JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

Opened for Instruction in 1876.

The Johns Hopkins University was founded by the munificence of a citizen of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, who bequeathed the most of his large estate for the establishment of a University and a Hospital. It was intended that these institutions should coöperate in the promotion of medical education, The Hospital buildings are approaching completion.

The foundation of the University is a capital, in land and stocks, estimated in value at more than $3,000,000; the capital of the Hospital is not less in amount.

The University was incorporated under the laws of the State of Maryland, August 24, 1867. Power to confer degrees was granted by the Legislature in 1876.

: Suitable buildings have been provided in Baltimore at the corner of Howard and Little Ross Sts., and are furnished with the necessary apparatus and books.

ACADEMIC STAFF, 1884-5.

DANIEL C. GILMAN, LL. D., President of the University.
J. J. SYLVESTER, F. R. S., D. C. L., Professor (Emeritus) of
Mathematics.

BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE, PH. D., LL. D., Professor of Greek. G. STANLEY HALL, PH. D., Professor of Psychology and Pedagogics.

PAUL HAUPT, PH. D., Professor of the Shemitic Languages.
H. NEWELL MARTIN, DR. SC., A. M., Professor of Biology and
Director of the Biological Laboratory.

CHARLES D. MORRIS, A. M., Collegiate Professor of Latin and
Greek.

SIMON NEWCOMB, LL. D., Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy.

IRA REMSEN, M. D., PH. D., Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Chemical Laboratory.

HENRY A. ROWLAND, PH. D., Professor of Physics and Director of the Physical Laboratory.

WILLIAM H. WELCH, M. D., Professor of Pathology.
JOHN S. BILLINGS, M. D., Lecturer on Hygiene.
HIRAM CORSON, A. M, LL. D., Lecturer on English Literature.
EDMUND GOSSE, Lecturer on English Literature.

GEORGE S. MORRIS, A. M., PH. D., Lecturer on the History of
Philosophy.

LÉONCE RABILLON, BACH. ÈS LETT., Lecturer on French Lilerature.

WILLIAM THOMSON, LL. D., Lecturer on Molecular Dynamics. HERBERT B. ADAMS, PH. D., Associate Professor of History. MAURICE BLOOMFIELD, PH. D., Associate Professor of Sanskrit. WILLIAM K. Brooks, PH. D., Associate Professor of Morphology and Director of the Chesapeake Zölogical Laboratory. THOMAS CRAIG, PH. D., Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics.

A. MARSHALL ELLIOTT, A. M., Associate Professor of Romance Languages.

J. RENDEL HARRIS, A. M., Associate Professor of New Testament Greek and Palaeography.

HARMON N. MORSE, PH. D., Associa'e Professor of Chemistry and Sub-Director of the Chemical Laboratory.

WILLIAM E. STORY, PH. D., Associate Professor of Mathematics. MINTON WARREN, PH. D., Associate Professor of Latin. WILLIAM HAND BROWNE, M. D., Librarian and Associate in English.

WILLIAM T. COUNCILMAN, M D., Associate in Pathology.
RICHARD T. ELY, PH. D., Associate in Political Economy.
FABIAN FRANKLIN, PH. D., Associate in Mathematics.
EDWARD M. HARTWELL, M. D., PH. D., Associate in Physical
Training and Director of the Gymnasium.

J. FRANKLIN JAMESON, PH.D., Associate in History.
ARTHUR L. KIMBALL, PH. D., Associcle in Physics.
PHILIP R. UNLER, Associate in Natural History.
GEORGE H. WILLIAMS, PH. D., Associate in Mineralogy.
HENRY WOOD, PH. D., Associate in German,
CHARLES F. RADDATZ, Examiner in German.
HUGH NEWELL, Instructor in Drawing.
EDWARD H. SPIEKER, PH. D., Instructor in Latin and Greek.
HENRY A. TODD, A. B., Instructor in Romance Languages.
CHARLES L. Woodworth, JR., Instructor in Elocution.
ALFRED EMERSON, PH. D., Instructor in Classical Archæology.
GEORGE HEMPL, A. B., Assistant in German.
WILLIAM H. HOWELL, PH. D.. Assistant in Biology.
EDWARD H. KEISER, PH. D., Assistant in Chemistry.
CHARLES A. PERKINS. PH. D., Assistant in Physics.

