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regularly and is better covered than it could possibly be by the best broad-cast sower followed by the harrows. In very stiff heavy soils, and in moist seasons, it is not so practicable to use the drill. It is sometimes impossible to get the land sufficiently dry and pulverised to allow of drilling to advantage; and when the land is wet the tread of the horses would greatly injure it. If wet clay soils were more generally underdrained, they might be rendered so dry and friable that the drill could be used at all times.

In poor sandy and gravelly soils where bones have been found of so great advantage as a manure, drilling is the only mode by which the bones and the seed can be sown in contact with each other; an important circumstance. When the ground has been well prepared and laid into stitches of a convenient width, a whole stitch may be drilled at once, with so much regularity, that an instrument with as many hoes as there are drills, and of the same width, may be drawn over the land to stir ali the intervals, without danger of injuring the plants. This requires great practice and attention; but it may be considered as the perfection of the drill system. Where drilling seed is generally adopted, and the farms are not so large as to make it prudent for the occupier to purchase expensive instruments, drilling

is become a separate profession. An industrious man with a small
capital buys improved drills, and undertakes to drill the seed at a
certain price per acre. The farmer finds horses and seed, and the
driller finds the machine, and attends to the management of it him-
self. By constantly doing the same thing he becomes very expert;
and in a neighbourhood where there are many small occupiers, a good
drilling-machine, which costs from 30l. to 50l., procures the owner a
very good livelihood during the whole season of sowing; and if the
instruments for hoeing were more generally used, the profession of a
hoer of land might be advantageously united to that of the driller.
Corn is generally drilled at the distance of eight or nine inches; and a
machine which drills twelve rows will cover a stitch ten feet wide.
Some prefer the rows to be nearer, but in that case the hoeing is not
so easily performed with a machine, and it is done by hand.
most improved machines for drilling are made by most of our agricul
tural machine-makers-they are called Suffolk drills, from the county
in which they originated-sowing from ten to fifteen rows at once.
The description of the Northumberland turnip-drill will make the
construction of Cook's drill more easily understood. In the annexed
figure the box for sowing manure is not added, as it is in the

The

[graphic][subsumed]

Suffolk Patent Drill, drawn from one manufactured by Messrs. Cottam and Hallen, Winsley Street, Oxford Street, London.
Northumberland drill. The drill is supported on a frame and two |
wheels. The box A, which holds the seed, lets it down gradually into
a lower part, in which the cylinder, which has the small cups fixed to
its circumference, is turned by the wheel D. By means of the lever G
this may be raised so that its teeth are freed from those of the wheel
E, and the motion of the cylinder is stopped. The coulters which
make the drills are each fixed to a lever, at one end of which, B, a
weight is fixed to press the coulter into the ground. Each coulter has
a separate lever, so that it adapts itself to all the inequalities of the
soil. A chain proceeds from the end of each, and may be wound
round a cylinder c by turning the handles fixed to it at H, where there
is also a racket-wheel to prevent its unwinding. The intent of this is
to raise all the coulters out of the ground, when the drill is not
intended to act, or is moved from place to place. When the drill is
used, the box A is filled with seed, and the slide in it so adjusted as to
supply it regularly; the lever G, which was fixed down, is raised, and
the wheel D connected with the wheel E. As the horses proceed, the
cylinder turns, the cups take up the seed, and throw it into the
funnels K K, which conduct it to the drill behind the coulter. A light
harrow, or a bush-harrow, follows, which covers the seed. In very
loose soils the roller completes the operation. These figures may
suffice to indicate the general form and arrangement of these machines,
though there are many niceties of construction distinguishing those
manufactured by different firms, which are not represented, and the
description of which here is hardly consistent with the plan of this
work.
DROITS OF ADMIRALTY are the perquisites attached to the
office of Admiral of England (or Lord High Admiral), and belonging,
when that office is vacant, to the crown. Of these perquisites the
most valuable is the right to the property of an enemy seized on the
breaking out of hostilities. Large sums were obtained by the crown
on various occasions in the course of the war with France from the
seizure of the enemy's property, most of which however was eventually
given up to the public service. All such sums are now paid into the

Exchequer, and the perquisites formerly belonging to the Lord High
Admiral (a tenth) have been given by statute to the captors.
DROPSY, HYDROPS, a preternatural collection of watery fluid in
different parts of the body. In the state of health, there is constantly
poured out upon every surface, cavity and interstice of the body, a
watery fluid derived from the blood and deposited by the capillary
blood-vessels. [CAPILLARY VESSELS, NAT. HIST. DIV.] This fluid
does not remain long where it is deposited, but by vessels appropriated
to the office, termed absorbents, is soon taken up and reconveyed into
the common circulating mass. As long as there is a perfect balance of
action between these two sets of vessels, which is always the case in
health, there is no accumulation of fluid, the exhalation and the ab-
sorption being always exactly equal. But if from any cause that
balance be disturbed; if either the capillary blood-vessels pour out an
unusual quantity of fluid, or if the absorbents fail to act with their
accustomed energy, an accumulation of fluid must necessarily take
place, and this accumulation, when it amounts to an appreciable quan-
tity, constitutes the disease called dropsy. It follows that dropsy
must always be the consequence either of increased exhalation or of
diminished absorption.

