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 bodily tartar explained through failed expulsion.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 13; facsimile PDF page 341.
Historical definition
Calcedonium tartarum is harmful matter in the human body, arising because the expulsive faculty fails to expel what has been separated.
Meaning
The entry supplies a causal account within the historical physiology: separation has occurred, but expulsion fails, leaving harmful matter. The distinction between those two acts is the point. It is not enough that material be separated from nourishment or another bodily process; in this account it must also be removed.
The term is a bodily use of tartar vocabulary. It should not automatically be read as the same material found in a wine vessel. Tartarum provides the broader family, while Anodus and Excrementa offer comparisons for separated or rejected matter. The historical explanation gives no unique modern pathological identification, and the edition does not supply one by conjecture.
Places to read
- Calcedonium tartarumRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- TartarumA wine-vessel deposit whose name also serves for bodily stones or gravel.
- AnodusA bodily product defined through renal separation.
- ExcrementaSuperfluities described through expulsion by Nature.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 13; facsimile PDF page 341 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary (1650), s.v. Calcedonium tartarum ; compare Tartarum, Anodus, Excrementa