OTTO LUGGER, Curator of the Biological Museum

PLAN OF THE CIRCULARS.

The Johns Hopkins University Circulars are published at convenient intervals during the academic year for the purpose of communicating intelligence to the various members of the University in respect to work which is here in progress, as well as for the purpose of promulgating official announcements from the governing and teaching bodies. During the current academic year, successive circulars may be expected in the months of November, December, January, February, March, April, May, and June, to be followed at the close of the year by an index.

Although these circulars are designed for the members of the University, they have frequently been called for by institutions and libraries at a distance, and also by individuals who are interested in the literary and scientific activity of this University. Subscriptions and exchanges are therefore received.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION,

For the current year, 1884-5, $1. For the year 1883-4, (140 pp. in cloth covers), $1.50.

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The publication of this journal commenced in 1880, under the editorial direction of Professor Gildersleeve. Four volumes of about 570 pages each have been issued, and the fifth is in progress. It appears four times yearly. Subscription $3 per volume. Single numbers $1.00.

IV. Studies from the Biological Laboratory.

[Including the Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory.] The publication of these papers commenced in 1879, under the direction of Professor Martin, with the assistance of Dr. W. K. Brooks. Two volumes of about 500 pages, octavo, and 40 plates each, have been issued, and the third is in progress. V. Studies in Historical and Political Science.

The publication of these papers was begun in 1882, under the editorial direction of Dr. H. B. Adams. A first series of 470 pages and a second of 630 pages are now completed and a third series is in progress. Subscription $3 per volume.

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The ANNUAL REPORT presented by the President to the Board of Trustees reviewing the operations of the University during the past academic year.

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The University Circulars, Annual Report, and Annual Register will be sent by mail for one dollar per annum.

All communications in respect to these publications should be addressed to the "Publication Agency of the Johns Hopkins University," Baltimore, Maryland.

In addition to the serials above named, a few copies are for sale of the papers named below:

STUDIES IN LOGIC. By members of the Johns Hopkins University. C. S. Peirce, Editor. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.) 1883. 123 pp., 120. $2.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND PROPAGATION OF THE OYSTER IN MARYLAND BY W. K. Brooks. 1884. 193 pp., 4o. 13 plates and 3 maps. $5.

ON THE MECHANICAL EQUIVALENT OF HEAT. By H. A. Rowland. 1880. 127 pp., 80. $1.50.

NEW TESTAMENT AUTOGRAPHS. By J. Rendel Harris. 1882. 54 pp., 8o. 4 plates. 50 cents.

SIR WILLIAM THOMSON'S LECTURES ON MoLECULAR DYNAMICS. Delivered at the Johns Hopkins University in October, 1884. Reproduced from stenographic notes by the papyrograph plate process. 370 pp., 4to. $5.00.

SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION.

What is the Explanation of Acquired Immunity from Infectious Diseases? By GEORGE M. STERNBERG, Surgeon, U. S. A.

[Abstract of a paper read before the University Scientific Association, December 3, 1884]. Three explanations have been offered, viz:

(a) The "exhaustion theory" proposed by Pasteur (Comptes rendus Acad. des Sc., XC. pp. 952-958), which supposes that some substance present in the body of a susceptible individual up to the time of a first attack, and which is essential for the development of the specific germ of the disease, is exhausted during the attack, and that consequently this particular germ is unable subsequently to multiply in the body of this individual.

(b) The "antidote theory” which supposes that some chemical substance is produced during the attack which is inimical to the development of the germ, and which, remaining in the body of the individual, prevents its subsequent invasion by the same microbe. (This theory has been advocated by Paul Bert, by Klebs, and recently by Klein in his Micro-organisms and Disease. (The Practitioner, London, October, 1884, p. 248).