The causes which lead to increased effusion are exceedingly various; but they are all resolvable either into those which produce a morbid condition of the blood-vessels, an obstruction to the free circulation of the blood, or a morbid condition of the blood itself. The morbid condition of the blood-vessels may be of two opposite kinds, either that of preternatural strength, in consequence of which their action may be so excited as to pour out an unusual quantity of fluid; or that of extreme debility, in consequence of which they may be unable to prevent a preternatural exudation of the thinner parts of the blood through their relaxed coats. These different states of the blood-vessels depend on two diametrically opposite conditions of the system, and accordingly the different species of dropsy are very generally divided into active or passive, acute or chronic, sthenic or asthenic.

Whenever an obstacle is opposed to the free return of the blood

from the capillary arteries into the capillary veins, the blood accumulates in the capillary arteries, which are the exhalant vessels. By this accumulation of blood in the exhalents, either their action is increased, the consequence of which is increased exhalation; or their action is diminished and their tone destroyed, the consequence of which is equally increased exhalation. Various morbid conditions of many organs oppose a free return of the circulating blood from the capillary arteries into the capillary veins; any disease of the right side of the heart, for example, which prevents its receiving from the great venous trunks of the body the quantity of blood in a given time, which is necessary to maintain the balance of the circulation; any disease of the lungs, which prevents the lungs from receiving from the right ventricle of the heart the full quantity of blood which the heart has received from the great venous trunks; any disease of the liver, which prevents the liver from receiving by the great vein which ramifies through it, the vena portæ, the full quantity of blood which it ought to receive from the different abdominal viscera; any disease of the great blood-vessels themselves, by which the current of the circulating blood is prevented from passing freely through them. Such a disease of the heart may be occasioned by an ossification of its valves; of the lungs, by an obliteration or compression of its air vesicles, upon the walls of which the capillary terminations of the pulmonary artery are distributed; of the liver, by an induration of its substance and a consequent mechanical compression of the minute branches of the vena porta; of the great blood vessels, by diseases of their coats giving rise to the tumours called aneurisms, or by the compression of tumours existing in neighbouring parts, scirrhous, fatty, or watery tumours, which may have their seat in any organ, or by the compression of the great venous trunks of the system by the bulk of the distended uterus in pregnant women.

When dropsy is the result of an increased action of the capillary blood-vessels, it is considered a primary or idiopathic disease, and constitutes the sthenic, tonic, active, or acute dropsy of authors. In this case the capillaries are conceived to be in that state, whatever it may be, which constitute acute inflammation. The increased effusion, which constitutes the dropsy, is the result of that increased action, and by the effusion the inflamed state of the vessels is often removed. This form of dropsy occurs most frequently in the young, the plethoric, and the robust. It is induced by all the causes of inflammation, such as cold, suddenly checked perspiration, suppression of any of the natural secretions and discharges, a plethoric condition of the system, a repulsion of acute diseases of the skin, &c. It has its seat most frequently in the serous membranes of the great cavities of the body, the walls of which are lined by those membranes, as those of the chest and abdomen, or of the viscera to which these membranes afford an external covering, as the brain, the lungs, the heart, the liver, and all the abdominal and pelvic viscera.

The third form of dropsy is that termed asthenic, or passive. It is so generally the consequence of some other morbid condition of the system that it is not usually considered a primary or idiopathic disease, but merely a sequent or ultimate result of some other pathological state. Its proximate cause is conceived to consist partly of a laxity of the tissues of the exhalant vessels, in consequence of which they are incapable of retaining the fluid part of the blood; and partly of an altered condition of the blood itself, in which its solid portions, namely, its albumen, fibrin, and red particles [BLOOD, NAT. HIST. DIV.] are preternaturally diminished, and its serum proportionally increased. The state of the system in which this form of dropsy usually comes on, and the causes which most frequently and obviously induce it, are supposed to conduce equally to this morbid state of the containing vessels and the contained blood. The state of the system in which it comes on is that of extreme debility, however induced; but its ordinary exciting causes have so obvious and great a tendency to exhaust the vital power, that they are usually denominated debilitating causes; such are fever, whether intermittent or continued, exanthematous or typhus, long continued and excessive evacuations, whether of natural discharges, or of preternatural effusions of blood, deficient or unwholesome diet, diseases of the digestive organs, by which the due assimilation of the food is prevented, intemperance in the use of intoxicating liquors, whence drunkards of all kinds, and especially dram-drinkers, so commonly, nay, almost invariably, die of dropsy.

All the acute inflammatory and febrile symptoms so characteristic of the other forms of dropsy are of course absent in this. The skin, instead of being hot, is often unusually cold; the pulse, instead of being full and hard, is weak, small, unequal, and rapid; the contraction of the heart is so feeble that slight causes often completely arrest its action, and render it incapable of carrying on the circulation, whence the patient drops down dead instantaneously, perhaps on endeavouring to walk down stairs, or to move from one chair to another; the muscles in general are flaccid, all the movements are weak, irregular, and uncertain, and all the actions of the system exceedingly feeble.

