XXIV
NAMES AND SYMBOLS
"Every trade and handicraft, every art, every science, is constantly
changing its materials, its processes, and its products; and
its technical dialect is modified accordingly, while so much of the
results of this change as affects or interests the general public
finds its way into the familiar speech of everybody."
(W. Dwight Whitney:—"Language and its Study." 1876.)
The technological vocabulary of pharmacy is very
voluminous, and has been recruited from all languages.
Many of the names of vegetable drugs literally household
words in English, have been transferred direct from
savage tongues. Guaiacum, ipecacuanha, and jalap may
be cited as examples. Other names of drugs cover histories
which well repay investigation.
Take, for example, the word hyoscyamus and its English equivalent henbane (which I select because it does not happen to be alluded to elsewhere in this work). The obvious and usual explanation of these names is that hyoscyamus is the Greek genitive hyos, of a hog, and kyamos, a bean, and in fact the name of hog's bean is applied to it in several languages. Henbane, too, is supposed to be self-explanatory. But there is good reason to believe that neither of these interpretations is correct. Dioscorides, who calls the plant hyoscyamos,
