Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/908

 the whole structure was raised on a podium, with a flight of steps on the principal front, enclosed between the prolongation of the podium wall.

PODOLIA, a government of south-western Russia, having Volhynia on the N., Kiev and Kherson on the E. and S., Bessarabia on the S.W., and Galicia (Austria) on the W., from which it is separated by the Zbrucz, or Rodvocha, a tributary of the Dniester. It has an area of 16,219 sq. m., extending for 200 m. from N.W. to S.E. on the left bank of the Dniester. In the same direction the government is traversed by two ranges of hills separated by the Bug, ramifications of the Avratynsk heights. These hills nowhere exceed an elevation of 1185 ft. Two large rivers, which numerous tributaries, drain the government—the Dniester, which forms its boundary with Bessarabia and is navigable throughout its length, and the Bug, which flows almost parallel to the former in a higher, sometimes swampy, valley, and is interrupted at several places by rapids. The Dniester is an important channel for trade, corn, spirits and timber being exported from Mogilev, Kalus, Zhvanets, Porog and other Podolian river-ports. The rapid smaller tributaries of the Dniester supply numerous flour-mills with motive power. The soil is almost throughout “black earth,” and Podolia is one of the most fertile governments of Russia. Forests cover nearly 15% of the total area Marshes occur only beside the Bug. The climate is moderate, the average temperature of the year at Kamenets being 48.3° (24.5° in January, 69° in July).

The estimated population in 1906 was 3,543,700. It consists chiefly of Little Russians, Poles (3%), and Jews (12%). There are besides a few Armenians, some Germans, and 50,000 Moldavians There are many Nonconformists (18,000) among the Russians, Tulchin being the seat of their bishops and a centre of propaganda. After Moscow, Podolia is the most densely inhabited government of Russia outside Poland. It is divided into twelve districts, the chief towns of which are Kamenets-Podolskiy, the capital, Balta, Bratslav, Gaisin, Letichev, Litin, Mogilev-on-Dniester, Novaya-Ushitsa, Olgopol, Proskurov, Vinnitsa and Yampol. The chief occupations of the people are agriculture and gardening. The principal crops are wheat, rye, oats, barley, maize, hemp, flax, potatoes, beetroot and tobacco. Podolia is famous for its cherries and mulberries, its melons, gourds and cucumbers. Nearly 67,000 gallons of wine are obtained annually. Large numbers of horses, cattle and sheep are bred, the cattle being famous. Bee-keeping is an important industry. Sugar factories, distilleries, flour-mills, woollen mills, tanneries, potteries, tobacco factories, breweries, candle and soap factories, have an annual output valued at £4,000,000. An active trade is carried on with Austria, especially through the Isakovets and Gusyatin custom-houses, corn, cattle, horses, skins, wool, linseed and hemp seed being exported, in exchange for wooden wares, linen, woollen stuffs, cotton, glass and agricultural implements. The trade with the interior is also carried on very briskly, especially at the twenty-six fairs, the chief of which are Balta and Yarmolintsy Podolia is traversed by a railway which runs parallel to the Dniester, from Lemberg to Odessa, and has two branch lines, to Kiev (from Zhmerinka) and to Poltava (from Balta).

History.—The country has been inhabited since the beginning of the Neolithic period. Herodotus mentions it as the seat of the Graeco-Scythian Alazones and the Scythian Neuri, who were followed by the Dacians and the Getae The Romans left traces of their rule in the Wall of Trajan, which stretches through the modern districts of Kamenets, Ushitsa and Proskurov. During the great migrations many nationalities passed through this territory, or settled within it for some time, leaving traces in numerous archaeological remains. Nestor mentions that the Bujanes and Dulebes occupied the Bug, while the Tivertsi and Ugliches, apparently all four Slav tribes, were settled on the Dniester. These peoples were conquered by the Avars in the 7th century. Oleg, prince of Kiev, extended his rule over this territory—the Ponizie, or “lowlands,” which became later a part of the principalities of Volhynia, Kiev and Galicia. In the 13th century the Ponizie was plundered by the Mongols; a hundred years afterwards Olgierd, prince of Lithuania, freed it from their rule, annexing it to his own territories under the name of Podolia, a word which has the same meaning as Ponizie. After the death (1430) of the Lithuanian prince Vitovt, Podolia was annexed to Poland, with the exception of its eastern part, the province of Bratslav, which remained under Lithuania until its union (1501) with Poland. The Poles retained Podolia until the third division of their country in 1793, when it was taken by Russia.