It is more especially this last form of dropsy which is induced by a morbid change in the constitution of the blood, namely, an increase in the proportion of its serum. An unusual quantity of water taken into the body, and not carried off by the excretory organs, may possibly give rise to such a condition of the blood, and accordingly it is said that suddenly drinking large draughts of very cold water has been immediately followed by dropsy, probably from the cold producing a

constriction of the excretories; in consequence of which they are unable to carry off the water as it flows into the mass of blood and thus to maintain its proper constitution. A preternatural abundance of the more fluid parts of the blood may also accumulate in the circulating mass by a suppression or diminution of the ordinary aqueous excretions. Hence the influence of a cold and moist atmosphere in inducing dropsy; and the highly important influence of diseases of the kidneys in producing the disease. It is found that there are several different diseases of the kidneys of which dropsy is the ordinary result. It is the office of the kidney to remove from the blood a large proportion of its fluid parts; it is an excreting and depurating organ of the greatest importance. Any disorder of it which interferes with the performance of its function may therefore occasion an accumulation of the watery particles of the blood, and thus give rise to dropsy; and it is actually found that when the secretion of the urine is suppressed, the watery portion of the blood is often poured into some of the internal cavities. [KIDNEYS, DISEASES OF.] Moreover, large abstractions of blood are frequently followed by dropsy, because the albumen, the fibrin, and the red particles which constitute the solid parts of the blood, are not so easily renewed as the serum, and the superabundant serum readily passes off by the exhalants preternaturally relaxed by the debilitated state of the system induced by the bleeding.

The parts of the body in which the dropsical effusions usually collect are the cavities of the cranium, chest and abdomen, and the interstices of the cellular tissue diffused over the whole body, and forming a constituent element of every organ.

The dropsical fluid itself consists for the most part of the serum of the blood; but its sensible properties and its chemical constitution vary exceedingly according to the form of the disease and the condition of the capillary vessels at the moment the effusion takes place. If the vascular action have been great, the fluid is yellow or straw coloured like whey, and is more or less turbid, and contains minute particles of albumen and fibrin. If, instead of excited vascular action, the effusion have been the consequence of an altered condition of the blood, the fluid is dark-coloured and turbid, probably from the admixture of the red particles of the blood. If the effusion have taken place very slowly in consequence of the operation of some cause progressively but not rapidly impeding the circulation more and more, the fluid is almost colourless and nearly destitute of animal matter. If the fluid have been long retained in the cavity containing it, it may be of all colours and consistence, and its sensible properties may be infinitely diversified and these diversities are apparently increased by the admission of the external air to the cavity in consequence of the artificial removal of the fluid by the operation called tapping.

There are many diseases of which dropsy is the sequent, and the dropsy induced in this indirect mode is called secondary, consecutive, symptomatic, or passive, in contradistinction to its primary acute and active forms. The diseases which precede dropsy as their ordinary consequent have their principal seat in the heart, and its great vessels, in the lungs, the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, the uterus, and the ovaria. When dropsy is the consequence of disease of the heart, the signs of disease of the heart commonly long precede the appearance of the dropsy. The diseases of the heart which most commonly give rise to dropsy are passive dilatation of its muscular parietes and ossification of its valves, the existence of which may be ascertained with tolerable certainty both by certain signs which are pathognomonic of these organic changes, and by auscultation. When dropsy is the consequence of disease of the heart, the effusion is commonly indicated first by swelling of the face, especially beneath the eyelids, and next by swelling of the feet and ankles, and of the hands and arms, particularly of the left. As in the progress of the disease the effusion collects and accumulates in the cavity of the thorax, or in that of the pericardium, it is denoted by a peculiar train of symptoms. [HYDROTHORAX; HEART, DISEASES OF.] The respiration is always more or less embarrassed; the horizontal position uneasy, and often impossible; the pulse, which is seldom or never natural, is very variously affected. Whenever there is a watery swelling of the face, hands, arms, or ankles, with an impaired state of the constitution, the consequence of protracted ill health, and without manifest disease of the lungs, it may be certainly inferred that there is a disease of the heart. The dropsy which results from disease of the heart is very often completely removed by appropriate remedies. The effusion often recurs indeed, and is again removed, and this successive recurrence and removal of the affection takes place indefinitely until the cardiac disease, on which the effusion depends, reaches a point which is no longer compatible with life.

Diseases of the coats of the great blood-vessels constituting aneurism, concretions within their cavities, or tumours of neighbouring parts, pressing upon their trunks, and obstructing the passage of the blood through their canal, are frequent causes of consecutive dropsy. Inflammation of the pleura lining the cavities of the chest, inflammation and congestion of the lungs, the consolidation or hepatisation of the substance of the lungs, and the obliteration of the air-vesicles by the deposition of tuberculous matter, may give rise to effusion either into the cavity of the chest, or into the cellular tissue forming the parenchyma of the lungs, or into the cellular tissue diffused over the whole body.

Inflammation of the liver, generally of a slow or chronic nature,

leading to a deposition of adventitious matter in its substance, and the consequent enlargement of the organ and the consolidation of its tissue, is a common cause of dropsy, occasioned by the obstruction to the circulation through the vena portæ, the effusion being in this case often confined to the cavity of the abdomen.

The spleen, which consists of a congeries of blood-vessels, and which is very apt to be enlarged and obstructed, may occasion effusion into the abdomen in the same manner as disease of the liver.