(c) The "vital resistance theory," which supposes that immunity is due to an acquired tolerance on the part of the living cellular elements of the body to the poisonous products produced by disease germs—to which they probably owe their specific pathogenic power-and a consequent ability to resist invasion by these germs. According to this view individual and race differences in susceptibility, as well as the more or less perfect immunity resulting from a single attack of any one of the specific infectious diseases, are phenomena depending upon differences in vital resisting power, either inherited or acquired. (This view was supported by the present writer in a paper published in the Am. Journal of the Medical Sciences of April 1st, 1881, and by Grawitz in a paper published in Virchow's Archiv, on the 8th day of April, 1881. It has also been ably advocated by Salmon in this country.)

The first explanation (a) is untenable for the following reasons:

Our credulity is overtaxed by the supposition that various chemical substances, of no special use in the animal economy, but essential for the development of the specific disease germs, are stored up in the blood and tissues from birth until the date of attack, in spite of the ample provision made for the excretion of useless or noxious products; that these several substances are exhausted only by the development of particular disease germs—i. e., one substance by the germ of small-pox, one by that of measles, etc., etc.;—that these substances are formed and stored up in the body for no other apparent purpose than to serve as pabulum for various disease germs; and that having served this purpose they are not reformed, after recovery, by a continuance of the same physiological processes to which their origin must have been due in the first instance.

The protection resulting from inoculations with "attenuated virus" is also opposed to this view; for it is impossible to believe, for example, that the pabulum which would have nourished the small-pox germ in sufficient numbers to produce a malignant case of small-pox is exhausted by vaccination. Finally, we have experimental evidence that the theory is not correct. Salmon has shown that the flesh of a fowl which has immunity from fowl cholera, as a result of inoculation with attenuated virus, when made into bouillon, furnishes a good culture-medium for the microbe of this disease. And Klein states that "when of the tissues of a guinea-pig, or mouse, or rabbit, dead of anthrax, an infusion is made, and this is used as nourishing material for bacillus anthracis in artificial cultures, it is found that these latter thrive splendidly." (The Practitioner, London, October, 1884, p. 248). The "antidote theory" is equally untenable and for similar reasons. It is difficult to believe that when we vaccinate an infant a chemical substance is formed, and stored up in the tissues in spite of the changes due to physiological processes constantly going on in the body, in sufficient quantity to prevent the development of the small-pox germ for years, and perhaps during the lifetime of the individual.

Moreover, this theory requires us to admit that there is a special antidote for each specific disease germ; that each disease germ produces its own antidote; and that one or several of these peculiar chemical subtances stored

up in the body of an individual does not prevent the development of other disease germs. Whereas all of those chemical substances which have been proved by laboratory experiments to prevent the development of germse. g., iodine or mercuric chloride-are antidotes for all known organisms of the class to which disease germs belong, although not always in the same

amounts.

Finally the experimental evidence referred to as opposed to the exhaustion theory is equally fatal to the antidote theory. For, if the micrococcus of fowl cholera, or the bacillus of anthrax are prevented from multiplying in the blood and tissues of an immune animal by the presence of a chemical substance inimical to their development, then this substance should also prevent the development of these microbes in blood drawn from the vessels of such an immune animal, or in an infusion made from its flesh. Whereas the experiments of Salmon and of Klein above referred to, show that this is not the case. We must therefore reject this theory as untenable.

The "vital resistance theory" as above formulated, is supported by numerous facts and arguments drawn from analogy, which may be briefly stated as follows:

There is great difference in individual susceptibility to first attacks, and in the degree of immunity conferred by a single attack. Some individuals resist repeated exposure under the most trying circumstances, while others suffer an attack from the slightest possible exposure.

Individual susceptibility also varies greatly at different times and is increased by depressing influences, such as fatigue, fear, inanition, inebriation, hemorrhage, chronic wasting diseases, etc.

Unusual resisting power may be overcome by exceptionally large doses of the infectious material, and this is true, to some extent at least, of acquired immunity as well as of inherited insusceptibility.

Second attacks of the infectious diseases not infrequently occur, and these are sometimes fatal. In other words, immunity is not absolute but relative.

We have also examples of relative race immunity, as, for example, in the relative insusceptibility of the negro to yellow fever and to the effects of the malarial poison, and in the immunity of Algerian sheep from anthrax. This race immunity is doubtless due to a tolerance established by natural selection in races exposed for many generations to the continuous action of these poisons.

