singular. The Dutch physician, Van 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 obscuriorum sensum referendum," in
which the following passage occurs.--

"ALCOHOL.--Chymicis est liquor aut pulvis summé subtilisatus, vocabulo
Orientalibus quoque, cum primis Habessinis, familiari, quibus _cohol_
speciatim pulverem impalpabilem ex antimonio pro oculis tingendis denotat
... Hodie autem, ob analogiam, quivis pulvis tenerior ut pulvis oculorum
cancri summé subtilisatus _alcohol_ audit, haud aliter ac spiritus
rectificatissimi _alcolisati_ dicuntur."

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 publication of
Lavoisier's "Traité Elémentaire 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
tones as "fermentation"; a term based upon the apparent boiling up or
"effervescence" of the fermenting liquid, and of Latin origin.