From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordElemental air given a human counterpart as a circulating or pervasive spirit.
- In the bookElementum gives the broader changeable elemental domain.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 26; facsimile PDF page 354.
Historical definition
Ileidus is elemental air; in human beings it is the spirit passing through all their members.
Meaning
The definition moves from a general elemental identification to a human one. The same named term is elemental air, but in people it is the spirit passing through their members. The second clause should remain part of the gloss rather than being treated as an incidental metaphor.
The entry does not identify a bodily pathway, an anatomical organ or a measurable fluid. Its point is the relation between an elemental description and the account of activity throughout a person.
Use in the book
Elementum gives the broader changeable elemental domain. Ilech magnum compares higher stars in the firmament with lower stars in people, while Imaginatio names a star in a person. These parallels show how the dictionary connects worldly and human descriptions through related terms, without declaring every human spirit or star identical.
Places to read
- IleidusRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- ElementumThe elemental domain described through corruption, transience and change.
- Ilech magnumA medicine’s hidden star explained through a higher and lower correspondence.
- ImaginatioImagination described through human, celestial and supercelestial relations.
In this edition
The modernised wording keeps “spirit” as the historical explanatory term. It leaves the nature of its passage through the members to the author’s wider account.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 26; facsimile PDF page 354 — Facsimile