What words were used by European scientists of the 17th-19th centuries. the simplest natural element, which Anaximander called apeiron?

What words were used by European scientists of the 17th-19th centuries. the simplest natural element, which Anaximander called apeiron? Which of these words make sense in modern science?

To designate the simplest natural element, physicists and chemists used two words: “vacuum” and “ether”; each of them had many different meanings. Now the word “ether” has remained only in chemistry, where it denotes a narrow class of organic compounds. The word “vacuum” remained in physics as a designation of space in which there are no observable particles.

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