Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/839

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HABENA, in furgery, the name of a bandage contrived to keep the lips of a wound together, and fave the painful operation of a future. See the articles Ban- dage and Suture. HABHAZZIS, in botany, a name given by Leo Africanus, and fome other of the writers of geography, to a plant growing in many parts of Africa, which they fay produces its fruit under the earth in form of fmall round globules, which are much efleemed as food, and have the tafle of an almond. The fruit as it is called, is no other than the disjunct tubera of the root, which are connected by fibres or firings, .and are in the propagation of the plant very ufeful to its fpreadingover a large fpot of ground in a little time; all the fibres which fhoot out horizontally from the root being terminated by thefe tubera, and each of thefe fending out on the oppofite fide feveral other fibres, which at due diflances produce othertubera. The Africans dig up the ground at random near to the place where they fee any of thefe plants, and never fail of picking up a great number of them. The plant which produces them is the trafi, and they are eaten in many other places be- fides Africa. The Spaniards are very fond of them, and call them avellanda from their likenefs to hazel-nuts in fhape. HABIT (Cycl.) — The different Habits and cloaths that the ge- nerality of the world wear, are thro' inadvertency and inat- tention very frequently the caufe of very unhappy maladies. Mr. Winflow, in the memoirs of the royal academy of fciences at Paris, has obfcrved that the greatefl attention and care is ne- ceflary on feveral occafions in regard to this, as it is fuppofed, trifling article j and given many inflances of the ill effects of it. The antients have obfeved the inconveniencies of many parts of drefs, and daily obfervation confirms to us the many mif- chiefs the ladies fuller from the fliff whale-bone flays they wear, and the diforders of the vifcera of the lower belly to which thofe are fubjedt who lace themfelves too tightly ; and this is not only of dangerous confequence to themfelves, but frequently is the death of children in breeding women. The tight binding of the neck by the men's neckcloths, flocks, or the too tight collars of their fhirts, c5*c. has been very fre- quently the only occafion of feveral very terrible diforders of the head, the eyes, and the breaft ; deafnefs, vertigoes, faintings, and bleedings at the nofe, are the frequent confequences of this practice ; and the phyhcians confulted for relief in thefe cafes, have found all means ineffectual, merely from their not attending to the caufe of the malady ; when a cure might have been, and often has been, made without the help of me- dicines, only by leaving off thofe unnatural bandages which had been the occafion of them, from the not fuffering the free return of the blood by the jugular veins, which had paflcd up into the head without moleflation by the carotide arteries. Mr. Cruger added to thefe relations, that a certain offi- cer in the army of the king of Denmark, always ordered his foldiers to tye their cravats very tight, and garter their ftockings below the knee, tying them alfo very hard; by which means they always looked red and florid in the face and thick leged, fo that his men always appeared flout, ro- bull, well fed, and in good cafe. But the confequence of this was, that after fome time his men were all feized in a very particular manner with diforders, for which the common methods of treatment gave no relief, and great numbers of them died, after all the internal as well as external methods which could be tried were found ineffectual. Their difcafe feemed a putrid fcorbutic infection, and this not only appeared ex- ternally, but was found to affect even the internal parts of fuch of them as were opened after their death. It is unquefli- onable, but that this wholly proceeded from the ligatures they continually wore about their necks and legs by order of their officer, and might have been cured merely by leaving them off; and it has even been proved on animals, as calves, fheep, iffc. that extremely tight ligatures on their legs, &c. will have fo great an effect, as to alter the whole mafs of blood, render the animal morbid, and even make tbeflefh unwhole- fome and unfit for food. Memoirs Acad. Scien. Par. 1740. Mr. Winflow has obferved, that the different motions of the bones of the foot which are very free in their natural flate, as is very plainly feen in young children, are ufually wholly loft to us as we grow up, by means of the improper preflurc of our ftioes. The high heeled fhoes the women wear, entirely change the natural conformation of the bones of the whole foot. Theyrender the foot elevated and arched, and uncapable of being flatted by reafon of the unnatural union and ancylo- fis they bring on between the bones, which is not unlike that which happens to the vertebrse of people who are hump- backed : for thefe high fhoes make the extremity of the os calcis, to which the tendo achillis is affixed, to be always unnatu- rally elevated, and the anterior part of the foot on the con- fayr-PL. Vol. I,