On the other hand infectious diseases are exceptionally malignant when first introduced among a virgin population.

Physicians are familiar with numerous examples of acquired tolerance to toxic agents-e. g., to opium, tobacco, arsenic, etc.

We know that living tissues and blood within the veins of a living animal resist the invasion of putrefactive organisms; whereas a severed limb, or blood drawn from the vessels into a test tube quickly undergoes putrefaction. This may serve as an example of vital resistance to invasion by microorganisms of the same class to which disease germs belong.

The tolerance, or increased vital resistance, which according to this hypothesis is acquired by the living cellular elements of the body, during an attack of one of the infectious diseases, to the toxic agent which gives the germ its specific pathogenic power, must be transmitted through successive generations of cells-nerve cells, gland cells, epithelium cells, leucocytes, etc., —in order to explain continued immunity, inasmuch as the cellular elements of the body are constantly undergoing destruction and are as constantly replaced by their cellular progeny. Biologists will have no difficulty in supposing that this is the case, and that under the influence of the laws which govern the hereditary transmission of acquired properties from cell to cell, the tolerance acquired during an attack has a more or less permanent character. Numerous examples might be given in support of this view.

Acquired characters are not, however, as a rule, transmitted through the sperm cell or germ cell to the offspring of the individual. Our explanation is therefore not opposed by the fact that the children of an immune individual do not inherit immunity. As already stated race immunity results rather from continued action of the laws of natural selection and survival of the least susceptible from birth-an inherited insusceptibility which is transmitted to the offspring.

PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.

Some account of King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the de Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius. By J. W. BRIGHT.

[Read at the meeting of the University Philological Association, December 5, 1884]. The aim of this paper was to give a full and critical account of the manuscripts and the editions of this Anglo-Saxon text; to consider the relation of the MSS. to each other, and to their ultimate sources; and to indicate the lines of inquiry to be pursued in investigating the question of the authorship of the meters.

The history of the MS. Cott. Otho A. 6, was traced in detail. For one complete century after the fire which, on the 23d of October, 1731, proved so disastrous to the Cottonian Library, this MS., reduced to charred and unpromising fragments, lay deposited in a wooden case, while the catalogues of the library, and the editions of the work reported it as "lost." Previous to the year 1839, the Rev. Joseph Stevenson served as an assistant in the British Museum. As nearly as he was able, in a recent interview with the writer, to recall the incident, it was in the year 1834 or 1835 that Sir Henry Ellis, then the principal Librarian, caused to be brought from the garret of the house, then occupied by the library, some of the old débris of the fire of 1731. Among this rubbish were the remains of this Boethian MS., which were put into the hands of Mr. Stevenson and of Mr. John Holmes, also an assistant, for examination. They found the MS. in a most sad condition; the fire had left no trace of the original binding and sewing, and the burnt and fragmentary leaves, thus entirely detached, had become hopelessly confused. Mr. Stevenson, being familiar with Anglo-Saxon, took hold of the black fragments, while Mr. Holmes stood by with a copy of the Latin original; and so they, together, after many days of patient labor, worked out the proper order of the pages, a task attended by extreme difficulties. The MS., thus arranged, was next put, but evidently after the lapse of some years, into the hands of the "restorer" (Mr. Gough), and was finally bound in the year 1844, as is indicated by the note, dated July, 1844, on the fly-leaf of the bound volume. Grein, however, fourteen years later, still writes: "Das einzige Originalmanuscript dieser metra ist ein Raub der Flammen geworden."

Of this MS., so far as it concerns the text under consideration, several leaves at the beginning and three in the body of the work, are now wanting entirely; there are left 129 leaves, in varying degrees of completeness. The last third of the MS. is little injured, and very legible, The first twothirds are, however, quite different. Here the leaves are reduced to fragments, which contain from one-tenth upwards to almost the whole of the

original page. An estimate of what they supply must, however, be placed as high as three-fourths of the original matter. While a goodly number of these fragments are as bright and legible as a fresh print, most of them are so charred and black, so thoroughly cooked and roasted, as to appear, at first sight, quite hopeless. Yet it is found that, in many of the blackest pages, the ink has been baked in with the permanence and lustre of a porcelain polish, and that, by catching the written line under the right conditions of light, every trace may be read. In other places the ink seems to have boiled, and, breaking its appointed bounds, to have stolen into the adjacent fibre of the parchment, leaving upon the surface a blurred impression, difficult to read.

