Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/161

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ftfit has a great defire for fome particular things, but thofe of the nature of common food, and ufually of the nicer, arid more delicate kind. Signs attending it. An over-large eating is ufually attended with cardialgias, anxieties, and ftraitnefsof the breaft ; after this, with naufeas, eructations, and not unfrequentlywith a vomiting, ora diarrhoea ; often a dtzzinefs of the head follows, and fometimes very violent pains in it, with a laffituue and pains in the limbs, and pains and rumblings in the abdomen ; finally, fometimes fevers fometimes fuffocations, and f -metimes convulfions, are the confequence. Jfarfom fubje-'i to it. The excefs of appetite, in its different kind, affects different fets of people. 'The addephagia is ufually the cafe with boys who are juft come to diftinguifb good tafte, and feed as their parents do \ and fometimes with women who have more fenfation than judgment. People in general of fan- euine and fanguineo-phlegmatic habits, cat more food than others ; and choleric perfons often eat, and ufually (wallow their food, quicker than others Perfons of melancholic ha- bits, are ufually of all others, the Icaft eaters. Finally, peo- ple, in general, eat heartily, and even exceflively, when they come, from a coarfe and homely diet, to a more elegant and agreeable one ; and this excejjive appetite becomes a fymptoma- tic complaint with people who are troubled with worms, and with hypochondriac complaints, with quartans, and often with epilcpfies.

The malaria feems particularly to affect women during the time of their being with child. The pica is common to wo- men with child ; to young women before the firft eruption of themenfes; with thofe who are emaciated by a too violent flux of that discharge; and, finally, fometimes, though more rarely, to perfons in epilcpfies, and in quartans. Caufes of tt. Excejjive appetite is generally occafioned by a too great love to agreeable taftes, which generally degenerates into a cuftom of devouring things of agreeable flavours greedily j and y finally, into an habitual and almoft neceffary defire of them. In infants who are over-much ted by their nurfes, the fault is not in the will, but even this alfo, in fine, becomes ha- bitual, and not to be overcome eafily. Prognrjlics in. it. ExceJJive appetite dues great mifchief among men, and is a very common complaint, inafmuch that there are ten thoufand who err in eating more than nature requires, for one who eats lefs. It is common for perfons recovered from illnefTes to have an excejjive appetite ; but, if this be in- dulged to the extent, it ufually brings on either a return of the fame difcafe, or, at Icaft, one equally bad. People, after long hunger, have alfo the fame fort of excejjive appetite as after dif- eafes, but there have been frequent inftances, that thofe who indulged it freely have died upon the fpot In general, the confequences of excejjive appetite indulged, is difeafes of many kinds, particularly obftructions of the vifcera, cachexies, and atrophies. When the pica attends a quartan, it very often happens, that all medicines are vain in the attempt of a cure, till that unnatural appetite has been perfectly fated. When young girls fall into a pica from a want of the menfes at a due time, they are always relieved from it by the appearance of that evacuation; but in perfons who fall into it from inordinate profluvia of that difcharge, it is ufu- ally very difficult of cure, and the fame difficulty always attends it when hereditary.

When people have eat to an immoderate degree by reafon of any of thefe kinds of excejjive appetite, the beft method of re- lieving them, is by giving them 1 a rge draughts of warm wa- ter, till they vomit; or, if the lfomach will not be brought to ditcharge its contents by this means, a few grains of emetic tartar are to be given, or a fmall dofe of ipecacuanha. After this the bowels are to be gently relaxed ; but this is by no means to be done by any violent medicines, the hamulus of which would bring on violent and dangerous pains. After the mifchief of a monftrous repletion is, by this means, got ,' over, the beft prefervative for the future is abftinence, and gentle exercife. There have, however, been inftances of people being cured of this difcafe, by palling the appetite by large draughts of oil, regularly taken, three times a day. The good women have a way of" curing the pica in girls, by making the chalk, and other, fuch things which they are to eat, bitter, or of fome other difagreeable tafte ; when a girl has been once tricked in this manner, fhe will often have as violent a diftafte to thefe unnatural eatables, as fhe before had an inclination for them ; and, in like manner, grown perfons who have violent appetites to certain particular foods, have been cured by conveying into them an infufion of to- bacco, or fome other fuch thing as will provoke vomiting, fo difguifed as not to be taffed, while eaten. When the ftomach and bowels, over-loaded by thefe meals, are, of themfelves* discharging their abundant contents, by vomit, or ftool, it is a very ram and dangerous practice to give any thing to flop thofe emotions till the whole is thorough- ly carried off. Junker's Confp. Med. p. 605, feq. See the articles Canine, Bulimy, &c. ORI* US, in zoology, the name of a frefh water fifh, common in Germany, and called there the orft, the awve^ and the nerfiing; fceming by the descriptions of Oefner, and other authors, to

be the fame with our ruddy or rubellk fiieulatilis. See Tab. of Fifhes, N°. 43. JWUughbgy's Hift. Pifc. p. 2;2.