The kidneys are subject both to functional and organic diseases, which are followed by effusions into all the cavities, in consequence of the failure of these organs to remove from the common mass of blood the superfluous and noxious principles which it is their office to eliminate. Dropsical effusions are often poured into the uterus and ovaria, in consequence of primary disease in these organs; at other times tumours are formed within or attached to them, which press upon and compress the trunks of neighbouring blood-vessels, and thus occasion dropsy by a mechanical obstruction to the circulation of the blood.

Dropsy is always a formidable and often a highly dangerous disease. Its acute forms, though attended with the most urgent symptoms, are in general less unfavourable than most of its chronic forms, because in the former, though the disordered actions may be very intense and dangerous, yet they are more under the control of remedial agents, and they often do not depend on any irreparable vice of the constitution, whereas the latter are the sign and the result of deep-seated and surely advancing disease. Of course the prognosis in any particular case must entirely depend on the seat and nature of the disease of which it is the sequent.

There is no disease which requires a more varied treatment than dropsy, because, like fever, dropsy may exist in, and be essentially connected with, diametrically opposite morbid conditions of the system. Dropsy may depend on a state of the system, for the removal of which all other remedies will be tried in vain unless their application be preceded by a decided abstraction of blood: dropsy may depend on a state of the system in which the abstraction of the smallest quantity of blood may prove almost instantaneously fatal; in the former case stimulants and excitants invariably increase the intensity of the disease; in the latter they are indispensable to the preservation of life. On the clear discrimination of these two different states of the system, and the two different classes of disease to which they give rise, and on the sagacious detection of the different shades by which they may appear to be blended with and lost in each other, the successful treatment of dropsy mainly depends.

(PERITONITIS; HEART, DISEASES OF; PLEURITIS; LIVER, DISEASES OF; OVARIAN DROPSY; HYDROCEPHALUS.)

DROWNING, the state of asphyxia [ASPHYXIA] produced by the immersion of the body under water. When the warm-blooded animal is immersed under water, and forcibly retained there, he immediately begins to struggle violently, and uses every effort to rise to the surface. These struggles are not at first the result of pain, but of fear. It is proved by direct experiment that the obstruction to the respiration which produces pain does not come on for some time. The point of time when the painful impediment to respiration occurs is well ascertained. For the reason assigned in the article ASPHYXIA, in the space of three-quarters of a minute a violent effort is made to inspire, to expand the lungs with air, but no air can enter. Every effort to inspire is followed by a corresponding effort to expire. At each expiration a small quantity of air is expelled from the lungs, and is seen under the surface of the water in the form of bubbles; for although the water excludes the air from entering the lungs, notwithstanding the most violent efforts to inspire, yet it cannot prevent some portion of air from being expelled from the lungs by the violent efforts to expire. The ultimate result of these repeated and violent expirations is greatly to diminish the bulk of the lungs, and to bring them to the utmost degree of collapse to which it is possible to reduce them by any voluntary or instinctive efforts which the animal is capable of making. When a human being is drowned by accident, if the fall has been from a considerable height and the water is not of very great depth, the body is precipitated to the bottom of the water; it then quickly rises to the surface, partly because the specific gravity of the body, when the lungs are full of air, is less than that of water, and partly because the body is rendered still lighter by the air, always amounting to a considerable quantity, which is collected and retained in the clothes. If the person be not able to swim, he generally struggles violently, and probably screams; by these efforts the lungs are partly emptied of the air they contained, the comparative weight of the body is increased, and consequently it again sinks to the bottom, but it soon again rises, and this alternate rising and sinking may occur several times in succession. Whenever the body comes to the surface and the mouth is above water, the painful impediment to respiration produces an instinctive effort to inspire, and a hurried gasp is made to obtain air. But often the mouth is not sufficiently above the surface of the water to obtain air without respiring a quantity of water along with it; but the quantity of water received in this manner is never great, probably not more than is expelled by the cough excited by the irritation of the glottis in consequence of the contact of the water and by the subsequent expiration. Every instant the body remains in the water, for the reasons immediately to be assigned, the powers of sensation

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and of voluntary motion rapidly diminish, and at length, perfectly
insensible and motionless, it remains at the bottom of the water,
where, if wholly undisturbed, it continues until the disengagement of
various gases in the progress of putrefaction renders it again specifi
cally lighter than water, and brings it once more to the surface.
The change in the system produced by continued submersion, the
consequent suspension of respiration, and the necessary extinction of
life, are all referrible to one pathological condition, namely, a change
in the nature of the blood. The water prevents any portion of air
from entering by the trachea to the air vesicles of the lungs; con-
sequently no air comes in contact with the venous blood contained in
the capillary branches of the pulmonary artery which are spread out
upon the walls of these air vesicles; the venous blood which flows to
the lungs is therefore incapable of being converted into arterial blood,
whence the lungs can deliver to the left side of the heart only venous
blood to be sent out to the system. As the circulation goes on, all the
arterial blood in the body is at length converted into venous, and flows
into the great venous trunks of the system, by which it is returned to
the right side of the heart, and thence to the lungs, where it undergoes
no change, but remains venous. These currents of venous blood, and
of venous blood only, are successively sent out to the system. But
venous blood is incapable of maintaining the action and vitality of
the brain and spinal cord, of the heart, of the voluntary muscles, or
of any organ of the body, and consequently, when nothing but
venous blood circulates in the system, the death of all the organs is
the sure and quick result, and the organs die in the order and mode
already described. [ASPHYXIA.]