This work has suffered at the hands of its editors, by reason of two fundamental errors committed by them: The prose text has been wrongly based upon the Bodleian MS.; and the Junian transcript, as printed by Rawlinson, has, in all cases, been used in place of the MS. itself.

Something like a century of time separates the two MSS. The late and "corrupt" language of the Bodleian is further injured by the ignorance of an untrustworthy scribe. A text, based upon the earlier Cott. MS., would greatly promote the study of the text.

In the texts of both MSS. there appears a non-West-Saxon dialect in mechanical combination with the original forms. This secondary dialect betrays the hand of the copyists, and belongs to a region bordering upon Kent. In this region the meters were perhaps made and substituted in the line of MSS. to which the Cott. belongs, while, in another branch of transmission, the prose version remained intact.

Junius was not a mechanical copyist. In his transcripts he always allowed himself great freedom in normalizing and emending a text. He was also

capable of misreadings and of misinterpretations. The too exclusive use of his transcript by the editors of the Boethius has kept them too far removed from the MS., and has led to the introduction into the Grammars and Dic tionaries of the language of many forms which have no such existence.

The conflicting theories regarding the authorship of the meters were briefly reviewed, and summarily dismissed as insufficient. The question must be approached from the side of a minute study of the dialect of the entire work. If, as can no longer be doubted, the versifier operated mechanically with the prose version, having no regard to the Latin original, then the dialect of the text so employed, as well as that of the versifier himself, must be determined. If it can be shown that the prose text had already, previous to the versification, taken up dialectic forms; or, on the other hand, if the versifier belonged to this out-lying dialect, the King becomes at once relieved of all responsibility for the meters.

On the Financial History of Athens. By C. D. MORRIS. [Abstract of a paper read at a meeting of the University Philological Association, November 7, 1884).

In this paper an account was given of some recent essays of J. Beloch on the following points: (1) the amount of the tribute paid by the Athenian subject-allies; (2) the temple-treasuries as substitutes for a formal statetreasury at Athens; (3) the amount of the temple-revenues; (4) the pay of the jurors in the Athenian law-courts; (5) the cost of the Peloponnesian war to Athens; (6) the functions of the officers called Poristae. These were seen to be of a very speculative character, being based to a great extent on questionable inferences drawn from fragmentary inscriptions. In regard to the first, for instance, the special purpose of which was to reconcile the statement of Thucydides with that of Diodorus as to the amount of tribute paid by the Athenian allies, it was shown, (1) that the sources of revenue which Beloch supposes Thucydides to have erroneously included in his estimate are in all probability referred to in certain other words which Beloch neglects to quote, and if so, are not really available for the purpose for which he adduces them; (2) that negative inferences drawn from nonoccurrence of names or figures in the inscriptions as we have them are to be made with great caution; since in one instance, at least, in this paper we have positive proof that the conclusion drawn is erroneous.

Latin usque =

Vedic úcchu. By M. Bloomfield.

[Abstract of a paper read at a meeting of the University Philological Association, November 7, 1884.]

Modern etymologists agree in regarding usque as derived from the relative stem quo- and the enclitic que. So Bopp II, 208 and Corssen, KZ. III, 292. The latter explains us- as a contraction from ubi-8, i. e., ubi and 8 the reduced comparative suffix ius; others have since then regarded the s as a 'locative' suffix added to ubi. It is believed that the word has nothing to do with the relative stem, but that it is identical with Vedic ácchă ‘up to, towards.' The only etymology for this word worth reporting is that given by Benfey in the fourth part of his 'Quantitätsverschiedenheiten in den Sanhita- und Pada- texten,' p. 4; he regards the word as a Prākrit form of *aksā, a Vedic instrumental of aksa 'eye': 'before the eyes.'

