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: He that has once the “flower of the sun” The perfect ruby which we call elixir ... by its virtue Can confer honour, love, respect, long life, Give safety, valour, yea, and victory To whom he will. In eight and twenty days He’ll make an old man of fourscore a child. 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.