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 distinction between a manifest quality and an occult virtue.
- In the bookQualitas supplies the relevant sense of complexion.
- 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 40; facsimile PDF page 368.
Historical definition
Relloleum is a virtue arising from complexion. In St John’s wort, for example, the first virtue is in heat and is healing; the other is accidental and hidden, preserving against worms and corruption. 1
Meaning
The example separates two ways of explaining a plant’s powers. Heat belongs to complexion, the mixture of qualities. Another virtue is called accidental and occult. Accidental here qualifies its relation to that account; the entry still attributes definite effects to it.
Use in the book
Qualitas supplies the relevant sense of complexion. Reading the articles together prevents heat and occult virtue from collapsing into one explanation. The named plant serves as the compiler’s example of this distinction.
Places to read
In this edition
Healing and preservation are historical claims in the definition. They are retained as claims of the text, without assigning modern evidence or a modern mechanism to the obscure headword.
Source note
1. The original prints complexionn with a doubled final n. The modernised definition reads complexion.
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 40; facsimile PDF page 368 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary (1650), s.v. Relloleum; 1650 facsimile PDF p. 368; compare Qualitas