Taking the average of a great number of experiments, it is found that when an animal is forcibly and continuously held under water, the blood in the arteries loses its vermilion colour, and begins to grow venous in the space of three-quarters of a minute. In one minute and a quarter it is obviously dark. In one minute and a half, no difference can be distinguished between the blood in the arteries and the blood in the veins; consequently, in an animal that is submersed and that never rises to the surface, the system is brought completely under the influence of venous blood in the space of one minute and a half, and though the body should remain under water half an hour, the blood does not become sensibly darker, because it can only be completely venous.

Circumstances may make a few seconds difference in regard to the point of time when these phenomena take place. If, for example, an animal be submersed at the instant of expiration, the colour of the blood is lost somewhat sooner than when it is submersed at the instant of inspiration, and if the animal be much alarmed and struggle violently, the change takes place with greater rapidity; but the difference from any cause of this kind never amounts to more than a few seconds. Age however is capable of effecting a more remarkable difference. It is proved by numerous and accurate experiments that the younger the animal the longer it can live when deprived of air by submersion. If, as is commonly the case, an adult warm-blooded animal be irrecoverably dead in the space of four minutes after complete and continuous submersion, an animal of the same species only a few days old will live twelve minutes. A pup will live considerably longer than a young dog, a young longer than a middle aged dog, and a middle aged longer than an old dog.

Sensibility and the power of voluntary motion are diminished the moment the arterial blood begins to lose its vermilion colour; an animal is completely insensible, and has wholly lost all power of voluntary motion, that is, it is in a state of apparent death, as soon as the arterial blood is completely venous. In one minute and a half, then, after complete and continuous submersion, animal life is completely extinguished. But by the prompt and vigorous use of the appropriate remedies, recovery from this state is possible; because the organic functions go on for a considerable period after apparent death, and death is not real until the organic functions have wholly ceased. Nevertheless, though the organic functions may continue for an indefinite period after the animal functions are extinguished, from ten minutes to half an hour, or more, yet, in no instance in which the experiment has been fairly tried has any adult warm-blooded animal that has been completely and continuously submersed for the space of four minutes been capable of resuscitation, though all the means of restoring animation may have been instantaneously and most actively and judiciously employed. Accordingly it is found in practice that the immediate and vigorous use of the best means for restoring animation often fail when the person has not been in the water more than four minutes. In general, however, if the body has not been in the water longer than from five to eight minutes, the prompt and persevering use of the proper means for restoring animation will succeed; no doubt, because in some one of or in all the times that the body has come to the surface air has been obtained and conveyed to the fungs in the hurried gasp instinctively made at these moments. Still it is exceedingly rare that persons are recovered who have been in the water fifteen minutes; occasionally however animation is restored after a submersion of twenty minutes, or even half an hour; and apparently authenticated cases are on record in which resuscitation was accomplished after the body had been in the water for three-fourths of an hour. In these cases, circumstances must have favoured the occasional inspiration of air; it is utterly impossible that life can have been

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The whole of the external surface is cold; the colour of the skin is pallid, excepting in the parts where it is livid rather than pallid, as in the face, which is always either entirely pale or slightly livid. The eyes are half open, and the pupils much dilated. The mouth and the nostrils contain a great deal of frothy fluid. A large quantity of the same kind of fluid is contained in the trachea, the bronchial tubes, and the air vesicles of the lungs. The tongue is protruded between the teeth, and approaches to the under edge of the lips. The whole head is sometimes much swollen, and the features occasionally present the appearance of those of a person who has died from apoplexy; and this is said to be particularly the case with those who have fallen into the water in a state of intoxication. It is usually considered as a sign that a person has been drowned while living, and that the body has not been thrown into the water after death, that the ends of the fingers are excoriated, and that there is a collection of dirt or sand under the nails, appearances resulting from the efforts which the drowning person has made to avert his impending fate; but if the water be deep, no appearance of this kind is present, because the power of struggling is over before the body touches the ground, and a person in the state of intoxication, who falls into deep water may expire without the power to make a single effort to save himself.

With regard to the internal organs, the heart and its great bloodvessels are always found preternaturally loaded with dark-coloured blood, sometimes to such an extent that the heart seems completely to fill the bag of the pericardium. This accumulation of black blood is always on the right side of the heart, which usually contains somewhat more than double the quantity contained in the left cavities.

The lungs are invariably very much reduced in volume, and are exceedingly loaded with black blood. Both the pulmonary arteries

and veins are likewise distended with black blood.

The substance of the brain is of a darker colour than natural, and its vessels are commonly turgid with black blood; but sometimes the turgescence of the cerebral blood-vessels is not in proportion to the accumulation of blood in the other organs.

There is always a quantity of water mixed with frothy matter in the trachea and bronchi. Occasionally this frothy matter is mixed with blood. The quantity varies a good deal in different cases, but it is never very great. At one time it was thought to be so great as to be the cause of death in drowning. It was conceived that the water flows into the lungs by the trachea in such abundance as to occasion asphyxia. The controversy which was long agitated on this point is now set at rest by numerous and accurate experiments, which demonstrate that only a very inconsiderable quantity of water enters the trachea, and never sufficient to occasion death.

