From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordA red herbal oil identified through a specified preparation setting.
- In this editionA textual note records the reading of the 1650 printing and the editorial treatment.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 7; facsimile PDF page 335.
Historical definition
Arthoicnm is a red oil artificially extracted from herb roots digested with bread in dung. 1
Meaning
The definition gives source material, accompanying matter, a treatment and a resulting colour and form. The roots are the herbal source; bread accompanies them; digestion in dung describes the setting of the preparation; red oil names the product. Keeping that sequence visible makes the entry considerably more intelligible than treating Arthoicum as an unexplained ingredient.
Digestio and Fimus equinus provide relevant operational vocabulary. They help the reader distinguish prolonged preparation and its heating context from the bodily sense of digestion. The present entry nevertheless leaves the plants, duration and exact conditions unnamed, so a complete process cannot be recovered from it alone.
Places to read
- ArthoicnmRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- DigestioPreparation understood through digestion and the separation of pure from impure.
- Fimus equinusA digestion term whose listed means extend beyond horse dung.
Source note
1. The historical headword is printed Arthoicnm. Arthoicum is the corrected form used by the transcription aid and is supplied as an editorial finding form.
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 7; facsimile PDF page 335 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary (1650), s.v. Arthoicnm ; compare Digestio, Fimus equinus