Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/638

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We them to the wear'ng cloafhs made of the wool of fhcep which had died of a murrain, which he there defcribcs. ECBRYSOMATA, a word ufed by Galen, and the old phy- ficians, for thofe eminences or protuberances of the bones at the joints, which appear through the (kin. ECCATHARTICS, a name given, by different writers in medicine, to medicines of different kinds, and producing very different effects. We underftand by the word fimply purging medicines, and generally write it cathartics. Gorrseus ufes it to fignify fuch remedies as are applied to the fkin, to open the pores; fome others mean deobftruents of all kinds, by the word, and others have applied it to the medicines which pro- mote expectoration. ECCHYMOMA, in medicine, mark's and fpots in the fkin,

arifing from the extravafation of blood. , Blancard. ECCHYMOSIS (Cycl.)— An Ecchymofis, or extravafation of blood under the fkin, is an accident too common, after bleeding in the arm. This fometimes is fo violent in degree, that the arm, after fwelling, and becoming black and blue, is violently inflam'd, with acute pain, and either a fuppura- tion, or beginning mortification. This accident frequently happens from the vein's having been cut quite afunder in the operation, but oftener by the patient's ufing the arm too foon after bleeding, in violent and long excrcifes, in which the contractions of the mufcles make the veins (well, and force their blood through the orifice into the interftices between the flefh and fkin.

In flight accidents of this kind there is no danger, the fhg- nating blood being eafily difperfed by a comprefs dipped in vinegar and fait, or in fpirit of wine. And fometimes it fup- purates, and, making its way through the integuments, be- comes naturally difcharged, and the wound will heal with a diachylon plaifter. But where the quantity of extravafated blood is large, there is no hope of its being difperfed fo eafily, but the diforder generally terminates in an abfeefs or gangrene. To prevent thefe accidents, the furgeon's bufinefs is to fcarify the livid parts, and apply warm fomentations. Helper's Sur- gery, p. 285. ECCLISIS, a word ufed by Hippocrates, and from him by many other of the old phyficians, for a recefiion of a bone from its proper fituation, that is a luxation. ECCOP./EUS, the name of an initrument, defcribed by fome of the antient writers in medicine, and ufed for the fame pur- pofes for which the modern furgeons employ a lenticular or rafpatory. The antient inftrument was a fort of knife, with which they cut down morbid eminences of bones, or took out bones, in the cafe of a fraftur'd fkull. ECCRIMOCRITICA, in medicine, figns to judge of a di-

ftemper, from particular excretions. Blancard, in voc. ECCRINOLOGICA, a term ufed, by fome writers, for that part of medicine which relates to the doctrine of excretions, or the difcharge of any of the excrements out of the body. 3ECCRIS1S, a concretion of any excrementitious or morbid mat- ter from any of the natural emundtories, as it happens in a perfedl crifis. The matter thus excreted is alfo fometimes called by this name. *

ECDICI, S«JV«oi, among the antients, patrons of cities, who defended their rights, and took care of the public monies. Hofm. Lex. in voc. ECDORA, a word ufed, by the antient phyficians, to exprefs any kind of excoriation, but in a more particular manner that of the urethra. ECDORIA, a term ufed, by the antient writers in medicine, for fuch cauftic or efcharotic medicines, as have a power of taking off the fkin. ECDYSIA, E*Jmr.*, in antiquity, a feftival obferved by the Phceftians in honour of Latona. Pott. Archxol. Graec. 1. 2. c. 20. T. 1. p. 387. ECHAPE', in the manege, is ufed to denote a horfe, got be- tween a ftallion and a mare, of a different breed and country. ECHAPER, in the manege, is ufed in the French academies for giving the horfe head, or putting on full fpeed. Hence they fay, Laijfcz echaper de la main. ECHAUGUETTE, in the French military art, an elevated and covered place for a centinel. Richelet explains it by the Latin fpecula, excubice. See Guerite, Cycl. Some diftinguifli the Echauguetti from the guerite, giving the ' former name to centry-boxes made of wood, and fquare ; and the latter name to thofe made of ftone, and round. Guilkt. in voc. Guerite. ECHENEIS, in ichthyology. The antients have ufed this as the name of the petromyza, of fome kinds ; and Appian, in particular, plainly means by it our common lamprey. Echeneis is alio the name of a genus of fifhes, the characters of which are thefe : The branchio ftege mem- brane on each fide contains about nine bones. The head is depreffed, and marked on the upper fide with tranfvcrfe rough ftrise. The body is oblong and roundifh, but fomewhat com- prefled. The back fin is oblong, and placed very far toward the tail. This is the fifh called the remora by authors. Its under jaw is longer than its upper. It has a great number of teeth in both jaws. The colour of its body is hoary, and it has feven fins. Two pectoral ones, two ventral ones placed farther from the fiiout than the pectoral ones, one at the anus, one 3

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on the back, and one at the tail. The Stria: of the head are twenty-two in number, they are rough and tranfverfe, but are divided as it were into two fciies by u middle longitudinal line. Artediy Gen. Fife. 11. Sec the article Remora.

