PRINCIPLE

(Lat. principium.) In Chemistry, a term sometim.es applied to certain proximate components of organic bodies, such as bitter principle, febrifuge principle, narcotic principle, . This term, however, is now almost disused, it having been found that each bitter, febrifuge, narcotic, or other substance, generally contains a principle peculiar to itself upon which its powers depend, and that there is no such Common or universal principle as was formerly supposed. For the same reason the term " principle of inflammability," or phlogiston, is rejected, as applied in common with " nervous principle," ., to an imaginary existence. [s. 988]