Phonetically usque and accha correspond almost perfectly. The groundform is osque (qu being the velar guttural). Latin u Sanskrit a and I. E. o we have in umerus = ansa; ferunt = bharanti; equus = açvas. Accha is employed in two very distinct functions: (1) with verbs of speaking; (2) with verbs of motion. In the latter value it coincides quite extensively with the prominent functions of usque, e. g., in the two sentences:

Tvám... nadyà indra sártave ácchă samudrám asrjah. . . . (RV. I, 130, 5.)

'Thou, O Indra didst let loose the rivers to flow to the ocean.' In ultimam provinciam se conjecit Tarsum usque. Cicero. Especially noteworthy is the parallelism between the combinations: usque in, usque ad, and ácchă ábhi, acchā ā, acchă ud. Cf. the following pairs

of sentences:

árvān iva . . . ácchā indrasya . . . ábhi vítím arsa (RV. IX, 97, 25.) 'Run to the feast of Indra like a race-horse.'

Mittere legatos ad eum usque in Pamphyliam. (Cicero.)

Cf. also from the Atharva Veda:

Tám vaçám... acchā á yanti (brāhmaṇaḥ); AV. XII, 4, 14.

'The brahmans come to that wonderful cow.'

Esá stómo marutam çardho úccha rudrásya sūnúnr yuvanyünr úd açyāḥ (RV. V, 42, 15.)

'May this song of praise reach up to host of the Maruts, to the youthful sons of Indra.'

Compare with this: ab imis unguibus usque ad verticem summum. (Cicero.) The relation of usquam to usque is probably that of one case-form of an adverb to another. Cf. Vedic era: evam; sadā: sadam; kathā: katham; itthā: ittham; Sanskrit purā: Greek ñápos, etc.

TÉлш 'ripe,' and лéлшv 'mild, weak.' By M. BLOOM

FIELD.

[Abstract of a paper read at the meeting of the University Philological Association, November 7, 1884.]

The lexicons treat Tέv in all its meanings as one and the same word, deriving all values from the primary one of 'ripe.' So Liddell and Scott: I: 'ripe' opposed to duós 'raw.' II: 'soft, mild, gentle' as e. g., in πéñоν Καπανγιάδη (Ι .5, 109); ὦ πέπον (Π. 6, 55); κριὲ πέπον (Od. 9, 447); finally in a bad sense: 'soft, weak: REπov, ů Mevéλae (Il. 6, 55); TÉπOVEÇ 'ye weaklings.' Two objections must be made to this development of meanings. First, the word in its supposed primary meaning of 'ripe' does not occur in Homer and Hesiod at all, but appears first in Herodotus in that sense; secondly, the development of the meanings under II, from 'ripe' is not very natural, as we can readily realize from the metaphorical uses of English 'ripe' and German 'reif.'

TV in the sense of 'ripe' has been identified with Sanskrit pakva 'ripe.' That the meanings under II, must be separated from that under I, was first suggested to me by an old formula in the Taittirīya-sanhitā III, 2, 4, 4: ahe daidhisavya ud atas tistha' nyasya sadane sida yo' smat pākatarah: 'O Däidhisavya rise from here, seat yourself upon the seat of another who is younger (or weaker) than we are.' This word pāka I identify with év in its second set of meanings.

Pāka occurs as an adjective in the sense of 'young;' next 'young of an animal,' 'child' e. g., dhenuh pākavatsā 'a cow with a young calf;' then 'simple' both in the sense of 'upright' and in the sense of 'foolish': usátrāta' si pákasya' tho hantá' si raksásah, (AV. N. 19, 3.) 'Thou art the protector of the innocent, the slayer of the demon.' Kim te pakah Krnavad ápracetah (RV. X, 7, 6.)

'What good can the fool without intelligence do to you.'

Thus the earlier meanings of ñéñшv: 'soft, mild, weak,' belong to this pāka and there is no reason why the phrase кρ TÉTOν should not be translated 'my little ram,' or why the use of the word in the phrase & TÉTOVEÇ is not directly equivalent to the use of pākatara in the formula from the Täittiriya-sanhitā.

As far as the form of the Greek words are concerned both ñéñшv = pakra, and Téπwν = pāka have been transferred to the weak declension (n-declension), cf. upon this subject Osthoff Forschungen, II, pp. 13–29.

On the Etymology of Elixir. By CYRUS ADLER.