ECHIDNA, in natural hiftory, a name given, by fome authors, to the fevcral kinds of ophites, cr ferpent ftone, from £;#&«, a viper, or ferpent.

ECHINI Fojftlt-s. It is a very remarkable ohfervation of A- guftino Scilb, that all thofe fofiile Echini which he had found in the McITmefe and Calabrian hills, and about Malta, were, when bruifed, as was frequently the cafe, always bruifed by a perpendicular prcflurc. The crufl of all Echini has two cen- ters, one directly oppofite to the other, lb that if they hap- pened to lie in the liquid mud, in fuch a manner as that the ioweit center was perpendicular to the horizon, they were bruifed fo as not to lefe their circular figure, only they were much comprefled. If they are found, on the contrary, lying on one fide, they are fqueezed out of that ftiape, and the membranes of their ligatures are parted vanctfly from each other, according to the variety of the fituation of the (hells in the mud, at that time. All which evidently (hew, that how- ever hard they are now, they were once foft fhells, and that they were brought, in their perfect ftate, into the places where we find them, not generated there, as fome have idly- imagined, and that, as the liquid mud, into which they were received, dry'J, the fuperincumhent weight prefTed perpen- dicularly upon them, and they were fqueezed, compreiial, jt hurt by it, in the pcfture in which they then lay, and have ever imce continued. See Echinus, Cycl. It appears alfo, that their open mouths had, according to the fituation in which the (hell lay, received more or lefs of the liquid mud into them, and that fometimes a greater, fome- times a fmailer, part of- the {hell became filled by it, and, according to the quantity of mud thus rcceiv'd, the preffnre from ai;ove has acted varioufly upon the fhell:: containing it: Thofe which have moft of it having always iutkred leaft by this preffure from above > and thofe which have leaft having fuffered moft. If we ccnfider that this mud, tho' liquid, when firft received, had probably begun to harden into a fohd mafs, before the weight from above affected it. It will be eafy to conceive how, in this hardened ftate, it made a coun- ter preffure againft that from above, and fo faved the con- taining (hell in great part. Aguft. Sciil. de Petrifac.

Echini Sparagi, It is obferved, that the foffile Echini fpaiagt are very frequent in the illand of Malta, and people who are for having all foffile {hells to be real terreftrial bodies, pro- duced of feeds in the earth, and never to have been parts of real animals, object to thefe having ever been fuch, their be- ing found fo plentifully in this foffile ftate, and fo rarely in the native or recent one. This is no objection of weight ; becaufe the cornua amrr.onis give a much ftronger, they being a more common foffile, and never being found recent at all. This is no argument of weight, however, fince it is eary toconceive, thatthefea, at thetimeoftheuniverfal deluge, might throw up fhells from its deep bottoms, which we never can get at in fifhing or ctherwife. And Scilla has proved the ab- iurdity of the objection, in regard to the Echini fpatagi> and fhewn that thofe people who raifed it, have been led into it by their ignorance. For he has affirmed, that they may be picked up by hundreds at a time in the port of Meffina, and that himfelf once took up more than a hundred recent ones in an hour.

The fhells of this fpecies, found foffile in the ifland of Malta, are very frequently full of the marie, of which the up- per ftratum of that ifland confifts; and fome of them are crack'd, and have been depreffed a little inwards. This is an evident proof that they once were real fhells, they having, in this cafe, given way, as far as the included marie would let them, on the preffure of fome external force. See Tab. o£ Shells, N°. 24. ECHINITES, orEcHiNiTJE, in natural hiftory, the name, given by authors to the foffile fhells of the feveral fpecies of E~ chini marini, and to the ftones formed in them. Of thefe there is almoft an endlefs variety in the foffile world. Many of*. thofe which we daily find in our chalkpits are the fame with, thofe now known to us in their recent ftate, or living in the fea - 7 but we have numbers of others, of which our imperfect know- ledge of the animal world gives us no certain account, in, their; recent ftate.

The lhells of fome of thefe are found fcarce at all altered from their original condition. In many others we have plated fpar filling the places of the (hells, and retaining every lineament of them. But their moft frequent appearance is in the form of mafles of hard flint, or other itone, which have been caft and formed in them, having been received, while in a fluid ftate, into the hollow of the (hell, and therefore retaining all the lineaments of the inner furface. And, not unfre- quently, thefe alfo are coated over with a fparry or ftony mat- ter, fupplying the place of the fhell they were formed in ; and having been made, by the infenfible depofition of hard matter, in the place of the particles of the fhell infenfibly wafting away, thefe retain all the lineaments of the outtr part of the fhell, as the formed flint does of the inner one. Sometimes pure cxyftal is found in the place of flint in thefe, and often cryjtal