trary is much more depreffed than it naturally would be. The confequence of this is, that the mufcles which cover the hinder part of the leg, which ferve by the attachment of the tendon to flrech out the foot, are continually in an unnatural flate of contraction, while the mufcles of the anterior part of the leg, whofe office is to bend the foot forward, are on the contrary kept in a like unnatural flate of elongation and diflention. To this caufe it is owing, that we very fre- quently fee women unable to go down a hill or any declivity without great pain, whereas on the contrary, in walking up hill their high heeled fhoes make them walk as it were on even ground ; the end of the foot being only fo far elevated as to bring it on a level with the unnatural pofition of the heel. The women who wear thefe fort of fhoes find it alfo very troublefome to walk for a long time, tho* it be on the moil even ground, and efpecially if they are obliged to walk quick. They can by no means leap fo freely and eafily as thofe who wear lower heeled fhoes. The reafon of which is, that in the human fpecies as well as in birds and beafls, the action of leaping is executed by a fudden lifting up the hinder part of the os calcis, by means of the action of thofe mufcles to which the great tendon is faflened.

Low heeled fhoes by no means fubject the wearer to any of thefe inconveniencies, but on the contrary, they greatly faci- litate all die natural motions of the feet, as we have daily and innumerable inflances in the labourers, chairmen, por- ters, and others of the lower clafs of mankind ; and the wooden fhoes worn by the lower clafs of people in France, not - withflanding their weight and inflexibility, do not fo much prevent the proper motions of the mufcles whofe office it is to move the feet. For befide the lownefs of their heel, they are rounded at the end downwards, which in fome degree compeufatcs for their inflexibility, ferving in the place of the alternate inflection of the foot on its toes on the one part, while the other is lifted up in walking. But to return to the mifchiefs done by high heeled fhoes, there is yet a farther inconvenience from them than what has been mentioned, fmce not only the mufcles of the tendo achillis which ferve to move the foot in the extenfion, but the anterior mufcles alfo, which ferve to the extenfion of the toes, are by the height of thefe fhoes always in an unnatural flate ; and not only the. anterior mufcles which ferve to the bend- ing of the foot, but the poflerior mufcles alfo which ferve to the bending the toes, are at the fame time by means of this height, kept forcibly in an elongated and extended flate. This continual unnatural fhortening of fome of the mufcles, and as unnatural lengthening of others, cannot but caufe fooner or later, a greater or leffer diflemperature of their vef- fels as well the veins and arteries, as the lymphatics and nerves ; nor may this be confined merely to the parts affected, but by the communication of thefe veflels with thofe of other more diftant parts, nay even with thofe of the abdomen and its vifcera, may bring on diforders which will be attributed to very different caufes, and therefore will be treated with medicines which will not only prove ufelefs, but in many cafes hurtful. It is certain that long cuftom makes thefe unnatural ex- tenfions and contractions of the mufcles as it were natural to women ; infomuch that thofe who are accuftomed to thefe fhoes would find it painful and difagreeable to walk in others ; but this is no proof that the unnatural ftate in which the muf- cles are continually kept, may not often be the occafion of all the remote diforders before hinted at, and which, many of them at leaft, may appear to have no relation to their origi- nal caufe. Memoires dc Acad. Scien. Par. 1740.

HACK, a tool ufed by miners, in fhape like a mattock. Houghton's Compl. Miner, in the Explan. of the Terms.

HADBOTE, in our old writers, a recompence or amends for violence offered to perfons in holy orders. Blount. Sax. Diet.

HADDOCK, in ichthyology, a name given by us to a fpecies of fifli of the afellus kind, according to the generality of writers, and of the genus of the gadi according to the new Artedian fyflem. It is called by Salvian, the afellus major or greater afellus, and by Willughby, the onos and afinus of the antients. Charleton tells us that it was the callaris, gale- ris, or galaxis of the old Romans mentioned by Pliny ; but Artedi has fome doubt about that. It is called by Artedi by a name much more expreffive than any of the old ones : this is the gadus with a bearded mouth, with three fins on the back, with a whitifh body, with the upper jaw longeft, and with the tail a little forked. Artedi, Gen. Pifc. 38. See

AsELLUS.

HADE, in mining, is where any {haft or turn goes defcending like the fide of a houfe, or like the defcent of a fteep hill. It is thenfaid to Hade, Houghton's Compl. Miner, in the Ex- plan, of the Terms.

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