Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 2).djvu/297

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  • tuary or rather stiffer, taken in pieces about the size of a

bean. The Greek word meant a lump of earth, and it was used medically by the Romans. It was the same as katapotia.

Calx was the name applied to lime which had been burnt, and from this it came to be applied to the white powdery product yielded by burning metals. Thus came the calx Lunæ, the calx Saturni, the calx Jovis, the calx Mercurii, and others. The ancient theory was that in burning the metal the sulphur principle was driven out, and this was the parent of Stahl's phlogiston theory.

Caput mortuum and terres damnées were names applied to residues in retorts after operations.

Carminative. A medicine which expels winds. One theory traces it to carmen, a charm, but most authorities consider that it was an application to medicine of the term carminare, to card wool, and suggested that the remedy acted by combing through the humours.

Cataplasm. From Greek kata-plassein, to apply over. Used originally for both poultices and plasters. Cataplasmata were perfumed powders sprinkled over the clothes, or sometimes depilatories.

Catholica. Electuaries which purged all the humours.

Cerates were ointments made solid by wax, but not so hard as plasters.

Cerevisiæ (Beers). Medicinal preparations made by adding medicines to malt wort and letting them ferment together were popular in the early part of the 18th century. It was believed that the process of fermentation extracted the properties of drugs more effectively than mere digestion. Quincy (1739) names thirty cerevisiæ, aperient, antiscorbutic, diuretic,