epilepsy.

Hepars were chemicals of a liver colour, as hepar antimonii, hepar sulphuris.

Infusions first appeared in the London Pharmacopœia of 1720. In the revised edition of that issue (1724), however, the three infusions of 1720 appear as Decocti, the title of Infusum being abandoned, but the directions for the three preparations referred to still give “infunde” and not “coque.” In the edition of 1746 Infusa re-appear as such, and “Macera” appears in the directions for the first time. In the 1788 edition Inf. Amarum Simplex becomes Infusum Gentianæ Compositum, and aqua bulliens gives place to aqua fervens. In 1809 the number of Infusions is raised from four to eighteen.

Julep, a term made popular in medicine by the Arabs. It was used by them exclusively for clear, sweet, liquids. Nothing oily or with a sediment could be a julep. The name is said to be a Persian compound from gul, rose, and ap, water; applied to rose tinted waters. It has lingered in modern pharmacy as camphor or mint julep, but in neither of these cases is it correctly applied, as they are not sweetened. The old way of making camphor julep was to hold a piece of camphor by pincers, inflame it, and plunge it in water, repeating this operation frequently until the water acquired a strong flavour of camphor.

Katapotia. The most usual form of medicine among the Greek pharmacists was the confection or electuary, a composition of drugs made to a proper consistence generally with honey. Frequently these electuaries were called “antidotes,” things given against this or that disease. There were antidotes against gout, against stone, against colics, against phthisis, etc. The taste of these antidotes was always unpleasant, so it became the custom to order them to be made up into little balls of such or such size. The Greeks called these little balls “katapotia,” that is, things to be swallowed. “Take a katapotium the size of a bean” would be an ordinary Greek direction. Galen describes a composition of 1 part of colocynth, 2 parts of aloes, 2 of scammony, 1 of absinth juice, and a little mastic and bdellium, which was to be formed into katapotia, each of the size of a dried pea. Trallien refers to this same pill, but names the size as that of a kokkion, a seed. This was the origin of our pil. cochiæ or cocciæ as they came to be known. By this time the names globulus, glomeramus, and pilula had taken the place in Latin of katapotium. Actuarius says expressly that what the Greeks called katapotia the Romans knew as pilulæ. Trochisci were katapotia made very hard.

Lac Virginale. The name was applied to a dilute solution of acetate of lead (Goulard’s water) and also to water made milky by the addition of a little tincture of benzoin. Both were used by young girls for their complexions.

Lapis Infernalis. Nitrate of silver.

Lapis Medicamentosus. An astringent stone of which oxide of iron was the principal ingredient.

Lapis Mirabilis. An application for wounds, of which green vitriol was the essential ingredient.

Looch—sometimes loch, lohoch, lohoth—was a thick liquid, between a syrup and an electuary, almond emulsion being frequently the basis, which formerly patients were ordered to suck on a stick of liquorice cut in the form of a pencil for throat and lung irritation. Sometimes stronger medicines, like kermes mineral and ipecacuanha, were administered in this way. The word was of Arabic origin, and was derived from the verb la’aka, to lick.

Maceration is the digestion of a solid body in a liquid for the purpose of dissolving its active principles.

Magdaleon. Originally a mass or paste such as crumb of bread (Greek, magdalia), or it may have been used for pill masses made up with crumb of bread. The term became limited to plasters in cylindrical form.

Magistery. A word much in favour with the alchemists and old pharmacists. It had not a very definite meaning, but was understood to be a substance so converted as to present the virtues of the material from which it had been made in their most effective form. Boyle mentions that Paracelsus uses the word to signify many different things, and Boyle himself has not a clear idea of what he understands by it, for, he says, “the best notion I know of it is that it is a preparation whereby there is not an analysis made of the body assigned, nor an extraction of this or that principle, but the whole or very near the whole body, by the help of some additament, greater or less, is turned into a body of another kind.” Boerhaave, however, takes the pretensions of the makers of magisteries to be that they change a body into another form, as, for instance, solid gold into liquid, without any addition. According to Littré, precipitates generally were considered to possess the properties of the bodies from which they were obtained, and thus became magisteries. The magistery of bismuth is the one which has survived the longest with us. Resin of jalap was also regarded as a magistery.

