From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPreparation understood through digestion and the separation of pure from impure.
- In the bookFimus equinus broadens the practical vocabulary.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 19; facsimile PDF page 347.
Historical definition
Digestio is a chymical operation compared with the digestion of a human stomach: the matter is prepared through decoction into a separation of pure from impure.
Meaning
The dictionary explains an operation by analogy with a human stomach. That analogy supplies an intelligible model of preparing matter, while the stated result is a separation of pure from impure. The entry consequently connects a bodily activity with chymical work without saying that the materials or conditions of the two are identical.
The word decoction belongs to the description of preparation. In this short definition it does not carry a prescribed duration, vessel or degree of heat. The subject is simply “the matter.” A particular passage must identify that subject and explain what is counted pure or impure in the work.
The order of ideas is useful. Digestion is not merely waiting for something to change; it is an operation whose description includes preparation and discrimination. At the same time, the definition gives no universal visible sign by which successful separation can be recognised. The reader should resist supplying such a sign from a different work.
Use in the book
Fimus equinus broadens the practical vocabulary. It describes a digestion made in different ways, including horse dung, warm ashes or water. The point of that entry is the range of means under one operational term, rather than an assertion that the name always requires horse dung. Mensis Philosophicus gives forty days as the full time of digestion in its particular gloss. That number should remain attached to the defined philosophical month rather than being applied automatically to every occurrence of Digestio.
Other entries use digestion to locate a material within a sequence. Cruor salis is salt separated through a fault in the second digestion. Cohobatio describes repeated drawing off and return of a liquid; Compositum names an unseparated body; Extractum names what is taken from bodily concretion while grossness remains behind. Together these entries help readers follow the relation between the subject, its treatment and selected products.
These relationships also clarify why a chymical operation can be described with language familiar from living bodies. The stomach analogy makes transformation and separation thinkable within one vocabulary. It does not establish that the author is describing a modern digestive process in every substance.
Places to read
- DigestioRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- CohobatioRepeated distillation involving the return of the drawn liquid to its source body.
- CompositumA compound body considered before separation.
- Cruor salisA salt distinguished by separation and an unsuccessful second digestion.
In this edition
“Prepared through decoction” is used in the modernised definition to preserve the historical process without pretending that one English verb settles every instance of the operation. The commentary keeps attention on the comparison the source actually makes.
In reading an extended passage, identify the matter first, then the means and purpose assigned to digestion there. Distinguish those explicit details from this dictionary’s short general account. Doing so makes the term useful across different texts while preventing an isolated gloss from becoming a reconstructed procedure.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 19; facsimile PDF page 347 — Facsimile