A similar controversy prevailed on the question whether water enters the stomach, which is now equally decided in the negative. It is proved beyond all doubt that no water passes into the stomach, or at least that no quantity enters it capable of contributing in the slightest degree to the fatal event. The establishment of this point is important, because the contrary notion had led to the adoption of most pernicious practices. With a view of evacuating the water supposed to be accumulated in the lungs and stomach, the bodies of the drowned, when taken out of the water, were held up by the heels, rolled on barrels, and subjected to other practices calculated rapidly to extinguish any remaining spark of life; and though the notion which led to these absurd practices is exploded, the practices themselves

continue.

The proper remedies for the recovery of the drowned are few and simple. The body, placed on a bed-chair, should be removed to the receiving-house or any place where the conveniences required may be most easily obtained. The wet clothes should be stripped off as rapidly as possible, the body well dried and surrounded by warm air, if it can be readily procured, by the portable warm-air bath, of which there ought to be one at every receiving-house. At first the heated air should only be a few degrees above the temperature of the body, and the heat, which ought always to be ascertained by a thermometer, should be subsequently increased with caution. The body being thus surrounded with warm air, artificial respiration should be performed without the delay of a moment, and this should be assisted by electricity applied at first in the form of very gentle shocks.

By the application of heat the capillary blood-vessels are stimulated to action, the determination of blood towards the external surface of the body is favoured, and the internal organs are thus relieved of their oppressive load. By artificial respiration the cavity of the chest is enlarged, the collapsed state of the lungs is removed, and atmospheric air, the great agent needed for the decarbonisation of the blood, and on the want of which all the dangerous phenomena of drowning depend, is transmitted to the lungs and brought into contact with the venalised blood. By electricity the organs which carry on the mechanical part of respiration, that is, those which alternately enlarge and diminish

the capacity of the thorax, are roused and excited to resume their natural action. There are some few other useful auxiliaries, but so important and efficacious are these three powerful agents, when judiciously and perseveringly employed, that they may be considered as the only remedies worth regarding. But unfortunately they are as potent for evil as for good. A slight mismanagement of any of them may utterly destroy that life which the delicate and skilful use of it would have reanimated.

A plan of treatment of the drowned was proposed by the late Dr. Marshall Hall to the Royal Humane Society in 1856. Many instances have been recorded of the benefit of this plan, in cases of suffocation and drowning, even after the heart had entirely ceased to beat. We give this plan in Dr. Marshall Hall's own words :1. Treat the patient instantly on the spot, in the open air, except in the severe weather, freely exposing the face, neck, and chest to the breeze. 2. Send with all speed for medical aid, and for articles of clothing, blankets, &c.

3. Place the patient gently on the face, with one arm under the forehead, so that any fluids may flow from the throat and mouth, and without loss of time I. To excite Respiration.

4. Turn the patient on his side, and

a. Apply snuff or other irritant to the nostrils.

b. Dash cold water on the face, previously rubbed briskly until it is warm.

If there be no success, again lose no time; but,

II. To imitate Respiration,

5. Replace the patient on his face (when the tongue then will fall forward, and leave the entrance into the windpipe free); then beyond (when inspiration will occur), and then on the face, making 6. Turn the body gently, but completely on the side and a little gentle pressure along the back (when expiration will take place), alternately; these measures must be repeated deliberately, efficiently, and perseveringly, fifteen times in the minute only. Meanwhile,

III. To induce circulation and warmth,

continuing these measures,

7. Rub the limbs upwards, with firm pressure and with energy, using handkerchiefs, &c., for towels.

8. Replace the patient's wet clothing by such other covering as can be instantly procured, each bystander supplying a coat, waistcoat. &c. These rules," says Dr. Hall," are founded on physiology, and whilst they comprise all that can be done immediately for the patient, exclude all apparatus, galvanism, the warın bath, &c., as useless, not to say injurious, especially the last of these, and all loss of time in removal, &c., as fatal.'

DRUGS; DRUGGISTS. The difference between drugs and chemicals is vague and indeterminate; and the professions of the chemist and druggist and apothecary are in like manner generally mixed up together in popular estimation. The rules established by the medical corporations, such as the College of Physicians, the College of Surgeons, and the Apothecaries' Company, have had much to do in producing this uncertainty. The acids, alkalies, salts, and oxides used in largest quantity, are made on a scale which requires complete manufacturing arrangements, with large furnaces, stills, and other apparatus. Such is the case in relation to sulphuric and nitric acids, chlorides of lime and of sodium, alum, &c.; such articles are made by manufacturing chemists, at the vast chemical works which are met with at Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Hull, and Bristol, and to some extent in the metropolis. A retail shopkeeper who calls himself a chemist and druggist is a chemist in so far as he retails, and understands the general character of, the chemicals made on a large scale by others; while he may be regarded as a druggist to the extent that he understands, and sells by retail, the substances used in medicine. If he can himself prepare, on a small scale, a considerable number of the substances which he sells, it is now customary to term him a pharmaceutist or pharmaceutical chemist.

