Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/218

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The Roucrucians have alfo their Paraphrafes concerning the coming of Elias the Artijl, who is in a more particular man- ner, the reftorer of their myfterious art.

ARTIZOAS, a ? 1.&©-, is ufed by fome antient phyficians tor an infant fhort-livcJ, by reafon of a difficult birth, whereby he was long detained in the paffage from the womb. Gorr. Def. Med. p. 55. b. Brun. Lex. Med. p. 134. b.

ARTOMELI, A e V.)u, in the antient pharmacy, a kind of cataplafm, prepared of bread and honey, applied chiefly to the precordia. Brun. Lex. Med. in voc.

ARUM, Wake-Robin, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe. The flower confifts of one leaf, of a very ftrange figure, reprefenting, in fome degree, a hare's ear ; from the bottom of the flower arifes a piffil, which at its bafe is furrounded by a great number of embryos, each of which finally ripens into a roundifh or oval berry, containing one or two feeds. To thefe marks it may be added, that the leaves are not divided. The fpecies of Arum, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe :

1. The common Arum, with plain leaves. 2. The common Arum, with leaves fpotted with white. 3. The common Arum, with leaves fpotted with black. 4. The round leav'd fpotted Arum. 5. The large Arum with white veins, and black fpots on the leaves. 6. The largeft Italian white-vein'd Arum. 7. The great Veronefe white-vein'd Arum. 8. The Conftantinople Arum. 9. The fpotted flowered Arabian Arum. 10. The low broad leav'd Ceylonefe Arum, with:, fcarlet piftil. n. The great Egyptian Arum, commonly called the Colocafia. 12. The great large-rooted Ceylonefi Arum. 13. The African Arum, with white fweet-fcented flowers. 14. The great flowered Indian Arum, with flowers four foot long. 15. The little eatable Arum, with leaves like thofe of the water-lilly. 16. The little eatable Arum, with leaves like the arrow-head, of a deep green. 17. The great American Arum, with leaves of changeable colours, like a pigeon's neck. 18. The white-flowered narrow-leav'd climbing American Arum. 19. The narroweft-leav'd climb- ing American Arum. 20. The heart-lcav'd climbing Ame- rican Arum. 21. The perforated ivy-leav'd climbing Arum, with large leaves. 22. The tree Arum, with leaves like thofe of the arrow-head. 23. The tall cannacorus-leav'd In- dian Arum. 24. The Arum with narrow, ridged and pointed leaves. 25. The large heart-leav'd Arum, with red tuberofe roots. 26. The great leav'd American Arum, with red flowers and fruit. 27. The great American Arum, with red leaves, bordered with an edge of green. 28. The great yellow flowered American Arum. 29. The great leav'd climbing American Arum, with very long fruit. 30. The fmall- flowered purple-berried American Arum. 31. The two- leav'd Arabian fpotted Arum. 32. The Indian Arum, with fcorzonera leaves. 33. The narrower-leaved Indian Arum, called by fome ferpentaria minor ; and 34. The leaft and narroweft-leav'd American Arum, called by fome, the nar- row-leav'd arifarum. Town. Inft. p. 158. See Arisarum and Dracontium.

The root of Arum is extremely pungent and volatile, which quality makes it recommended in all vifcidities, phlegmatic and fcorbutic cafes ; becaufe it penetrates and rarifies tough concretions and infarctions of the glands and capillary veflels. It has alfo been prefcribed in humerous afthma's, and obftru- dtions of the bronchia. Van Helmont commends it greatly with vinegar, in bruifes and falls, as ferving to prevent the blood from ftagnating, and falling into grumes, upon the in- jured parts. Some have affirmed, a dram of this root, fefh powdered, and taken in any proper vehicle, to be an infallible remedy againft poifon, and the plague. Matthiolus commends, with great reafon, a cataplafm of it, frefh. bruifed, and cow-dung to be applied hot, in arthritic pains. As this root, kept dry, foon lofes its efficacy, the compound powder of the (hops, which takes it name from it, muft be of little or no fignification. V. ghcinc. Pharm. P. 2. Sect. 4. p. 131. feq.

ARUNCUS, in botany, the name of a genus of plants called by Tournefort and others barba courts. The characters of the genus are thefe :

The male flower has for its cup a one-leav'd perianthium, which is coloured, and is plain at the bafe, and lightly di- vided into five erect fegments. The flower confifts of five oval petals inferted into the cup, and fcarce reaching beyond the fegments of it. The ftamina are about twenty in num- ber, and are erect capillary filaments, doubly as long as the petals of the flower. The anthers are Ample. The piftil has the rudiments of three germina. In the female flower the cup and petals are the fame as in the male, the piftil has three germina, which, by degrees, go off into a fiiort ftylus, with fimple ftigmata. The fruit is compofed of three feeds, of a pointed figure, furrounded by a cruft.

