Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/803

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manuhrlo & porreifa cujpidei Spebn. It is mentioned in the ftatute 13 Ed. i. c. 6.

GISCARA, a name ufed by fome botanical authors for the palma conifera minor Brafdienfts^ a fmall palm common in the Brafils.

GISON, or Geison, in the Jewifh antiquities, a little wall about breaft high, made round the temple properly fo called, and the altar of burnt facrifices, to keep the people at a diftance. Jofephus, in his hook of antiquities, makes it to be three cubits high ; and but one, in his hiftory of the Jewifh war. Jtfepk. Aivtiq. 1.8. c. 2. p. 262. & de Bello jud. I. 6. p. 918. Calm. Did. Bibl.

GITHAGO, in botany, a name ufed by forrie authors, par- ticularly by Pliny, for the lolium or darnel grafs. Ger. Emac. Ind. 2.

GITTITH. This word occurs frequently in the Pfalms, and is generally tranflated wine prejfes. The conjectures of interpreters are various concerning this word gittith. Some think it fignifies a fort of mufical initrument ; others, that the Pfalms, with this title, were fung after the vintage ; laftly, others, that the hymns of this kind were invented in the city of Gath. Calmet is rather of opinion, that it was given to the clafs of young women, or fongftrcflcs of Gath to be fung by them. Pf. viii. 1. Ixxxi. r. lxxxiv. 1. Dr. Hammond thinks that the Pfalms, with this title, were all fet to the fame tune, and made on Goliah the Gittite. See Hammond on Pf. viii. Calm. Di£t. Bibl.

GIZEIR, in the materia medica of Galen and the anticnts, a name given to the fineft and heft kind of caflia fiftula. The antients had feveral forts of this drug, fome colle6ted fcparate from the wood, fome with it ; the young moots, being cut bark and all, and preferved together.

GLABELLA, a term ufed by fome writers to exprefs the fpace between the two eye-brows; it is i'o called from its

. fmoothnefs, being ufually without hair.

GLACIATION is fometimes ufed to fignify congelation.

GLADIOLUS^W/o/?, in botany, a plant which in theLinnsean fyftem of vegetables, makes a diftinct genus. The charac- ters of which are, that the flower cup is only compofed of cer- tain loofe fpathx or films. The flower is divided into fix petals, which are all obtufe and oblong. The three upper ones, which are next one another, clofing together, and the inferior ones bending backward ; all of them having their points growing together at their infertion, and forming a fliort tube. The ftamina are three pointed filaments, one arifing from every other fegment of the flower, and all hid under the converging part of it. The antherae are of an oblong form. The piftillum has its germen placed beneath the receptacle. The ftyle is fmgle, and of the fame length with the ftamina, and the ftigma is trifid and concave. The fruit is an oblong, bellied capfule, irregularly three cornered, obtufe, confuting of three cells, and having three valves. The feeds are numerous, roundifh, and furrounded, being in- clofed in a membrane. Linneci Gen. Plant, p. 10.

Gladiolus, according to Tournefort, is characterifed thus : the flower is of the liliacious kind, and is at the bottom of a fort of funnel fhape : it is compofed only of one leaf, but from the bottom tube becomes greatly enlarged, and divides into two lips; the upper one is imbricated, and the lower is divided into five fegments. The cup of the flower becomes afterward an oblong fruit divided into three cells, and filled with roundifh feeds, covered with a fort of hood. To this, it is to be added, that the root is a double bulb, or compofed of two thick and flefhy parts, which lie the one over the other. See Tab. 1. of Botany, Clafs 9, Mr. Tournefort enumerates the following fpecies of gla- diole : 1. The great Indian gladiole with red flowers. 2. The great Conftantinople gladiole with blackifh purple flowers. 3. The great, tall, redifii purple flowered gladiole, with the flowers all placed on one fide the ftalk. 4. The great tall gladiole, with white flowers placed all on one fide the ftalk. 5. The ghdirfe with fleih coloured flowers. 6. The fmall low gladiole., with flowers placed all on one fide the ftalk. 7. The leaft gladiole, with flowers placed all on one fide tlie ftalks. 8. The little fleih coloured flowered gla- dok, with flowers placed on one fide the ftalk. 9. The purplifh blue gladiole, with flowers on both fides the ftalk. 1 0. The bright red gladiole, with flowers on both fides the ftalk. I r. The white flowered gladiole^ with flowers on both fides the ftalk. 12. The narrow or graffy leaved gladiole. Tourn. Inft. p. 365.

GLADIUS Pifcis, in zoology, a name ufed by many for the fword fifh, called more frequently the xiphias. JVUloughby* s Hift. of Pifc. p.i6r. See the article Xiphias.

