1892 The flowing bowl when and what to drink (1892, c1891)

HISTORY.

30

more than

principle by Lowitz, in the year 1796, /. ^.,

four centuries later. What we now call alcohol had, from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, very different names: Aqua ardens, aqua vita, aqua vita ardens, aqua vini, spiritus Since the beginning of the sixteenth century the name of " alcohol " was more and more adopted. It derives its name from the Arabian word "al-kohl," i. e., a name of a fine powder with which the eyelashes are dyed, therefore a substance changed into the finest aggrega- tion of molecules. About the nature and composition of alcohol there were as many different meanings and opinions as there were writers, and each following more fantastic, if it were possible, than the previous one. But all these phantasmagories faded away like fog before the sun when the great French chemist, Lavoisier, inaugurated a new era in chemistry by his discovery of oxygen; he proved that the elementary parts of alcohol were car- bon, hydrogen and oxygen. Originally, it was used for medical purposes only; but gradually people found its effect upon the human body, and drank it, whether they were sick or not, be- cause it worked more rapidly than wine and beer. The general use of alcohol is of comparatively recent date not before the fifteenth century we find in Europe the use of " aqua vita" together with that of wine and beer. vini, vinum ardens, mercurius vegetabilis, etc.