PODOLSK, a town of Russia, in the government of Moscow, 26 m. S. of the City of Moscow, at the junction of the two main roads from Moscow to the Crimea and to Warsaw. Pop. (1881), 11,000; (1897), 3808. It is picturesquely built on the hilly banks of the Pakhra, here crossed by a suspension bridge for carriages as well as by the railway bridge. Down to 1781 the wealthy village of Podol was a dependency of the Danilov monastery in Moscow. Before the opening of the southern railway the caravans of wagons and sledges to and from Moscow used to halt here; the principal occupation of the inhabitants was inn keeping and supplying the caravans with provisions and other necessaries of travel. The limestone quarries, at the confluence of the Desna and the Pakhra, supply the capital with good building material; and there are a cement, lime and brick factory and a paper-mill.

PODOPHYLLIN, a drug obtained from the rhizome of the American mandrake or may apple, Podophyllum peltatum, an herbaceous perennial belonging to the natural order Berberidaceae, indigenous in woods in Canada and the United States. The plant is about 1 ft. high, bearing two peltate, deeply divided leaves, which are about 5 in. in diameter, and bear in the axil a solitary, stalked, white flower, about the size and shape of the garden anemone, with six or more petals and twice as many hypogynous stamens. The fruit is ripe in July, and is an oval, yellowish, fleshy berry, containing twelve or more seeds, each surrounded by a pulpy outer coat or aril. The rhizome, as met with in commerce, occurs in cylindrical pieces 2 or 3 in. long and about in. in diameter, of a chocolate or purplish-brown colour, smooth, and slightly enlarged where the juncture of the leafy stem is indicated by a circular scar on the upper and a few broken rootlets on the under side. The odour is heavy and disagreeable, and the taste acrid and bitter.

Podophyllin is a resinous powder obtained by precipitating an alcoholic tincture of the rhizome by means of water acidulated with hydrochloric acid. It varies in colour from greyish to bright yellow or greenish-brown, the first-named being the purest. The powder is soluble in alcohol and strong solutions of alkalis, such as ammonia. Its composition is somewhat complex. There are certainly at least two resins in the powder (which is known officially as Podophylli resina), one of them being soluble and the other insoluble in ether. Each of these contains an active substance, which can be obtained in crystalline form, and is known as podophyllotoxin It is soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform and boiling water. Alkalis decompose it into picro-podophyllic acid and picro-podophyllin, minute traces of both of which occur in a free state in the rhizome. The acid is inert, but picro-podophyllin is the active principle. It is a crystalline body, soluble only in concentrated alcohol. Hence the inutility of the pharmacopeial tinctura podophylli, which cannot be diluted before administration. The properties of podophyllin resin vary with the reaction of the tissue with which it is in contact; where this is acid the drug is inert, the micro-podophyllin being precipitated.

The resin does not affect the unbroken skin, but may be absorbed from a raw surface, and will then cause purging. When taken internally it is both a secretory and an excretory cholagogue, but so irritant and powerful that its use in cases of jaundice is generally undesirable. Its value, however, in certain cases of constipation of hepatic origin is undeniable. It is largely used in patent medicines, usually as an auxiliary to aloes. The best method of prescribing podophyllin is in pill form. In toxic doses podophyllin causes intense enteritis, with all its characteristic symptoms, and severe depression, which may end in death. The treatment is symptomatic, there being no specific antidote.

 POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809–1849), American poet, writer of fiction and critic, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, on the 19th of January 1809. The family was of English origin, but was settled in Ireland, whence the poet's great-grandfather emigrated to Maryland His grandfather, David Poe, served with credit as a