This plant has been fuppofed to be of the fame genus with the filipendula, but, by the clofe examination of the flowers, they appear to be extremely different. Linnxi, Gen. Plant. p. 484. Town. Inft. p. 141. ARUNDO, Reed, in the Linnsean fyftcm of botany, makes a diftinfl genus of plants, of the grafs kind ; the diftinguifhing

ASA

chancers of which are, that the calyx, or flower-cup, is a bivalve erect glume, compofed of two long, pointed, naked, or beardlefs valves, and containing one or more flowers. The flower is compofed of two valves, of the length of the cup, thefe are oblong and pointed, and have a downy matter grow- ing from their bafes to the length of the flower. The ftamina are three capillary filaments j the anthera are oblong, and fplit at both ends. The germen of the piflillum is oblong ; the ftyles are two in number, reflex, capillary and hairy; the ftigmata are fimple ; the flower enclofes the feed, and docs not open to let it fall ; the feed is fingle, oblong, pointed at both ends, and adorn'd with a long pencil of down from its bafe. Linnai, Syftem. Naturae, p. IQ.

ARUNDO Indica, in the materia medica, the name of .the Arundo fanguinem draconis manans of Morifon. The plant from the fruit of which, by maceration in warm water, they get a kind of dragon's blood, which makes the fine red of the Indian varniihes. Dale's Pharm. p. 266.

ARURA, in antiquity, denotes a kind ofland meafure, amount- ing, according to Suidas, a to fifty feet, and, according to others, to one hundred cubits b. — [ a Suld. Lex. T. 1. p. 335. b Magr. Vocab. Ecclef. p. 25. a.]

Strabo obferves, that Egypt was antiently divided into pre- fectures, each of which was fubdivided into toparchies, and thofe into other letter portions, the fmalleft of which were denominated Aruree^ A^gat. Strab. Geogr. 1. 18.

Arura, A^aga, in middle age writers, denotes a field ploughed and fowed.

ARUSPICI Libri, a kind of facred writings among the antient Hetrurians, wherein the laws and difcipline" of the Arufpices were defcribed. Struv. Synt. Ant. Rom. c. 6. p. 253. Thefe were alfo called Rituahs, fometimes Fulgurates Libri, as directing how to take indications from thunder, lightning, &c.

ARVUM, in antient agriculture, properly denoted ground ploughed, but not fowed. Varr. de Re Ruft. 1. 1. c. 24. Fab. Thef. in voc.

Tho' the word is alfo fometimes extended to all arrilde, or corn land, in contrad inunction from paiture.

ARX, in the antient military ait, a town, fort, or cattle, for defence of a place. Pitifc, Lex. Ant. T. 1. p. 184. The Arx 3 in antient Rome, was a diftinct edifice from the capitol, tho' fome have confounded the two : According to Ryckius, the Arx, properly fpeaking, Was a place on the higheft part of the capitoline mount, ftronger and better for- tified than the reft, with towers and pinnated walls ; in which was alfo the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Struv t Synt. Ant. Rom. c. 11. p. 522. feq.

Arx alfo denoted a confecrated place on the palatine mount, where the augurs publickly performed their office. Some will have the Arx to have been the augural temple ; but Varro exprefsly diftinguifhes between the two. Struv. loc. cit. c. 6. p. 276.

Arx was particularly ufed for a public place in Rome, fet apart for the operations of the augurs. Fcjl. de Verb Signif. in voc. Liv. I. c. 18. & X. c. 7. Struv. Synt. Antiq. c. 6.

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In which fenfe, Arx amounts to the fame with what is other- wife called Augtiracidum, and Auguratoriiun, and in the camp Augurale.

Out of this Arx it was that the feciales, or heralds, gathered the grafs ufed in the ceremony of making leagues and treaties. Liv. I, c. 24.

ASA, among naturahfts. The writers of the later ages have formed this word A/a from the Lafar of the antients, and attributed. it to a gum very different from that antiently known by the name they have thus corrupted. The A/a of the antients was an odoriferous and fragrant gum, and the A/a of the after ages had fo little title to this epithet, that they diftinguiihed it by one, exprefling its being of an of- fenfive or ftinking fmell.

The Arabian writers, according to this diftinction, defcribe two kinds of A/a, the one ftinking, the other aromatick ; and the modern Greeks preferv'd the name A/a, or Lafar 9 to the ftinking gum the Latins called by that name, but added a diftinctive epithet to exprefs its ill fmell, and called 'it Scordolafarum. Thus Myrepfus always calls the fame gum Scordolafarum, that the Latin writers call Affafcetida. The commentators on thefe writers explain the words Lafa- ron and Scordolafaron often by the phrafe Opium Cyrenakum and Opium ®>uirinadum. Avifer.na tells us, that the Affa- fcetida is one of the moft ftinking gums in the world, and that great quantities of it are brought from Kirvan. Kirvan, with him, is Cyrene, and thus far, as well in the nature of the drug, as in the place of its production, this author and the commentators perfectly agree.

Asa Dulcis, in the materia medica, a name by which fome authors have called the Benjamin, or Benzoinum of the Ihops. Dale^ Pharmac. p. 303. See Benzoin.

Asa fcetida — The A/a fcetida plant is recommended by Mr. Lawrence to be cultivated in our fields, for the food of cattle, inftead of clover, faintfoin, or other fuch herbs as we fow among com, and make into hay, in the fucceeding fummers, and ufc as food for cattle at other feafons.

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