Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/596

 SYM

divided into five fegments at the rim, and remaining when the flower is fallen. The flower confifts of one petal, formed into a very fhort tube, with a bellied tubular end, fome- what thicker than the tube, the extremity of which is di- vided into five fegments. The opening of the flower has five tapering rays, fhorter than the rim of the flower, and converging, fo as to form a fort of cone. The {lamina are five tapering filaments, placed alternately with the rays of the mouth of the flower ; the anthers are acute, upright, and covered. The piftillum has four germina. The ftyle is flender, and of the fame length with the flower. The ftig- ma is fimple. The cup becomes inlarged, and fuppties the place of a fruit, containing four pointed gibbous feeds, with their tops converging one towards another. Linnai Gen. Plant, p. 38.

Thechara£ers of fympbytum, according to Tournefort, are tbefe. The flower confifts of one leaf, and is funneUafni- oned, but fomewhat refembling the bell-fhaped ones. The cup is divided into fegments, even, to the bafe, and from this there arifes a piftil, which is fixed in the manner of a nail to the hinder part of the flower, and is furrounded with four embryos, which afterwards ripen into fo many feeds : thefe are of the fhape of a viper's head, and are contained in the cup, which becomes inlarged for their reception. The fpecies of comfrey, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe. 1, The great purple-flowered comfrey. 2. The great bluifh purple-flowered comfrey. 3. The white or yellow- ifh-flowered great comfrey. 4. The deep yellow-flowered great comfrey. 5. The great comfrey, with variegated flow- ers. 6. The tuberofe-rooted larger comfrey. 7. Thefmaller tuberofe-rooted comfrey. 8. The large echium-Ieaved com- frey, with red roots, and yellow flowers. 9. The large echium-Ieaved comfrey, with red roots, and white flowers. 1 0. The narrow-leaved comfrey, with red roots, and yellow flowers.

Authors have been ufed to reckon another fpecies of this plant, the little borage-like comfrey ; but this is properly a fpecies of omphaloides. Tourn. Inft. p. 138. The roots of the common comfrey are very powerful agglu- tinants. The common people ufe them with fuccefs in frefh wounds, and a conferve of them is found of excellent u(e in hemorrhages of all kinds. They have been alfo recom- mended in the gout and fciatica, as of great virtues in miti- gating the pain, and fhortening the paroxyfms. Symphytum was a name given among the antients to feveral different plants, which had the common virtues of aggluti- nators. We have appropriated the word to comfrey ; but Diofcorides plainly ufes it fometimes as the name of elecam- pane, and fometimes aa that of the common horfe-tail. He even feems to have led himfelf into an error in the ufe of thefe fynenyms, in this very article, having prefcribed the horfe-tail, under the name of fympbytum, for a fhortnefs of breath. It is very evident, from the tenor of his other works, that he meant to prefcribe the helenium, or elecam- pane, that having the qualities neceflary in fuch a cafe ; and neither this author, nor any other, ever having recommended the horfe-tail on any occafion of this kind. Pliny has col- lected the virtues and characters of the fympbytum from all the authors he had, in whom the word occurred, and there- fore he has given a lift of virtues that belong to no one plant.

SYMPLEXIUM, in natural hiftory, the name of a genus of foflils, of the clafs of the felenitie, but not of the determi- nate and regular figure of moft of the genera of thofe bodies, but compofed of various irregular connections of differently fhaped, and ufually imperfect bodies.

The word is derived from the Greek, cvp,K\*xb) y to connect or compound a mixt mafs of different things. The bodies of this genus are of an irregular figure, and are varioufly notched, divided, and indented at their edges : they are compofed of a number of other imperfect felenitie, prin- cipally of the rhomboidal kind, though not unfrequently with the columnar, and ufually with parts of tabular mafles among them. The different bodies that form this kind are feldom quite perfect, having ufually fallen together before they were wholly hardened ; but generally, whether they form a larger or a fmaller mafs, they together affect the ex- ternal figure of a flat hexaedral column, though varioufly notched at the fides, and truncated at the ends. Hills Hiit. of FolT. p. 124.

SYMPLOCE, EufATrXox);, in rhetoric, a figure, where the fame word is repeated feveral times in the beginning or end of a fentence : thus, &uU legsm tultt f Rullus. Quis majorem populi partem fuffragiis privavit P Rullus. Sfatjs co- mitiis prafuit ? Idem Rullus. Voff'.Khet. fib. 5. p. 289,

SYMPOSIARCH, 2:^™™^?, in antiquity, the direaor, or manager of an entertainment. This office was fome- times performed by the perfon at whofe charge the entertain- ment was provided ; fometimee by another named by him ; and at other times, efpecially in entertainments provided at the common expence, he was elected by lot, or by the fuf- frages of the guefts. He was otherwife called bafileus, rex, and modimperator, &c. and determined the laws of good fellowfhip, obferved whether every man drank his propartt- on, whence he was called opbtbalmus> eculus, the eye.

