it has become possessed of a very wonderful 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
anything was called its "spirit." And thus 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 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
referandum," in which the following passage occurs:--