[Abstract of a paper read at the meeting of the University Philological Association, December 3, 1884.]

The usual etymology of the word elixir is that it is composed of the Arabic article el and iksir, an Arabic word meaning "philosopher's stone." This

etymology was very wide-spread [cf. Phillip's "New World of Words or Universal English Dictionary," (6th Ed., London, 1706); Johnson's Dictionary; Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, (1882); the article on Alchemy in the Encyclopædia Britannica, (9th Ed.); Wiegand's Deutsches Wörterbuch, (according to him elixir came into German in the 17th century out of late middle Latin); Brachet's Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Française; Petri's Handbuch der Fremdwörter in der deutschen Schrift-und umgangssprache, (13th Ed., by Emanuel Samostz, Leipzig, 1880); Schiller's Dictionnaire d' Etymologie Française; Tommaseo's Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, Turin, 1865; and the 1874 edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy.]

To this etymology Hammer-Purgstall gave his unqualified assent. There was some disposition, however, to look to another language. Thus the Webster of 1828 treats it along with elixation from Latin elixo, while in the Dictionaire Provençal Français (Digne, 1847,) it is derived from Greek *άλκω οἱ ἀλέξω. Presently 'iksir began to be examined from the Arabic point of view. It is placed by the Arabic lexicographers as a derivative of the stem kasara to break. Dozy (Supplement aux dictionnaires Arabes) declared that 'iksir was unoriginal in Arabic and was a formation from Greek Enpóv, Enpiov, "a dry drug." Fleischer (Z. D. M. G., Vol. XXX, p. 536,) referred it to a Coptic word scala. Many lexicographers adopted the derivation of the Arabic word from the Greek on the authority of Dozy, still regarding el as the article. This notion is not original with Dozy. We find it in Bochart (London, 1661,) and quoted by Skinner in his Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae (London, 1671). We find it adopted on the authority of Dozy by Wedgewood (London, 1872), by the Imperial Dictionary (London, 1882); by Skeat in the supplement to his Etymological Dictionary, just published; by Devic (Dictionnaire Etymologique des mots Français d'origine orientale); by Diez, who remarks, "Aus Latein elixus welches andere aufstellen, würde sich die endung ir nicht erklären (Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Romanischen Sprachen). Most enthusiastic is F. Gildemeister (article on Alchemy, Z. D. M. G., Vol. XXX), who declares "das iksir das griechisch Eýpov sei, ist unzweifelhaft. According to this derivation the elif must be prosthetic and the word a formation of the fourth conjugation. Such a noun must, however, have the form iksar, and the simple fact has been overlooked that the form 'if'il has no existence in Arabic. Then again, in regard to êl, which all have agreed is the Arabic article. That an Arab would take the sound el for the article there can be no doubt, but Arabic words which have come into European languages with the article always possess it in the form al. Thus Devic's work (cited above) contains forty-seven words in which the article appears as al, elixir being the only exception. The same is true of English. The New Dictionary of the English Philological Society contains forty words with al, and in our ordinary dictionaries elixir is again the sole exception. If then iksir cannot be an Arabic form, even as manufactured from a foreign word, and if it is very improbable that el is the Arabic article, we cannot help concluding that the foreign word from which 'iksir was taken must have possessed it in that form, in other words the Arabs must have taken the word elixir as it stood, and regarded el as the article (just as they made Iskander out of Alexander), and iksir as the word proper. On no other supposition is the form explainable. The word seems to have two distinct sets of meanings existing side by side, and perhaps an accurate determination of the period at which the different meanings came in would assist in its etymology. Chaucer used it as the philosopher's stone (Canterbury Tales, 1. 17, 262); Milton uses it in the sense of essence (Paradise Lost, III, 607); Ben Jonson in his play, The Alchemist, makes it a medicine (Act II, Scene I, Act III, Scene II). From this meaning, too, no doubt, comes the French slang Elixir de Huzzard, poor brandy. Where the form elixir is to be derived from, is a difficult matter. Latin elixus would furnish the meaning well enough, but as Diez says, from this form the ending ir cannot come. Many Latin verbs make their infinitive in Portuguese in ir, but none of the first conjugation.