Dr. Normandy has published a work on drugs and chemicals, under the name of The Commercial Handbook of Chemical Analysis,' especially designed to afford aid in the detection of fraud in the manufacture of food, drugs, and chemicals. The list of articles of which the processes of adulteration, and the means of detection, are given, is very comprehensive; including not only ordinary viands and beverages, as bread, porter, tea, coffee, chocolate, cocoa, spirits, liqueurs, and wines, but the drugs used in medicine, and a great variety of miscellaneous substances. They are alphabetically arranged, for convenience of reference. Country druggists," it has been remarked, "form a class of persons to whom this book would be very serviceable; for, although there are of course highly creditable exceptions, particularly in great provincial towns, the bulk of them are not distinguished for chemical or even pharmaceutical knowledge. Few are capable of conducting an analysis or organic research, and they are frequently imposed upon by wholesale dealers, who send them damaged or spurious drugs, which, if administered in dangerous maladies, might induce aggravation of disease, and very probably cause death."

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A movement is being made towards placing under legislatíve control the sale of drugs, on the ground that frequent cases of poisoning occur through the ignorance or carelessness of retail druggists. The physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries have also endeavoured, at various times, to have the drug trade placed in some' degree under professional control. Nothing, however, has yet been effected in this direction. In the "Medical Act," passed in 1858, the new General Council, formed to carry out the provisions of the Act, is empowered "to cause to be published under their direction a book containing a list of medicines and compounds, and the manner of preparing them, with the true weights and measures by which they are to be prepared and mixed, and containing such other matters and things relating thereto, as the General Council shall think fit, to be called 'British Pharmacopoeia'; and the General Council shall cause to be altered, amended, and republished such Pharmacopoeia as often as they shall deem necessary; but there is a special clause, exempting chemists and druggists from any interference in the new Council, which represents all the physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries of the three kingdoms.

DRUM. [DOME.]

and afterwards, through three or more tubes, to the ball. The vessel
containing the oxygen gas is connected, by a flexible tube, with an
orifice in a cylindrical box on the same stem, from whence it ascends
through three flexible caoutchouc tubes to the ball, after passing with
friction through three small cylinders.
The whole apparatus is
attached to a stand which carries the mirror; and adjustments are
provided by which the ball may be placed exactly in the focus of the
mirror. The intensity of the flame is from sixty to ninety times as
great as that of an argand burner, while the expense is only about ten
times as great. The lime made from chalk is preferred to any other;
and such is the brilliancy, that stations above sixty miles from one
another have been very distinctly visible even in hazy weather. In
clear weather the light has been seen at a distance of 112 miles. On the
31st Dec. 1845, it was seen across the Irish Channel, at 3.30 P.M. from
the top of Slieve Donard in Ireland, by an observer at the top of
Snowdon, a distance of 108 miles in a direct line.

Captain Drummond suggested in a paper which was printed in the
Philosophical Transactions' for 1830 (p. 383), that burning lime
should be employed for lighthouses; and he proposed that instead of
alcohol, hydrogen gas should be used with the oxygen gas.
The
gases were to proceed from separate vessels, or gasometers, and enter a
chamber through a series of small apertures: the united gases were
then to pass through two or three pieces of wire gauze, and issue in
two streams against the ball or disk of lime. To prevent the latter
from wasting too rapidly in one place it was made to revolve once in a
minute; and in order to keep up a constant light, it was proposed to
have an apparatus by which a number of balls might be successively
made to fall in the focus of the mirror. The chief objection to this
proposal (to say nothing of the impropriety of entrusting so explosive
a compound as the mixed gases to the care of ordinary workmen) is
the smallness of the flame, whereas dioptric instruments require a
great body of flame for the purpose of producing a degree of divergence
sufficient to render the duration of the flesh in revolving lights long
enough to be well made out; while in a fixed light with a reflector the
same defect of volume eminently applies.

DRUM, a pulsatile musical instrument, of which there are three
kinds, the Side drum, the base or Turkish drum, and the double drum.
The first is a cylinder or shell, formerly of wood, but now invariably of
brass, on each end of which is a hoop covered with vellum or parch-
ment. This is the ordinary regimental drum. The second is formed
as the first, but of oak, on a much larger scale, and used, not in con-
junction with the fifes, but as part of the regimental band. It is like-
wise employed occasionally in the orchestra. The third is made of
copper, nearly hemispherical, covered with a strong head of calf's-skin,
and stands on three iron legs. The double drums, or kettle drums as
they are also called, vary in dimensions, from nineteen inches to three
feet in diameter. They are always in pairs, and are tuned by means
of many screws which tighten the head, to the key-note and the
fourth below. The part for them is written in the key of C, and if
the music be in another key, it is notified at the beginning as
in D," "drums in E." An improved method of tuning these instru-
ments is by means of a lever operating on several hooks which acting the difference between the longitudes of stations.
simultaneously on the head, or hoop on which the skin is strained, so
that the tuning is performed at once, and with such rapidity, that a
melody such as God save the Queen' can be performed on a single
drum in a time not much slower than that usually adopted. A patent
has been obtained by the ingenious mechanist (Mr. Cornelius Ward) to
whom we are indebted for this useful invention.

