Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/421

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remains blue. The Indians call this nilacunil. Beet, de Boot. See Nilacundi.

SARABARA, among the antients, a Medifh or Babylonifn garment, which reached only to the knees. Pittfc. in voc.

SARACHINUS, in ichthyology, a name given by Charleton and others to the fifh, called by the generality of authors the thrifja, by us the Jbad, or mother of the herrings. Authors have given names to the herring kinds, according to their different growth and fize, and multiplied the fpecies much beyond what they ought to be. Artcdi obfeives that the agonus and farachlnus are only herrings of different growth, and that the alaufa minor of authors is the fame with the agonus. See the article Clupea.

SARACUS, in zoology, a name given by fome authors to a fpecies of fea fifh of the herring kind, more ufually. called agonus^ and by many fulbected to have no eflential difference from the ahttfa or fhad, but to be the fame fifh in another (late. Ra/s Ichthogr. p. 226.

SARAX, in botany, a name given by fome authors to the whole daft of the ferns. Ger. Emac. Ind. 2.

SARCITES, the fleflijhne, a name given by fome authors to the cornelian, from its being of the colour of flefti ; as it is very exactly in fome pieces.

Sarcitis, or Sad-rites, is alfo a ftone fuppofed to be found in the belly of a lizard; it feems to have-been a fpe- cies of pale cornelian. Pliny mentions it, but gives no de- feriptien of it.

Sarcitis, the Jlejh Jlove, in natural hiftory, is alfo a name given by fome authors to a fpecies of ftone, whole fibres were fuppofed to reprefent thofe of beef. It was of a black colour and firm texture.

SARCLIN-frW, is the time or feafon when hufbandmen weed their corn.

SAR.CGCOLLA [Cyd.) — It has been the opinion of many writers of the middle ages, that this was the gum of the beach tree. That fruit tree beinc very common in moil parts of the world, and nothing at ail like the farcocolla being found to come from it, people have been led to wonder how this abfurd opinion firft got footing in the world; but this is eafily explained by tracing up the authors who fet it on foot to their origin.

Diofcoridcs is the great fountain, from whom all thefe little ftreams of knowledge have been fupplicd ; and this au- thor treating of farcocolla, fays, that it is the gum of a Per- fian tree. The words per/tan tree and peach tree are the fame both in Greek and Latin ; and hence, what he faid of a tree growing in Perfia, has been attributed to the peach tree ; and this gum, fo very different from the gum of that tree, has been fuppofed to flow from It.

But this is not the only conlufion made in regard to this word, The later Greeks have given the name farcocolla to a plant, in nothing refembling the farcscolla tree. The old Greeks called both the gum and the tree, which produced it by the fame name of jarcocolla, as they did in regard to the ftyrax and galbanum, and many other of the medicinal gums, and the trees and plants which produced them. But among the later Greek writers, the little plant argemone, an herb of the poppy kind, was called farcscolla. Apuleius tells us, in his account of this plant, that the Greeks of later Ages called it ar fella and farcocolla ; and Strabo con- firms this, giving the fame name to the fame plant, only that he miftakes the Latin name, and writes agrimonia for argemone.

Marcc-llus Empiricus has the fame obfervation ; he fays, in cxprefs words, the plants which the Greeks called farco- colla, the Latins call argemone ; and Neophytus, who de- fcribes the plant, and (peaks largely of its virtues in bruifes, and the like, fays, that forne of the Greeks call it argemone, fome artemoni; and others ar fella and farcocolla. The near alliance of the founds argemone and agrimonia feems to have deceived this author, and fome others, and they fometimes give us the plant agrimony, fometimes argemone, as the farcccolla of the Greeks : Neophytus is of this num- ber, for he calls it argemone altera, as a plant very different from the common argemone, and his defcription fuits wkh the agrimony. Apide'n Herb. c. 31. Strabo Ilortul.

SARCO-EPIPLOCELE, a term ufed by the old medical wri- ters, to exprefs a compound rupture, confuting of a defcent of the epiploon and zfarcocele ; or a rupture of the indurated epiploon* whether umbilical or fcrotal.

SARCOMA (Cycl. )— The farcomanarium,bv fome called alfo ty- perfarcoma narium, is the fame with what'is commonly called the polypus narium, a caruncle of various fize and confiftence in the noftril. Thefe caruncles are ufually foft, extenfive, and ca- pable of elongation, but fometimes they are hard and rigid. They are fometimes pale, fometimes red, and are generally fmall in their beginnings, and advance but gradually ; though fome of them grow fo raft, as to hang down out of the nofe in three or four days time. They are ufually not attended with pain ; but fome of them are hard, livid, very painful, and have a tendency to become cancerous. Some are wholly concealed in the nofe, others hang down to the lips, and others, though contained in the nofe, yet diftend it greatly. Some are of an even furface, and others like a clufter, fome

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defcend backward through the apertures by which we draw breath through the nofe into the fauces ; and grow fo big there as to be viable behind the uvula, and occafion diffi- culty of fpeaking and fwallowing, and fometimes almoft ftrangle the patient.