Magma was the residuum left in the press after pressing out the menstruum. It was also used to describe other substances of a soft consistence.

Magnes Arsenicalis was a compound of sulphur, arsenic, and antimony, which, either in the form of powder or made into a plaster, was applied to syphilitic sores to draw out the virus. Angelo Sala was the inventor of the plaster.

Malagmata were substances applied to the skin to soften it, such as poultices.

Malaxation was the process of making a pill mass or a plaster soft enough to be worked.

Manica Hypocratis (Sleeve of Hippocrates) was a long linen bag used to filter pharmaceutical preparations.

Manipulus, a handful, often prescribed as an approximate measure of the quantity of herbs or flowers to be used in a pharmaceutical process.

Manus Christi was the name of a tablet made of sugar and flavoured with rose into which some prepared pearl entered.

Manus Dei was the name of an old plaster containing myrrh, frankincense, ammoniac, and galbanum.

Marmalades were conserves of various fruits, the pulp of which was preserved in sugar. Said to have been originally the pulp of the quince (in Portuguese marmelo). Some old medical books say the pharmaceutical preparations known by this name, which often contained manna, were derived from the French marc mêlé.

Masticatories. Substances chewed with the object of exciting the saliva. Sage, betony, pyrethrum, and tobacco have been employed for this purpose.

Matrass. A round or oval glass vessel used in chemical operations to digest or evaporate liquids. It was provided with a long straight neck, and is supposed to owe its name to this, matras or matrat being an old word for an arrow or javelin.

Mellites were syrups made with honey instead of sugar.

Mensis Philosophicus, a philosophic month, or forty days.

Menstruum. The alchemists used this term much as the word solvent is now used, and some etymologists think it was adopted to indicate that a month was necessary for a solvent to exercise its full power. Dr. Johnson says the idea originated “in some notion of the old chemists about the influence of the moon in the preparation of dissolvents.” Sir J. Murray says “Menstruum was a mediæval term used in alchemy to express belief that the base metal undergoing transmutation into gold corresponded with the seed within the womb which was being acted upon by the agency of the menstrual fluid.” It is possible, however, that the old belief in the extraordinary solvent power of the menstrual fluid may have better accounted for the adoption of the term in pharmacy. Dr. C. S. Carrington, of Brooklyn, has quoted from a French narrative of the conquest and conversion of the natives of the Canary Islands, published in one of the Hakluyt volumes, a passage written by two monks giving an account of the Flood. Describing the Ark, they say it was so perfectly joined by “Betun,” a glue so strong that the pieces united by it could not be separated by any art “sinon par sang naturel de fleurs de femmes.”

Moxa. In the middle of the seventeenth century Ten Rhyn and afterwards Kaempfer, both surgeons in the service of the Dutch East India Company, described a process of cauterisation largely adopted in China and Japan in the treatment of various maladies. They used the hairy leaves of the Chinese artemisia and made it up into a cylindrical shape which they placed on any part on which they wished to act, and then set fire to it, allowing it to smoulder slowly down to the skin. It was adopted by many European surgeons, especially by Van Swieten in gout, rheumatism, and paralysis, but carded cotton, lint, hemp, or other substances were employed in the same way. Sydenham mentions this as a cure for gout, and Larrey designed a little instrument to facilitate the application. Sometimes chemicals were combined, and the stem of the sunflower cut into inch lengths, the pith being burnt, was also used. The operation of course gave great pain, and after a time it was doubted if it did any good.

Nasalia. See Errhines.

Noctiluca. The name given by Boyle to the phosphorus which he made before the latter word became general.

Nutrition. A term used in old pharmacy to signify the act of combining substances in a mortar or by agitation until they acquired the proper consistence. Unguentum nutritum, for example, was an ointment made by stirring together in a mortar some lead plaster with oil and vinegar and generally some belladonna juice.

