Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/389

 RYE

fmaller wild rue. 6. The broad leaved rue with hairy flowers. 7. The narrower leaved rue with hairy flowers. 8. The white-flowered coriander- leaved prickly mountain rue, 9. The Spanifti flax-leaved wild rue. The rues would feem to belong properly to the plants, with cruciform not rofaceous flowers ; but that the number of the petals in each flower is in the cruciform flowers, al- ways determinately four ; but in this genus, as in die other rofaceous ones, it is fometimes four, fometimes five. Tourn. Inft. p. 257.

Rue has always been held in great efteem as a cephalic and alexipharmic. It is good in all nervous difeafes, fevers, imall-pox, meafles; and greatly fo in hyfteric cafes. It is given by many to ftrengthen the ftomach, and to prevent the return of habitual colics. It has alio been given in pleurifles and peripneumonies, and againft the bites of ve- nomous animals. There ufed to be a conferve and a Ample water of rue, hut both are now rejected. Ruta nmraria, wall-rut, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe. The leaves are of a fhape nearly refembling thofe of garden rue. The flower is not difcovered, but the fruit are a number of roundifh membranaceous capfules furrounded by an elaftic ring, on the contraction of which they burft and throw out a great number of minute feeds.

The fpecies of wall-rue enumerated by Mr. Tournefort are thefe. 1. The common wall-rue. 2. The broad leaved alpine wall-rue, 3. The taller German wall-rue ; and 4. The tall climbing wall-rue with various leaves. See Tab. 1 . of Botany, Clafs 16. TWn, Lift. p. 541.

RUTICILLA, in zoology, the name of a fmall bird, called by the Greeks phcsnicurus y and in Engliih the red-Jlart. Its breaft and rump are of a reddifii brown, the lower part of its belly is white ; its head, neck and back of a glofly lead colour ; the head is marked before with a very fine white fpot, which is feparated from the eyes and beak by a black line. Its throat is black, with an admixture of grey at the tops of the feathers. Its long wing feathers are all brown ; its tail is compofed of twelve feathers, the five outer ones of each fide red, the two middle ones blackifh. Its legs and beak are black, and its mouth yellow within. It feeds on flies, beetles, fpiders, Esfr. Rays Ornithol. p. 159.

RUTILUS, in zoology, a very well known river fifh, called in Englifh the roach, remarkable for its livelinefs and vi- vacity.

In fome parts of the world this fifh will only live in Hand- ing waters ; with us it equally thrives in ponds and rivers, and is remarkable for its numerous progeny ; a pond being much fooner flocked with this than with any other fifh. Ray's Ichthyog. p. 262.

Rutilus latlor, in zoology, a name given by many authors to the fifh. called in Englifh ruddov finfeale, and more ufually in Latin rubellio fiuviatilis. Id. Ibid, p, 252.

RUTTEE, a weight ufed in the Eaft Indies, one hundred of which make eighty-eight caracts. See Caract.

RUTULUS, in Roman antiquity, the barrier of the cavea, or place where the wild beafts ufed in amphitheatrical fports were fhut up. It was made of iron bars, which turned upon hinges, and all at once flew open with great fwiftnefs. See Pit'tfc. Lex. Ant. in voc. rutulus and cavea.

RUTY-PUNDOC, in natural hiftory, a name given bv the people of the Eaft Indies to a peculiar fpecies of yellow or- piment, which they find on the tops of the mountains there ; and after feveral calcinations give internally in coughs and colds. The antient Greeks ufed this orpiment in the fame manner ; we have of late run into an opinion of its being a fatal poifon. But Dr. Boerhaave, in his chemiftry, af- firms, on his own trials, that it is innocent and harmlefs. Thefe people, who have not the ufe of chemiffry, give us a hint of the virtues of great numbers of our own foflils, which are common alfo to their country. The felenits, fibrofe talcs, fpars, and many other foflils, which we wholly neglect, are in common ufe with them, and great cures are often performed by them. Woodw. Cat. Eoff. Vol. 2. p. 13.

RYE, fecale, in botany. See the article Secale.

This fort of grain fucceeds very well on any fort of dry land, even on the moft barren gravel orfand. The farmers fow it about the beginning of September, after a fummer's fallow, in the dried time they can. Two bufhels of feed is the quantity generally allowed to an acre of land; but if it be ground newly broken up, or if it be fubjedt. to worms, they then allow a peck more to the acre. A little fprinkling of dung, or mud, upon rye land, will greatly ad- vance the crop, though it is laid but half the thicknefs that it is for other corn; its produce is commonly about twenty bufhels upon an acre.

