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.”