Nychthemeron meant maceration for a day and night, that is for 24 hours. It appears sometimes in directions for treating herbs and flowers previous to distillation.

Obolos, a Greek weight equal to half a scruple.

Œnclaion, a mixture of wine and oil.

Œnogala, a mixture of wine and milk.

Œnomeli, a mixture of wine and honey.

Œsypus, the name given by Dioscorides to wool fat.

Ointments among the Greeks and Romans were generally liquids. Anything used to anoint with, not being oil simply, was an ointment (miron in Greek, unguentum in Latin). From the Greek word was derived Myrepsus, which meant an ointment maker.

Opiates were originally electuaries containing opium or some other narcotic. Gradually, however, the word lost its significance and was used to indicate any medicinal substance of the same character. It is sometimes used for tooth pastes.

Oxycroceum was the name of a plaster among the ingredients of which were vinegar and saffron.

Panchrest. A remedy for all complaints.

Panchymagogon. A medicine to purify all the humours. Pulp of colocynth, black hellebore, diagrydium, of each 2½ ounces; senna, rhubarb, of each 4 ounces; species of diarrhodon abattis, hermodactils, turbith, agaric, aloes, of each 1 ounce. Make an extract with cinnamon water, adding the salt from the fæces. Dose, 20 to 30 grains. Calomel was called “mineral panchymagogon.”

Pedilavium. A decoction of herbs intended to bathe the feet with to induce sleep.

Pelican. A glass vessel with a tubular neck and provided with two beaks, one opposite the other, which conducted the vapour back to the lower part of the vessel, so that cohobation or redistillation was continually being carried on.

Periapt. An amulet hung round the neck, or applied to some other part of the body, to preserve the wearer from contagion, or to drive away evil spirits.

Pessary, from Greek “pessos,” a little round stone used in a game. Pessaries were in very common use by the Greek women for every kind of vaginal complaint. They were little balls of wool or lint which were medicated in various ways.

Pill. The word “pilula” is first found in Pliny, who says “Pharmaca illa in globulos conformata vulgo pilulæ nominamus.” See “Katapotia.”

Poison is the same word as “potion.” Both originally meant a draught.

Polychrest. A medicine of many virtues,

Pomatum. Originally an ointment made from the pulp of apples, lard and rose water, and used as an application for beautifying the face.

Populeum. An ointment made from the buds of the black poplar. It was prescribed by Nicolas of Salermo as a narcotic and resolvent application.

Poultice, from the Latin “puls (pult-)” through the Italian “polta,” meaning pap, pottage, pulse. “Poltos” was the Greek term for pottage. The intrinsic purport of the word was something beaten. The Latin “pulsare,” to beat, represents the idea, and it is found in our word “pulse,” which indicates the heart-beats, and also in such words as impulse, compulsory, and the like. In old medical books, “poultice” is generally spelt “pultesse” or “pultass,” and this form was retained until the eighteenth century. In the first quarto of “Romeo and Juliet” (Act II., Sc. 5) the Nurse asks Juliet, “Is this the poultesse for my aking boanes?”

Propomata were drinks made of wine and honey in the proportion of four to one according to Galen.

Psilothrum. A depilatory.

Salamanders’ Blood. The red vapours of nitrous acid.

Salia. Salt was a term very vaguely applied in old chemistry. Anything soluble and possessing a marked taste was called a salt. Thus grew the practice of describing substances as salia acida, salia alkalina, and salia salsa. Sal fixum was a salt not affected by heat.

Scutum. See Ecusson.

Sinapisms were a form of poultices or cataplasms used by the Romans as counter irritants. They were generally made with crushed mustard, sometimes with cantharides and crumb of bread, and often with dried figs wetted and reduced to a pulp.

Smegma was an application to the skin composed of some active remedy such as verdigris, alum, sulphur, pepper, hellebore, or stavesacre.

Sparadrap. An adhesive plaster on linen or paper.

Suffumenta or Suffumigia. Gums, aromatics, or other substances burned and inhaled to fortify the brain.