The farmer knows it is ripe when the ftraw is yellow, the ear bends, and the grain feels hard. It is not apt to fhed the feeds ; and therefore, if there are many weeds among the crop, it may be left lying upon the ground, or gravel, as they call it, eight or nine days after it is cut, before it is bound up, if the weeds are not dry fooner : for otherwife, they will grow moift in the barn, and caufe the whole to give,

R Y S

and not to thrafh well, and fometimes they will make it muflry,'

As it is a grain that will grow in the ear fooner than any other if it be wet, care mutt be taken if rain tails after it is cut, to turn it as it lies on the ground every other clay ; and at the fame time to keep the ears as far from the earth, and as much above the ftubble as may be; this will prevent the mifchief. If it be pretty clear of weeds it may be houfed as foon as it is cut. If either this grain or wheat lodge upon the ground, it is beft to cut them, even though they are ndt ripe; for the ftalk being broken will yield no more nourifli- ment to the ear.

There is another very effential ufe to the farmer made of rye. April is the feafon of the year when food is of all others the fcarceft for cattle, efpecially for fheep and lambs : on this occafion fome fplit the ridges of the wheat ftubble and fow them with rye; they harrow this in, allowing about a bufhel to an acre : they feed the fheep with this in April, and in May they plow it up for fallow. Mortimer's Huf- bandry, p. 136.

In many parts of France there have been certain years, in which this grain, from no apparent caufe, has proved noxi- ous, and fometimes even poifonous. Mr. Perrault travel- ling through Sologne, was informed that the rye of that province was fometimes fo corrupted, that thofe who eat of the bread that had much of the corrupted grain in it, were feized with gangrenes in different parts of the body, which was not preceded by any fever, inflammation, or any ccn- iiderable pain ; and that the gangrened parts ufually fell off after a time of themfelves, without the afliftance of chirur- gical inftruments.

The grains of rye thus degenerated are black on the outfide, and tolerably white within ; and when they are dry, they are harder and clofer than the natural good grain : they have no ill tafte, but fometimes they have a vifcous metallic like honey hanging to one end of them. They grow longer than the other grains in the fame ear, and are found from one or two, to feven or eight in the fame ear. Some have fuppofed that thefe were not the proper feedi of the plant, but fome other extraneous bodies that got in amen^; them ; but it is evident, from a clofe infpeflion, that "they are really the genuine feeds only altered by fome accident; the coats, and the furrow, and even the germen for the young plant, being entirely the fame as in the naturr.1 feeds. The places where the rye is found to degenerate in tins man- ner, are all a dry and fandy foil. In thefe places there is fcarce any foil in which more or lefs of thefe large feeds are not found among the others, but where there are but few of them the ill effeits are not perceived. The feafons when the degeneracy is greateft, and the effects the worft of all, is, when there have been exceflive rains in the fpring, and there come on exceflive heats in the fucceeding fu miner. The bread which is made of the rye that holds ever fo much of this bad corn, is not diftinguifhable from other rye bread by the tafte, and feldom produces its ill effect, till fome eon- fiderable time after it is taken. Belide the gangienes al- ready mentioned, it not unfrequently brings on other bad confequences, fuch as drying up the milk of women who give fuck, and occafioning fometimes malignant fevers, ac- companied with drowfinefs, ravings, and other dangerous fymptoms. The part ufually feized by the gangrene is the legs, and this often in a very frightful manner. The arms are the part moft fubject next, but all the other parts of the body are fubje<5t. to it.

The firft fymptom of this approaching gangrene is a ftupe- faction and deadnefs in the part; after this there comes on fome pain, though not violent, and the fkin becomes livid ; fometimes the fkin fhews no mark of it, but the pain and fwelling increafe ; and it is neceflary to make an incifion into the flefh to find the gangrened part. In the more defpe- rate cafes, the only remedy is the taking off the part ; and if this is neglected, the flefh is all wafted, and the fkin be- comes black, and clings round the bones, and the gangrene appears again in the fhoulders.

The poorer people are only fubjetSt to this difeafe ; and, as they principally eat the rye bread ; and as thofe years when there is moft of this bad grain among the ears of rye produce moft of thefe diforders, it has been judged certain that the rye is the occafion of it. It may deferve enquiry, how- ever, whether that grain may not be innocent of the mif- chief, and its degeneracy and the diftempcrature attributed to it may not both be the effect, of the fame bad conftitution of the air. If it proves, on enquiry, that only thofe who eat of the rye are fubjec"t. to the difeafe, it will feem a proof of its being really owing to it ; and in this cafe the mifchief may be prevented by the fifting the grain before it is ground, the degenerated grains being (0 long that they will all remain in the iieve that lets the others through. The experiment has been made on the fpot, by giving the flower of the corrupted grains alone to animals, and it is faid they have been killed by it. Phil. Tranf. N° 130. RYSAGON, in the materia medica, a name by which fome authors have called the cajfwnur.ar root.

S, in