Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/433

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SCARLATINA febrls, the fcarlet fever, in medicine, the name of an eruptive fever ufually attacking young perfons, and not attended with any great danger. When it is mo- derate in deeree, it may be left to nature alone, and will go off very well without the affiftance of medicines, only ob- ferving a good regimen ; but if it be more violent, it is to be treated with more care: the pat.ent is to be kept warm in bed, and to be made to drink large quantities of warm diluting liquors, acidulated either with lemon juice, or faint of fulphur or vitriol, and draughts of the attemperating and diluting medicines arc to be given every four or fix hours, and by the attemperating and gently diaphoretic powder ; but during the courfe of the cure all hot things are to be carefully avoided, as well in food as medicine, for every thine of this kind renders the difeafe worfe, when treated in the proper manner. The fcarkt fpots, after a few days, dry off and the (kin fcales away, and after this the patient ufually 'is foon well. At this, time two or three dofes of fome gentle purge are to be given ; and if the weather be bad the patient is to be confined to his chamber for fome days afterward, that the tranfpiration may be free and un- interrupted ; by this means, the worft kinds of this fever go well off.

But when this caution is neglected, it is very common to find the patient fall into a fwelling of the belly after about three weeks, and fometimes into an anafarca ; fometimes at- tended with a fever, fometimes without one, and often with tumors of the glands, and many other dangerous diforders. The urine, in thefe cafes, becomes brown and turbid, and many are loft in this manner. But as this new difeafe, as it is ufually called, though it is in reality no other than an- other period of the fcarlet fever, owes its whole origin to the morbific matter which caufed the firft appearance of that, beino- in part retained in the body, the bell: method of cure is by° thofe remedies which are able to carry thofe humors out of the body. Gentle purges are to be given at fhort in- tervals and the way nature indicates is to be carefully fol- lowed, by giving diuretics in the intermediate days ; for the brown turbid urine, voided naturally in this cafe, is an attempt of nature to carry off the matter that way. The beft of all diuretics in this cafe is a tincture of fait of tartar and fpiritus nitri dulcis mixed together, and taken twenty drops, or more, three times a day. In young fubjedts, who will not take purges in the common way, a glyfter made of an infufion of fena purges them very well, and anfwers the purpofe.

The common hot fudorifics are not to be given in then, cafes, for fweat is fcarce to be obtained by any means iii this difeafe ; and great care is to be taken to keep the tumid parts from the cold air, otherwife the patient is often carried off at once by the chilling them. If there be a fever with this fecond complaint, as is ufually the cafe, the attempe- rating medicines are to be given in an afternoon and even- ing, and draughts of gently diuretic liquors to be drank after them.

In this, and in all other eruptive/wcrj, any thing that cools the patient is of the utmoft confequence, and the bed is not to be new made, nor the fhirt changed by any means, dur- ing the courfe of the diftemper. Immoderate heat, on the other hand, is almoft as bad, and the middle regimen is the only proper one to be obferved. The patient lying quiet, and being kept in an equal and moderate heat, in all cafes of eruptive fevers, as well as in this, the patient may be al- lowed, in the beginning, to walk about in his chamber, taking great care to keep out the cold, and need not be con- fined to his bed, fo long as his ftrength will permit his keep- ing up. Heijier's Compend. Med. p. 83.

SCARUS, in zoology, the name of a fea fifh, of which there have been feveral remarkable things afferted by the antients, fome with and fome without any foundation ; as that it ru- minates, or chews the cud like our oxen, &c. This Ari- ftotle, Pliny, Oppian, and others affirm, but none of them of their own perioral knowledge -, they feem to have had it by hearfay, or elfe as authors often do, to have taken it from one another ; for the thing is not true in fact. It has been faid alfo to be the only fifh which feeds on herbs ; and it is fo far true that it does feed on them, and that few other fifh, but not that no other feed in the fame manner. It has been reported alfo that this is the only fifh that fleeps. Gefner would perfuade us, that not only this, but many other fifri alfo fleep. But this does not feem to be the fact ; for this race of animals have no eye-brows, nor any mem- brane to clofe and cover their eyes with, as other creatures have, which nature has allotted fleep to. Ray's Ichthyogr.

P- 3°4-

The later naturalifts have defcribed three fpecics of this fifh,

Rondeletius two, the fans omas, and farm varius; and

Bellonius one, which is different from both thefe, and

fecms to have been the very fifll the antients knew by this

name.

The fcarus omas is a fea fifh, found among rocks and near

the {hores. Its fcales are large and very thin, and its back

of a blackifh blue ; its belly of a fine white, and is of an

oblong and rounded fhape ; its teeth are broad, not pointed,

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and refemble thofe in the human jaws ; its eyes alfo are large, and its head over the eyes of a fine ftrong and clear blue.