Supplantalia. Remedies applied to the soles of the feet, believed to attract the vicious humours. Live pigeons cut in two, and other animals were sometimes thus applied.

Suppositories are at least as old as Hippocrates, who called them Prosdita or Balanoi. Suppository is from the Latin sub-ponere, and is stated by modern etymologists to mean to place under; but older writers say the meaning was to substitute. That is, the suppository was employed instead of an enema.

Syrup. An Arabic introduction. The Arabic word is Sharab or Shurab, and our words sherbet and shrub as well as syrup are derived from it.

Tisanes, formerly Ptisans, are mentioned as favourite forms of administering the simpler kinds of remedies by Celsus. The word was derived from “ptissein,” to crush, and was applied first to barley water, made from crushed barley. In French pharmacy Tisanes, mostly infusions of herbs, are still very familiar. Celsus uses the term “sorbitio” for gruel. Apozems were stronger than Tisanes.

Troches, from the Greek trochiscos, a cone. Medicines in a hard form. Subsequently called in Latin, pastilli, and in English, lozenges. They were first made in the shape of cones. Trochisci plumbi were compounds of white lead, camphor, gum, etc., like oat grains, invented by Rhazes for application to the eyes. Named also trochisci Rhasis, and Arab soap.

Apothecaries’ Weights and Measures Signs.

It is not possible to ascertain with certainty the origin of the familiar signs ℈, ʒ, ℥, used in formulas and prescriptions to represent the scruple, drachm, and ounce respectively. A few guesses may be quoted, but actual historic evidence is not available.

Dr. C. Rice, New York, an accomplished scholar and pharmaceutical authority, supposed that the scruple sign was a slightly modified form of the Greek gamma, γ, the first letter of “gramma,” the nearest Greek equivalent weight, and the original of the modern gramme. The same author associated the ounce sign with the Greek x, ξ, which was certainly used in ancient times, often with a tiny ° against it, thus, ξ°, to represent the “oxybaphon,” or vinegar vessel, which became a fluid measure equal to about 15 fluid drachms. There is some evidence that the same sign was used for the later Greek (or Sicilian) ungia, Latin uncia, the original of our ounce. The oxybaphon, it may be added, was translated into Latin “acetabulum,” which was also a vinegar vessel and a measure.

It has been guessed that the scruple sign may have been a slurred Greek ς, written thus, (see Dr. Wall’s “Prescription,” published at St. Louis, 1888). Apuleius, who wrote in the second century, gives as a sign for an obolus which was equal to about 14 grains. That symbol could easily have drifted into our ℈. Hermann Schelenz (“Geschichte der Pharmacie,” 1904, page 153) makes up a table of medicinal weights and measures from Celsus, Pliny, and Galen, and quotes the following signs as being then used: , sextans or obolus; ℈, gramma or scruple = about 20 grains; , drachme or Holea = 3 scruples; γο, oungia or uncia = ounce; λι, libra = pound.

The drachm sign in Dr. Wall’s opinion is a reminiscence of an Egyptian symbol for half, somewhat similar to our figure 3, . He supposes that the Greeks adopted this sign to represent the half of the Egyptian medicinal weight unit, which according to the best authorities was equivalent to a double drachm. In a treatise by Ebers on the Weights and Measures of the Ebers Papyrus, he estimates the weight unit at 6·064 grammes (say 103 grains). He explains, however, that the name of the weight is nowhere given in the Papyrus. I cannot say whether there is any evidence of the transfer of the Egyptian weights to Greek pharmacy, but the usual course of the travels of such characters was from the Egyptian hieratic or demotic writing to the Coptic, and thence to the Arabic. It appears certain, however, that the Arabic “dirhem” was adopted from the Greek “drachma.”

The sign , which frequently occurs in the Ebers Papyrus, might quite easily and almost inevitably come to be written something like our ʒ; but Ebers values it at two-thirds of a litre, where it is named as a fluid measure. He deduces this from the hypothesis that the is the hieratic equivalent of the hieroglyphic , dnat, or tenat.