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The guefts were in all things obliged to obey his com- mands ; on which account Cicero upbraids a certain perlbn, that qui nunquam populi Romani legibus paruifjet, iis Igibus, ques in poculis ponebantur, obtemperabat : he, who had never Submitted to the laws of the Roman people, yielded obedi- ence to thofe of drinking.

Arian reports, that the king being elected by lots commanded iii this manner, do you drink, do you fill the glofs, do you go, do you come y &c. The chief magistrates were not exempted from yielding obedience, if the lots gave another the pre- eminence. Plutarch relates, that Agefilaus, king of Lace- demon, being chofen fympofiarcb, gave the following com- mand to the cup-bearer, who afked him how much wine every gueff. mould drink, viz. If there is plenty of ivine., ht every man have what he calls for ; if not, let every man have en equal /hare.

SYMPTOSIS, a word ufed by the antients to exprefs a con- traction, or fublidence of the vefTels, fuch as happens under evacuations. It alfo is fometimes ufed to exprefs a remUTion ia a difeafe, and the falling away in flefh of people in ncknefs,

SYNAGELASTIC, an epithet ufed to exprefs the fifhes of the gregarious kind, or which fwim together in large fhoals, in oppofition to the fol'ttary kinds.

SYNAGRIS, in zoology, a fifh caught in the Archipelago, and fome other feas, and much refembling the dentex. Some have ufed it as a fynonym for that fifh, and others accounted it only a name applied to the dentex while young, but it is properly a diftinct fpecies. It is confidently fhorter and thicker than the dtntex, and much refembfes the carp in figure. Its head is yellow, and its fides are variegated with bluifh, and other coloured lines, laid in an oblique directi- on ; but the longitudinal fide lines are black. Its fades are remarkably round in figure, and its tail very forked. Bel- lonius de Pifc.

Ariftotle, Atheneus, and others, apply the name fynazrh to the fiih generally called the dentex, or fynodan, the den- tale of the Italians.

According to Artedi, it is a fpecies of the fparus, and is diflinguifhed by him by the name of the variegated fparus with a fharp back, and with four hirge teeth.

SYNARTHROSIS (£>/.)— The articulation of bones, fo joined together as to remain fixed in their fituation, is of two kinds; one is made by ingrailing, and the other in the fame manner, in which a nail, or pin, is fixed in wood. The firft of thefe may be again fubdivided into the deeper and the more fuperficial kind.

The deep kind is obfervable in the articulation of the broad bones ; the antients term this a future, from the refemblance it bears to a coarfe feam, as is feen in the upper bones of the fkull. It is made by jags, notches, and holes, in each of the articulated bones, by which they are mutuallv indent- ed, much after the fame manner as what is cailed dove- tailing among the joiners. By the antients this was called alfo unguis, probably becaufe the indented pieces are rounded like nails. Sutures have been divided alfo into the true and the falfe. See Skull.

The other kind is that which is obferved in bonee joined together by more extended furfaces, in which no indentation appears outwardly. This kind of articulation the antienu termed harmony \ and the articulation of fome of the bones of the upper jaw were given as examples of it. But though, they defcribe this as running in a fingle line, they did not mean this in a ffrict fenfe, but only that the joint was like that of two rough boards without grooves ; for they have exprefsly told us, that fome fmall inequalities might be ob- ferved in thefe joints, aijd fome of them have ufed the terms future and harmony indifferently. The other kind of fynarthrofts, an example of which we have in the teeth, is called gomphofis, a Greek term, ftill retained. Wmjlovi* Anatomy, p. 15.

SYNATHROISMUS, JWB^^, \ n rhetoric, a figure which, in order to magnify a thing, whether good or bad, enumerates a great many different perfons, actions, &c. to which it relates : thus Cicero, qui mibi fratrem optatiffimum 9 me fratri anmntiffimo, liberis nojiris parentes, nobis Uberos ; qui dignitatem, qui ordinem, qui fortunas, qui amplijftmam rem- fublicam, qui patriam, qua nihil potefi ejfe jucundius ; qui de- nique nofmet ipfos nobis reddidijUs. See Voff. Rhet. lib. 5. P- 37*-

SYNCAMPE, a word ufed by the old writers to exprefs the joint, or flexure, where thq upper part of the arm is joined to the lower.

SYNCAUSIS, a word ufed by fome medical writers to exprefs the drying, and, as it were, burning up of the excrements within the body, by a febrile heat.

SYNCHISIS, a word ufed by the old medical writers to ex- prefs a confufion and perturbation of all the humors in con- coction, from the imbecillity of the flomach. It is alfo ufed to exprefs a difeafe of the eye, which confifts in a confufion of the humors : this generally proceeds from a violent blow ; fometimes from an inflammation of the uvea, occafionuig a rupture of the veffels, and an effufion of the humors.

SYNCHORESIS, El-vx^m^, in rhethoric, the fame with per* mijfiqti. See Permission.

SYNCHYSIS,