Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/582

 C Y T

C Z E

Ph'ny mentidns no other cytifus than that of Diofcorides, which was the common kind cultivated by the Greeks and Romans, 25 a food for cattle ; he fays, it was raifed by feed, and came to its perfection in three years, and that it was ga- thered in the fpring juft after the time of its flowering; he adds, that this was ufually the office of children, or old wo- men, unfit for other work, and was the cheapeft of all the offices of hufbandry. It is eafy to conceive that fuch a fhrub as the cytifus of Theophraftus, with a wood as firm as the heart of oak, and hard as ebony, did not come to perfection in three years fromjthe fowing; nor could any more be cut up by boys and old women, than eaten by cattle when taken up. There were, therefore, two kinds of cytifus among the an- tients, the one fown and cultivated as food for cattle, the other a wild tree, or fhrub, growing in woods, and being larger than the fown kind. Diofcorides, and Pliny, defcribe the firft, and Theophraftus alone the latter, except that Pliny has now and then taken a fentence from Theophraftus, when he men- tions the cytifiis occafionally among other hard woods, and placed it to the account of his manured cytifus. Ovid, indeed, where he mentions the cytijus as a wild wood fhrub, certainly means this kind mentioned by Theophraftus :

Nee tenuis cytifus curtave thus abejl. And Columella n acknowledges both kinds. It may feem a na-

tural objection that culture could never make fuch a difference in this plant, as that it mould be hard and black in the wood in its wild ftate, and foft and white in the cultivated kind! But we are not to fuppofe that the cultivated and wild cyti- fus were the fame fpecies of fhrub, only altered by thefe two ftates. The antients were not fo accurate in their names as later botanical writers have been ; and if a wood fhrub, \ n fome refpe&s, refembled their manured cytifus, they would call it by that name, though it had not all the generical cha- racters to make it the fame. — [ a Columella* de R. R. ]. 9. c. 4..

CYZICUM marmot; a fpecies of marble fo called by the an- tients from the great ufe made of it by a flatuary called Cyzicus. Ir was white, with fine narrow veins of black, and was called alfo Proconnefium marmor. See Proconnesium. viarmor.

CZEMER, in medicine, a name given by the people of Hun- gary, and fome of the neighbouring nations, to a very trou- blefome diftemperature ot' the wrifts, and lower part of the arms, to which the people of this part of the world are very fubjefr.. It confilts in a tumor not hard, but very painful to the touch. The general method of cure, is, by giving firft: a ftrong emetic, and then confining the patient to his bed, and to the ufe of fudorifi.es, which in. fome days carry it off. Phil, Tranf, N° 243.

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