Scribonius Largus, in the first century, and Apuleius in the second, both give Ζ as the Greek sign for a drachm in medical formulas. The former says this was equivalent to the Roman denarius, or one eighty-fourth of a pound.

A writer in the Lancet of August 18, 1906, very confidently attributed these signs to the abbreviations made by the copyists of ancient manuscripts in the Middle Ages. One of the old abbreviation marks is still familiar in the z, which appears in “oz.” and “viz.” The z was formerly a ʒ, which was largely used to indicate that the word had been abbreviated; in the cases quoted from onza and videlicet. Palæontologists say that the ʒ was itself a modification of the mark “;” which was a common contraction at the end of words ending in bus or que. Thus, for instance, omnibus and quaque would be written omni; and qua;. It is alleged that in writing; without removing the pen from the paper, something like ʒ will result. This is interesting, but it does not explain how the abbreviation came to signify drachm.

The Lancet writer further stated that the ℥ was a slurred form of writing oz., and that the scruple sign was a ligature representing the letters sr.

It may be added that among the old manuscript signs ℈ is often used for ejus. I am not, however, prepared to suggest any connection between this word and a scruple.

℞

Paris, in “Pharmacologia,” pages 13 and 14, makes the statement that “such was the supposed importance of planetary influence that it was usual to prefix a symbol of the planet under whose reign the ingredients were to be collected; and it is not perhaps generally known that the character which we at this day place at the head of our prescriptions, and which is understood and supposed to mean Recipe, is a relict of the astrological symbol of Jupiter.”

I have not met with that statement in any earlier writer, but it has been quoted by scores of compilers since. It is very confidently asserted, but I think its accuracy is questionable. As an excuse for my temerity in challenging such an eminent authority it may be mentioned that on the same page the author informs us that the word “crucible” was derived from the circumstance that the alchemists were in the habit of stamping the figure of a cross on the vessel from which they were to obtain their long sought prize. No modern philologist would endorse that etymology.

Paris quotes, in support of the Jupiter theory, a few instances of directions for gathering specific plants “at the rising of the moon,” “when the dog-star is in the ascendant,” and so on. But these have no reference to a compound of several ingredients. It would have been of no use to invoke Jupiter alone for any of the ancient prescriptions. Every plant, said Paracelsus, has its special star. It would have stirred up discord in Olympus if any had been neglected.

Pereira adopts Paris’s theory, but makes it almost impossible to accept it. In “Selecta et Prescriptis,” he says it was usual in old prescriptions to prefix to the formula a pious invocation such as “D. J.” (Deo Juvante), “J. J.” (Jesu Juvante), the figure of a cross, or some similar Christian sign. The suggestion is that we have progressed from Christian to heathen symbols. It would be particularly interesting to know when the physicians of Christendom substituted the appeal to Jupiter for that which their own religion had pressed upon them.

Greek and Roman physicians wrote prescriptions, no doubt; but I am not aware that any of these have been preserved to us. Our prescriptions are the direct descendants of the “bills” which the physicians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries scribbled in coffee houses when they met their apothecaries. “Physitians bylles not Patients but Apothecaries know” (Warner, 1612, quoted in “Murray’s Dictionary”). It is too much to ask us to imagine that these scribes were in the habit of sketching the symbol of Jupiter at the head of these documents.

Planets and Metals.

There are no historic records of the origin of the association of the seven metals with the seven planets nor of the connection of either with the deities of antiquity.

That Greece transmitted the mythological connection to Rome is clear enough, but it is not so certain whence Greece obtained the idea. Traces of it can be discovered in both Persia and Egypt, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that the circle of imagery may have developed from the worship of the sun. Allowing that heavenly body to have been the supreme divinity, or at least the residence of such a being, it would be natural to assign to the moon and the five principal planets apparently in attendance on the earth similar though lower dignities. The tendency to group gods and planets and metals into sevens would be an obvious link between the last two, and the characters of the deities named would naturally be extended to the materials named after them.