GLAMA, in natural hiftory, the name of a fpecies of camel, called alfo elaphocamelus, by many authors, and by many er- roneoufly accounted a fheep ; its length from head to tail is about fix feet ; its height about four feet ; its head, neck, and the general appearance of the upper part of the body, greatly refembles the camel ; and its upper lip is divided, in the fame manner, as in that creature. Its parts of generation . are alfo the fame as in the camel ; and it is deftitute of the fore teeth, and chews the cud like other animals that are fo. It has no horns, and its feet are divided into two portions,

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which terminate in a fort of claws, and are faftened by s. ikin round the anterior part of the foot ; and the fole of the foot is tender, and covered over only with a thick ikin, as in the camel.

It has at the place where the breaft joins to the belly a pro- tuberance, like that which the camel and dromedary have in the fame part, and in this animal there is a continual dif- charge of a fort of liquid excrement from it. It is a very tame animal, and fit for domeftick ufes. It never offends any creature; but when provoked, revenges itfelf by dif- charging the contents of its ftomach, by vomit, upon what- ever injures it, and this it will do to a great diftance. It is a native of Peru, and is of vaft ufe to the inhabitants for carrying burthens ; the weaker of them very eafily car- rying a hundred and fifty pound weight, and the ftrongcr two hundred and fifty. Ray's Syn. Quad. p. 143.

Glama, in the old writers of medicine, is fometimes ufed to fignify the fordes of the eyes in lippitudes, and other dis- orders attending them.

GLANDES Terra, a name ufed by fome authors for the tuberous roots of a plant of the lathyrus kind, called the laihyrus repens tuberojus. See Lathyrus.

GLANDS {Cycl.) — In all the moveable articulations, efpe- cially of thofe perfons who end their lives by fudden or vio- lent deaths, we find a vifeid liquor in fome meafure re- fembling a liquid mucilage, or the white of an egg well beat, which is commonly called Jynovia, a name given at firft to a difeafe. This liquor is contained, together with the articulations, in the ligamentary capfida?, which hinder it from running out. It is furnifhed chiefly by fmall bundles of glands more or lefs flat, which are contained in the fame capiulas, and known by the name of mucilaginous glands ; thefe being the organs through which this mucilage is con- veyed from the blood. It may likewife partly tranfude through the pores of the internal furface of the capfular liga- ments, and partly be made up of an unctuous matter fqueezed from the fatty fubftances lying near the glands, by the motion and friction of the articulated bones. Thefe glands are of a more or lefs red colour, and of a very Angular ftruc- ture, refembling fmall floating fringes, of different thick- nefles made tip of pelliculous or veficular grains, and fur- nifhed with a great number of veffels, running in different directions. In fome places they appear like diftinct grains fixed immoveably ; they are proportioned to the bones and joints, and lodged fo as to be fecured from violent frictions, chiefly near the edges of the capfular, or in particular cavi- ties contrived on purpofe to receive them. The liquor continually furnifhed by thefe glands y. mixed with that which fweats through the pores of the capfulse, and perhaps with that which comes from the fatty molecuke, is diffufed between the articulated bones, and its ufe is to fa- cilitate their motions, to prevent them from bruiling each other, and to keep their cartilages from drying or wearing out. JVinjlovSs Anatomy, p. 117.

Some fuppofe and endeavour to prove the neceffity of ve- ficles to the conglomerate glands, in order to receive all the different particles required in the c6mpofi.tion of fecerned liquors, which mult be conveyed in different ferits of vef- fels, to be intimately blended in the veficie, which will be confiderably aflifted by the fyftole and diaftole, which it is fuppofed the veficie undergoes. See Acad. Bonon. Com.

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The glands are liable to l-e fo altered by accidents as to be fcarce known for what they really are; and their diftem- peratures are too often productive of the moft mifchievous confequences. The Paris memoirs give an account of a wo- man, who attempting to lift a large weight, had a fwelling that appeared the fame day on the lower part of her arm, which continued increafing in fize for eighteen months. After this there appeared a hole in the inner part of the hand, from which there was difcharged a quantity of matter daily, but yet the fwelling continued to increafe. At the end of two years fhe confented to have it laid open. There was very little matter difcharged, the whole not amounting to more than two fpoonfuls of a thick vifcous fluid ; all the reft of the tumor was fohd, and contained about two hun- dred white bodies, of a roundifh, but fomewhat oblong figure, and not unaptly refembling fome of the kinds of kidney beans. Tbefe were covered with a folid membrane, and had no cavity within ; and fome of them had at one end a fort of ftalk, or pedicle, by which they feemed to have been faftened to fome other body. Thefe were the glands which had loft their natural ufe, and were become hard, and what feemed a pedicle or ftalk to fome of them was their excretory duct which had not perifhed. Mem. Acad. Par. 1708.

The glands which have no particular fecretory ducts, are called glandules cactz, or claufa.

Dr. Quietfchius argues for thefe glands being defigned-to prepare nourifhment for the other parts, from the obferva- tion that they decreafe after birth to full growth, then con- tinue in the fame condition till old age comes on ; after which they gradually flirivel. Select, medic. Francofurt, Tom. 2. Vol.i. §.3.

3 * Renal