66 drums

About two years ago a brass drum of improved construction was introduced into the infantry regiments, weighing some three pounds less than the one previously in use, smaller in size and more portable, superior in tone and more easily tuned. This drum is manufactured by Messrs. Key, Rudall, and Co., Charing Cross, London. It is tuned by means of screws, instead of the old straps and ropes: the head which is beaten, called the batter-head, alone requires to be tuned, while the other head, which has three cords called the snare, drawn across its exterior surface, responds by reverberation. Messrs. Key and Co., have also invented a skeleton side drum, that is, a drum without any shell; it resembles a couple of tambourines with their concavities presented to each other; it is intended for indoor use, and gives the lightest character of tone.

DRUMMOND LIGHT. The difficulty of distinguishing the stations chosen for the angular points of the triangles in a geodetical survey, when those stations are many miles asunder, renders it necessary to have recourse to illuminations even in the day-time; and the late Captain Drummond, of the Royal Engineers, invented a heliostat which reflected the sun's rays in sufficient abundance to render the station which was to be observed visible. This was a plane mirror of a rectangular form and mounted on a stand with joints by which it could be fixed at any angle with the horizon. On the stand was a telescope which was capable of being moved horizontally, with the mirror, and directed to the distant station, while another telescope was directed to the sun. The adjustments of the mirror were such that, when the telescopes were directed, as has been said, the face of the mirror reflected the rays of the sun on the distant station, and illumined it sufficiently to render a mark there visible in the telescope of the theodolite by which the required angle was to be taken. When it was required to observe the angles subtended between distant stations at night, the white or blue lights were first employed in this country; the materials being fixed, at the station, at times agreed upon by the parties employed in performing the operations: Argand lamps with parabolic reflectors, were used by the French, and subsequently by the English geodists; but a light which Captain Drummond obtained has been found to exceed in brilliancy any of the others. This is the ory-calcium light, and is produced by placing a ball or disk of lime, about a quarter of an inch in diameter, in the focus of a parabolic mirror, at the station to be rendered visible, and directing upon it, through a flame arising from alcohol, a stream of oxygen gas. (Philosophical Transactions,' 1826, p. 324.) The cistern containing the alcohol is supported on a stand, behind the reflector, and is connected by a tube of caoutchouc with the lower part of a hollow stem supporting the upright wire at the top of which is fixed the ball of lime on a level nearly with the cistern: the spirit ascends in the stem,

A light of this kind may also be employed as a signal in determin

The lime light, as it is also called, has superseded the solar microscope, or rather can be used at all times instead of the sun; the oxy-calcium light is in great request for microscopes, phantasmagoria, and scenic effects on the stage, &c. There are some advantages in using the mixed gases contained in separate bags, since no safety jets, &c., should be relied on, but the danger in inexperienced hands is great. We have even known an accident occur in the lecture-room of an eminent chemist.

DRUSES, DOROUZ, a people who inhabit the chain of Libanus, in Syria, are under the government of their own chiefs, and have a religion peculiar to themselves. The vernacular language of the Druses is Arabic, though they have a tradition that they came originally from China. Although the mountaineers of Libanus in general obey the emir, or prince of the Druses, yet they are not all Druses, but the greater part of them are Christians of the Maronite coramunion, which belongs to the western, or Roman, church. [MARONITES.] Though much intermixed, they are frequently at war with each other, and such a war was being carried on in 1859. The Druses live chiefly in the south part of Libanus, east and south-east of Beiroot, and as far south as the district of Hasbeya, about the sources of the Jordan, but a few thousands are still found about Jebel-el-'Ala, in Northern Syria, where they were formerly more numerous till expelled by the Mohammedans. At Jeir el' Ashayir, a small village of Druses, there are the ruins of a large and splendid temple, a quadrangle, 90 feet by 36 feet within, on a raised platform, ornamented with fonie columns at the angles. Towards the east the jurisdiction of the emir extends over part of the Bekaa, or plain intervening between the Libanus and the Antilibanus. North of the Bekaa is the Belad, or district of Balbek, which is inhabited chiefly by Mussulmans, and is under a distinct emir of the sect of the Metawalis, subject to the pasha of Damascus, with whom there are frequent hostilities. The former capital of the Druses was Deir el Kamr, in a valley on the west slope of Libanus, about eight or nine hours' ride south-east of Beiroot (Beyrut): the town is said to have about 8000 inhabitants, partly Druses and partly Christians. The town is built in the Italian fashion, and is said to resemble a second-rate country town of Italy, but it suffered greatly in the war of 1846. The land around the town displays in a marked manner the industry and skill of the inhabitants, as it is cultivated with the greatest care, and an almost barren soil made highly productive. The emir used to reside at the palace or castle of Bteddin, about one hour's ride from Deir el Kamr, which is still kept in good order, though not used for his residence. Some of the apartments of the palace are described as very handsomely furnished, paved with marble, and adorned with rich folding draperies and divans, the walls inlaid with ivory and gilding, and adorned with passages of the Koran and Scriptures in Arabic, in large embossed gilt characters, enclosed in panels of various size. The emir Beshir, as he was called, whom Captain Light saw in 1814, was described as an elderly man of an intelligent and prepossessing appearance, and said to be very regular and abstemious in his habits. He had come to the sovereignty by defeating several competitors, whom he imprisoned and

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