DiotimosReading Desk

Body disease and historical medicine

Orexis

A heat attributed to tartarous matter.

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 heat attributed to tartarous matter.
  • In the bookTartarum provides the fuller vocabulary of hard deposits in wine vessels and stones or gravel in human bodies.
  • A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 36; facsimile PDF page 364.

Historical definition

Orexis is a heat caused by tartarous matter.

Meaning

The sentence supplies a cause as well as a condition. The material described as tartarous is said to produce heat. The term should not be identified from a familiar meaning in another language while disregarding this local gloss.

Use in the book

Tartarum provides the fuller vocabulary of hard deposits in wine vessels and stones or gravel in human bodies. That connection helps explain the adjective while leaving the present definition’s account of heat visible.

Places to read

  1. OrexisRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
  2. TartarumA wine-vessel deposit whose name also serves for bodily stones or gravel.
  3. QualitasThe balance of hot, cold, dry and moist qualities.

Source note

Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 36; facsimile PDF page 364 — Facsimile

Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary (1650), s.v. Orexis; 1650 facsimile PDF p. 364; compare Tartarum, Qualitas