The fcarus varius is of the fhape and figure of the former, but its eyes and its belly are of a purple colour ; its tail is of a fine clear and ftrong blue, and the reft of its body is of a greenifh or bluifh black; its fcales are fpottcd and freckled with dufky dots ; its mouth is moderately large, and its teeth broad in the upper jaw, and fomewhat pointed in the under. From the head to the tail, all along the ridge of the back, there runs a row of fhort fpines, which are connected at their bottoms by a membrane ; and in the middle of the belly there are feveral purple fpots. It is a very beautiful fifh. Rondelct. de Pifc. lib. 5. cap. 3.

The fcarus Bellonii, which differs from both thefe, and feems to be the fame fifh which the antients called by this name, is of a mixed bluifh and red colour; its fcales are broad and thin, and it has two tranfverfe protuberances near the fides of the tail. Its body is rounded, but not very long j its teeth are ftrong and obtufc, and well fitted for their office, which is the tearing off the tough fea herbs from the rocks, and chewing them for food. Its mouth is but (mall, and it has only one fin on the back, which is prickly. Its u- fual fize is about five or fix inches in length. It is account- ed a very delicate fifh, but is infipid unlefs eatc^n with the guts, and all that they contain. The liver and ftomach of this fifh, with its contents, are cooked up by the Greeks into a very delicate difh ; the epicures among them not re- garding the reft of the fifh. Belhnius, de Pifc. p. 126.

SCARY, in hufbandry, a term ufed by the farmers for a bar- ren land, which has a poor or thin fward, or coat of grafs, upon it. Plot's Oxford, p. 247.

SCATARELLO, in zoology, the name of a fmall bird of the ficedula kind, of a greyifh brown on the back, and a pale yellow on the breaft and belly. Its legs are black. It feems nearly allied to the beccifago. Aldroiandus, de Avibus. See the article Beccifago.

SCATCH-?7Z!w/£, in the manege, a bit-mouth, differing from a canon-mouth in this, that the canon is round, whereas a fcatcb is more upon the oval. That part of the [catch-mouth that joins the bit- mouth to the branch, is likewii'e different ; a canon being flayed upon the branch by a fonceau, and a fcatcb by a chaperon, which furrounds the banquet. The effect of xhe fcatch-moitth is fomewhat greater than that of the canon-mouth, and keeps the mouth more in fubjedtion. Commonly fhaffles are [catch- mouths.

SCATEA, a word ufed by Paracelfus for a fomewhat hard fa- bulous concretion in the urine.

SCAULEZ, in ichthyography, the name of a fifh common on the Mediterranean fhores, and called by authors hepfetus and anguella. IViltughby's Hift. Pifc. p. 210. See the ar- ticle Hepsetus.

SCAZONE, in ichthyology, a name given by Salvian and others to the fifh which we call the pricked dog, or hound, and the generality of authors the galeus fpinax. It is a fpe- cies of fqualus, diftinguifhed by the roundnefs of the body, and the having no pinna ani. See the article Squalus.

SCELETON, in anatomy. See the article Skeleton, CycL and Suppl.

SCEMI, in botany, a name given by fome authors to the carob, or fweet pipe tree. See the articles Siliqua and Carob.

SCENE {CycL) — The original fiene for acting of plays was as fimple as the rep refentat ions themfelves ; it confifted only of a plain plat of ground, proper for the occafion, which was in fome degrec~ihaded by the neighbouring trees, whofe branches were made to meet together, and their vacancies fupplied with boards, flicks, and the like, to compleat the welter ; and thefe were fometimes covered with fkins, fome- times only with the branches of other trees newly cut down, and full of leaves.

It does not appear that the antient poets were at all acquaint- ed with the modern way of changing the fcenes, m refpeel: of the different parts of the play, but all was performed in the fame place.

The firft things reprefented in thefe new theatres were what they called mitn'u Thefe were a very coarfe fort of poems, reprefenting, in ohfeene and indecent language, the vices and indecent actions of the principal people of the time. Sophrones and Xenarchus feem to have been the firft writers of this fort of comedy, and thty ufed fometimes profe, fometimes verfe, in thefe compofitions. After the licentious things, thus reprefented, had given great offence to the ma- giffracy, the poets hands were tyed up from writing at all, and the actors in thefe femes were forbid to fpeak. Hence arofe a new wav of entertaining the fpeclators, which we ft'ill continue, under the name pantomime, the fame by which they expreffed it. In this all was reprefented in dumb fhew, and the geftures and motions of the limbs were all they had to reprefent the anions of others by.

This fort of public divcrfion feems to have been in fafhion in the days of Arifto.de, and to have been continued long afterwards. Saimafius js of opinion that Pylades was the firft who feparated the' pantomime and dancing from the

plays,