They have ufually but one root, though fometimes feveral, and are ufually formed in and from the pituitary membrane, and the diforder feems to be really no other than a morbid difpofition of thefpungy production and glands of this mem- brane. The farco?na and polypus, though diforders of the lame kind, may however be properly enough made two fpecies ; the polypus being foft, and hanging by a flender root, like the ftalk of a fig ; and the farcoma of a more fiefhy confiftence, and adhering by a large, firm, and im- moveable bafis.

Thefe diforders come fometimes from internal caufes, fome- times from external injuries, and too often prove cancerous, or are attended with a fpina ventofa, or caries of the bones of the nofe. They may be fometimes removed by cauftics, but the extirpating them with the knife is the fnorteft, fafeft, and moft eligible method. Hei/ier's Surgery, p. 437.

Sacroma of the eyes, a fleftiy excrefcence or tubercle form- ed on the inner furfaee of trie eye-lids. Thefe tubercles, in their beginnings, are ufually fmall ; but they, by degrees, advance often to a very confiderable bulk. Some of thefe are of fmooth furfaces, others rough and unequal, like a raf- berry or mulberry.

They are always to be cured by extirpation, getting them out by a hook, a pair of plyers, or a needle and thread, and then cutting them out to the roots with feiffars; the wound fliould be fuffered to bleed a while, and afterwards waffled with a collyrium made of aloes, tutty, and fugar of lead mixed in rofe water, till it is perfectly healed. Some ufe the cauffic to thefe tumors, but the feiffars are more fafe and lefs painful. Hei/fer's Surgery, p. 374.

SARCOTHLASMA, a term ufed by the old phyficians to ex- prefs a bruife on the fiefli.

SARCULATION, a term ufed in the anrient hufbandry, to exprefs a fort of hoing, which they ufed among their peafe and beans, and fometimes among their corn. The farculum was a fort of narrow and long hce, with which they rooted up the weeds among plants growing irregularly. We have the fame kind of inftrument in ufe at this time in fome places for hoing between the plants of flax ; but one way of fowing, in rows, at prefent, has prevented the nc- ceffity of having recourfe to To inconvenient and trouble- fome an inftrument in other cafes.

SARCULATURA, in our old writers, weeding of corn ; whence una farculatura was the tenant's ferviee of one day's weeding for the lord. — Tenet in bondagio & debet unam farcu- laturam, &c. Kenn. Paroch. Antiq. p. 403.

SARDA, the cornelian, in natural hiffory, the name of a genus of the femi-pellucid gems : the charaaers of which are, that they are ferni-pellucid ftones, compofed of cryffal with a fmall admixture of earth, of a plain uniform ftructure, not tubulated nor cruflated, and ufually of one firaple colour. Of this genus there are three fpecies. 1. The red cornelian, which is a very common ftone among our jewellers, and is of all the degrees of red from a deep blood colour, to that of the water in which raw flefh has been (baked ; and this laft, if any can be called fo, is its proper colour. It is ufually found in a roundifh, or pebble like form, and its moft frequent fize is between half an inch and two inches in diameter, and is found in the Eaft and Weft Indies, and in many parts of Europe : our jewellers Value none but the oriental, but there are very fine ones found in Silefia and Bohemia, and on the fhores of the Rhine. The antients, according to the degree of colour, divided thefe ftones into male and female, the deeper coloured ones being called the male ; and our jewellers call one fort of it the beryll : this is the male cornelian of the antients, and is an oriental ftone of a clear deep red ; they have had this from the Italian lapidaries, who call every ftone which is foftcr than the gems, and of a good colour, and capable of a fine polifh, beryll, with the addition of its proper name, calling this therefore the beryll cornelian ; and the brown cryital, the beryll cryftal ; but our dealers reject the proper name of the ftone, and keep only the word, fignifying its excellence ; and both the one and the other of thefe fubftances are by them called fimply the beryll. Hill's Hift. of Foff. p. 460. The fecond fpecies is the yellow cornelian. This is a ftone, in the opinion of many, of greater value than the former, when in its moft pure and perfect ftate. It is found fome- times in broad flat pieces, but more ufually in the fhape of our common pebbles, and is of all degrees of yellow from the dcepeft that can be imagined to that of a lemon peel. It is of a greater degree of tranfparence than the red, and in its moft common ftate appears, when cut, like a piece of fine yellow amber. We have it principally from the Eaft Indies ; there are fome fpecimens of it found in Germany, but they are neither very good hor very frequent, and in England we fometimes meet with large maffes of it, but they are never thoroughly coloured.

The third fpecies is the white cornelian. This, though lefs

beau-