ORGANO, in the Italian mufic, is ufed to fignify the tho- rough bafs. It is ufually fcored with figures over the notes, for the harpfichord, bafs- viol, and lute.

ORGUES, {Cycl.) arc preferable to herfes, or portcullifes, be- caufe thefe may be either broke by a petard, or they may be flopped in their falling down ; but a petard is ufelels againft an argue; for if it break one or two of the pieces, they im- mediately fall down again, and fill up the vacancy ; or if they flop one or two of the pieces from falling, it is no hindrance to the reft; for being all feparate, they have no dependance upon one another.

ORICHALCUM, or Aurichalcum, brafs. See the article Brass, Cycl and Suppl.

It is to be obferved, that zink is the metal which has the power of giving a yellow colour to copper. We long fup- pofed, from cakunine's anfwering the fame purpofe, that two different fubftances could do this ; but it has been fince found that they are the fame, and that calamine is no other than the ore of zink. See the article Calamine. It is evident from all accounts, that the erichahum of the antients was a fictitious fubftance, not a naiural me- tal. They made it on the fame balls that we make brafs at prefent; -but they had fcveral ways of doing it, and diflinguifhed it into feveral kinds. They had a white fort in frequent ufe and great efteem ; and even the yellow they diftinguifhed into two principal forts, under difitrent names. The <?Wt7.w/«rfH and tesjlavum, brafs and yellow cop- per, are with us fynonymous terms ; but with them they were ufed to exprefs different combinations of the ingredients. Pliny tells us indeed of a natural mine of this metal found fomewhere, and that the metal produced from it was in very great efteem. He fays, that the making of brafs was firft found out in Cyprus, and that it was an artificial metal, but that this natural kind was greatly fuperi or to it, and was the only kind in efteem, fo long as the mine yielded any of it, but that at laft it was exhaufted. This account is unquefHon- ably erroneous ; but yet it has taken fo much footing in the world from the authority of this author, that many fuppofe it truth, and think that we have not at prefent the metal called cricbalum by the antients. They who fuppofe, according to Pliny, that there was once a vein or mine of this metal, which was afterwards loft again, certainly err, and there is fuffici- ent proof of the truth of the contrary opinion by all the Greek writers, declaring the manner in which aricalcum was made, which was with copper and calaminaris-ftone, as brafs is made at this time. Some indeed have fomewhat perplexed the matter, by adding the word pfcudoargyron, as a part of the compofition. Among thefe is Strabo, but by that author in other places we find, that all that he means by this name is, the calamine found in filver mines, which refembled, as the common calamine does, fome kinds of filver ore; fo that the two accounts come to the fame thing. Orichalcum, or Aurichalcum album, white Irafs. This was a metal well known among the antients, and celebrated by Ariftotle and by Strabo, and others, under the name of xfupx Xtvxw. Jt was made by mixing an earth with copper while in fufion ; but what that earth was, we are not in- formed.

There have been many oljections made to the name aurichal- cum album, as a contradiction in terms. The epithet white being by no means allowable with a word which is generally fuppofed to exprefs gold-coloured brafs ; but this is an error. The truth is, that aurichalcum is an error in orthography ; the true word being or ichakhum, OfH^ataw, mountain copper. The Romans changing the 0, in a Greek word into au, when they adopted it into their own language, is common ; and we daily fee fo many inftances of it, that this cuftom alone might juftify it, were the word always written aurichalchum by the Romans ; which, however, it is not, Virgil, and fe- veral others exprefsly calling it orichalchum, according to the original or proper orthography : there was, therefore;, no idea of gold, nor any other denomination of colour intend- ed in the word aurichalchum ; all that was expreffed by it was, mountain copper; and this term was made to exprefs a mixed metal, made of copper and of fome earth, ftone, or other mineral. In this fenfe, the mixture of copper with that of earth, whatever it was that turned it white, was as properly called orichaUhum album, as that with calamine was crichalchum favum s or limply orichahhum. We know feve- ral ways of turning copper white, one of which was much practifed fome years ago, and fpoons and other utenfils made of it, had the name of alchymy things; but this was done by means of arfenic ; a thing not known to the antients : this, therefore, could not be the fame with their white brafs, and indeed, none of our methods feem to be the fame with theirs, fince the metal is debafed by all ours, and becomes brittle ; whereas, in their management, according to their own accounts, it feems not to have loit any thing of its duc- tility, tho' it acquired a peculiar brightnefs.

ORIENTAL, (Cycl) in aftroncmy. A planet is faid to be tiiierdal when i; rifes in the morning before the fun.

Hyhsrr.al