Berthelot considers that Babylon and Chaldea were the localities where imagination was first most abundantly applied to the elucidation of science. There and elsewhere in the East the mystic relations of the number seven came to be recognised. Perhaps it was the regular appearance of the seven planets, visible to the naked eye, from which those early notions were based. Then the moon’s phases consisted of four equal periods of seven days each. The seven stars in the Great Bear, the seven colours, the seven tones in music, the seven vowels in the Greek alphabet, the seven sages, and, naturally also, the seven known metals, were all evidences of this order of the universe. Out of this correspondence grew the Chaldean and Persian ideas of seven heavens, each with its gate of a different metal; the first of lead, the second of tin, the third of brass, the fourth of iron, the fifth of a copper alloy, the sixth of silver, and the seventh of gold.

The philosophers of Chaldea attributed to the heavenly bodies, or rather to the deities who had made these their homes, extensive control over the products of the earth. The sun-god produced gold, the moon-god silver, and so forth; and this view was prevalent certainly until the sixteenth century. Naturally all the early investigators had to picture their fancies more or less crudely, and thus alphabets originated. The Egyptian ideograms are the most familiar of this ancient poetry to us, and among these are some which are intelligible to us to-day. The sun and gold, ☉, are still represented by that sign; water, , was so indicated in the papyri and in the alchemical books of three or four hundred years ago; and the sign still used for the planet and the metal mercury, ☿, differs but little from the hieroglyph of Thoth, whom the Greeks called Hermes and the Romans Mercury. Greek students have imagined that this sign was derived from the caduceus or winged staff of the god, but some Egyptologists have claimed it as a picture of the “sacred ibis.”

It need not be supposed that any definite table of the planetary symbols was ever drawn up and agreed to. These only very gradually became uniform. Even the association of the planets and the metals was by no means invariable in different nations. Among the Persians, for example, copper was assigned to Jupiter; but the Egyptians dedicated a compound of gold and silver called electron to him, while in more recent systems Jupiter and tin are allied. Venus controlled tin according to Persian lore; but the Egyptian attribution of brass or copper to her has prevailed. Iron belonged to Mercury before quicksilver was recognised as a metal and at that time Mars was the god-father of an alloy similar to bronze. The oldest table known is one given by Olympiodorus in the fifth century, and in that electron is still associated with Jupiter and tin with Hermes (Mercury).

Berthelot’s laborious researches into the origin of alchemy, and his reproductions of ancient manuscripts show that while signs were used by the ancient Greek writers of about the first century of our era, they were not used by the Latin authors, but seem to have been in full adoption in the Middle Ages. The manuscript of St. Mark at Venice, which Berthelot believed was written about the year A.D. 1000, probably for some prince, contains a multitude of these symbols. A regular system is followed. Gold, for example, is represented by ; gold filings by ; gold leaf, thus ; and a combination of gold and silver by . A similar modification of the original symbols is found in connection with the other metals.

There is scarcely any allusion to the symbols in the Arabic manuscripts, for that race had a holy horror of all forms of Greek paganism, though it may be noted that their physicians made a superstition of the practice of bleeding on Tuesdays and Wednesdays only, unconscious perhaps of the origin of this ritual, which depended on the fact that Mars, the god of blood and iron, superintended Tuesday’s operations, and Mercury, who had the management of the humours, was in charge on Wednesdays. It was really not until the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, when the European alchemists were trying to find a way to transmute the baser metals into gold, that the code became “conventionalised.”

As already stated, the signs for the seven metals have not been invariable, but for many centuries they have been distributed thus:—

It may be noted in passing how these old-time fictions have influenced our language, our literature, and especially our medicine. Lunatic, jovial, saturnine, martial, venereal, and mercurial, are etymological reminiscences of the time when temperaments and diseases were associated with the heavenly bodies, and the extent to which metallic compounds acquired their medical reputations from their artificial relationship with the powers which were assumed to have adopted them, is curious. Nitrate of silver was given in brain disorders originally because of the belief in the control of the mental faculties by the moon. The administration of iron for the purpose of invigorating the constitution was largely due to its connection with Mars, whose fame for virility assured the possession of similar virtue in his metallic god-son.