Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/145

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1em  GELLIUS,, author of the Noctes Atticæ, was born in the of the, most probably in Rome, and died about. Nothing is known of his personal history except from incidental notices in his own book. He studied grammar and rhetoric at Rome and philosophy at Athens, after which he returned to Rome, and held there a judicial oﬂice. His only work, the Nut-[ts Ain't-(e, takes its name from having been begun during the long nights of a winter which he spent in Attica. He afterwards continued it at Rome. It is compiled out of an “ Adversaria,” or common-place book, in which he had jotted down everything of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read in books, and it comprises notes on grammar, geometry, philosophy, history, and almost every other branch of knowledge. The work, which is utterly devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided into twenty books. All these have come down to us except the eighth, of which nothing remains but the index. The Nodes Attica; is valuable for the insight it affords into the nature of the society and pursuits of those times, and for the numerous excerpts it contains from the works of lost ancient authors.

1em  GELON, succeeded Hippocrates as tyrant of Gela in, and, by supporting the plebs of Syracuse in their quarrels against the aristocracy, became tyrant also of that city in He used his power so discreetly that under him Syracuse attained an extraordinary degree of wealth and inﬂuence. The great event in Gelon’s subsequent history was his defeat of the Carthaginians under Hamich at Himera, according to tradition on the same day that the Greeks defeated Xerxes at Salamis, , the result of his victory being that he obtained the lordship of the whole of Sicily. After Gelon had thus established his power, he made a show of resigning it; but his proposal was rejected by the multitude, and he reigned without opposition till his death His memory was held in such respect that, , when Timoleon was erasing from Sicily every vestige of the tyrants that had once reigned there, he spared the statues of Gelon. See.  GELSEMIUM, a drug, consisting of the root of G'elsemimn (or as sometimes less correctly called Gelsemz'imm) sempervi—rens, a climbing shrub of the natural order Loganiacew, having a milky juice, opposite, lanceolate shining leaves, and axillary clusters of from one to ﬁve large, funnel-shaped, very fragrant yellow flowers, whose perfume has been compared to that of the wallﬂower. The fruit is composed of two separable jointed follicles, containing numerous flat-winged seeds. The stem often runs underground for a considerable distance, and indis- criminately with the root it is used in medicine. The plant is a native of the United States, growing on rich clay soil by the side of streams near the coast, from Virginia to the south of Florida. In the United States it is commoan in no way related to the true jessamines, which belong to the Oleacece. It was ﬁrst described in 1640 by John Parkinson, who grew it in his garden from seed sent by Tradescant from Virginia; at the present time it is but rarely seen, even in botanical gardens, in Great Britain. The root, on analysis by Kollock in 1855, was found to contain an alkaloid (now called Gelsemine or Gelsemia), a dry acrid resin, per cent. of a volatile oil heavier than water, fatty resin, ﬁxed oil, yellow colouring matter, gallic acid, starch, albumen, gum, pectic acid, extractive matter, lignin, and 3'17 per cent. of mineral matter, consisting chieﬂy of salts of potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, and silica. The leaves and ﬂowers were found to contain the same ingredients in less quantity. Eberle, who examined the root in 1869, states that the central woody portion of the root does not contain any alkaloid, and that therefore the bark is the physiologically active portion. In addition to the above, Wormley, in 1870, discovered in the root a crystalline substance named by him gelseminic acid, whose solution in alkalies exhibits a powerful blue ﬂuorescence. It has, however, since been shown by Sonnenschein to be identical with zesculin, a crystalline glucoside found in the bark of the horse chesnut, ﬁscal-us 11 ippocustmamn. The active properties of gelsemium root have been proved by Wormley and Bartholow to depend upon the alkaloid gelsemine (01111191802), which in the pure state is a colourless, odourless solid, not yet obtained in a crystalline form, readily soluble in ether and chloroform, less so in alcohol, and very sparingly in water, except in the presence of hydrochloric acid, and having an intensely persistent bitter taste, perceptible in a solution containing only TUamth part of it by weight. The readiest and best test for gelsemine, detecting the smallest traces, appears to be the cherry-red colour developed when ceroso-ceric oxide is added to its solution in concen- trated sulphuric acid. The dose of the alkaloid is from 316th to EIUth of a grain; larger quantities are poisonous, §th of a grain having proved fatal in an hour and a half to a strong cat. The pharmaceutical preparation known as gelsemin con- sists chieﬂy of the resin, combined with uncertain propor- tions of the other constituents of the root, and is prepared by precipitation with water from the strong tincture. The medicinal properties of the root were discovered by accident, the infusion having been administered instead of that of some other root, with the result of curing the fever for which it was taken. It was then experimented upon by the American eclectic practitioners. In 1852 Professor 1V. Proctor called the attention of the medical profession to its valuable properties ; and in 1864 it was placed on approval in the secondary list, and in 1873, so rapidly had it risen in favour, in the primary list of remedies of acknow— ledged value in the United States pharmacopoeia. It has latterly attracted considerable attention in England as a remedy for certain forms of facial neuralgia, especially those arising from decayed teeth, or involving branches of the ﬁfth nerve. In the United States it is more particularly valued for controlling nervous irritability in fevers of a malarial type, in which it is said to excel every other known agent. The physiological action of the drug has been care- fully examined by Bartholow, Ott, and Ringer and Murrell, from whose investigations it appears that it has a paralysing action on the motor centres, affecting successively the third, ﬁfth, and sixth nerves, its fatal action being due to its caus- ing paralysis of the respiratory muscles, and thus producing death by asphyxia. In large doses it produces alarming symptoms, which occasionally terminate fatally. These appear to vary slightly in different cases, but the more-pro- minent are pain in the forehead and in the eyeballs, giddi-