Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/580

Rh 554 S C R S C R comedies, tragedies, opera-libretti To one theatre alone he is said to have furnished more than a hundred pieces. But his life was entirely uneventful, and his election to the Academy in 1834 is almost the only incident which deserves chronicling. It ought to be said to Scribe's credit that, although he was the least original of writers and was more an editor of dramas than a dramatist, although he was for many years an object of the bitterest envy to impecunious geniuses owing to his pecuniary success, and although he never has pleased and never can please any critic who applies purely literary tests, his character stands very high for literary probity and indeed generosity. He is said in some cases to have sent sums of money for "copyright in ideas" to men who not only had not actually collaborated with him but who were unaware that he had taken suggestions from their work. His industry was untiring and his knowledge both of the mechanism of the stage and of the tastes of the audience was wonderful. Nevertheless he hardly deserves a place in literature, his style being vulgar, his characters common- place, even his plots lacking power and grasp. He wrote a few novels, but none of any mark. The best known of Scribe's pieces after his first successful one are Une Chatne (1842), Le Verre dEau (1842), Adrienne Lecouvreur (1849), and the libretti of many of the most famous operas of the middle of the century, especially those of Auber and Meyerbeer. SCRIBES. See ISRAEL, vol. xiii. p. 419. SCRIVENER'S PALSY. See CRAMP, vol. vi. p. 543. SCROFULA or STRUMA (formerly known in England as "king's evil," from the belief that the touch of the sovereign could effect a cure 1 ), a constitutional morbid condition generally exhibiting itself in early life, and characterized mainly by defective nutrition of the tissues and by a tendency to inflammatory affections of a low type with degenerative changes in their products. The subject has been considered in most of its features under PATHO- LOGY (vol. xviii. p. 405), and only a further brief reference is here necessary. Scrofula may be either inherited or acquired. Heredity is of all causes the most potent, and naturally operates with greater certainty where both parents possess the taint. As in all hereditary diseases, however, the liability may be scarcely perceptible for one or two generations, but may then reappear. Other causes refer- able to parentage may readily produce this constitutional state in children, as weakness or ill health in one or both parents, and, as seems probable, marriages of consanguinity. But, apart altogether from hereditary or congenital influ- ences, the scrofulous habit is frequently developed, especi- ally in the young, by such unfavourable hygienic conditions as result from overcrowded, cold, and dark dwellings, in- sufficient and improper food, exposure, and debauchery. Even among the old in such circumstances the evidences of scrofula may be seen to present themselves where before they had been absent. There are two well-marked types of the scrofulous con- stitution to be often observed, especially among the young. In the one the chief features are a fair complexion with delicate thin skin, blue eyes, dilated pupils, long eyelashes, soft muscles, and activity of the circulatory and nervous system ; while in the other the skin is dark, the features heavy, the figure stunted, and all the functions, physical and mental, inactive. In many instances, however, it will be found that both types are more or less mixed together in one individual. The manifestations of scrofula generally appear in early life, and are often exhibited in young 1 This superstition can be traced back to the time of Edward the Confessor in England, and to a much earlier period in France. Samuel Johnson was touched by Queen Anne in 1712, and the same pre- rogative of royalty was exercised by Prince Charles Edward in 1745. children during the first dentition by inflammatory skin eruptions of obstinate character on the face and other parts ; later on in youth there appear glandular swellings either externally, as on the neck, or affecting the gland structures of the chest or abdomen, while at the same time mucous membranes and bones may become implicated. The distinctive features of the scrofulous inflammatory affections are their tendency to chronicity and to suppura- tive and degenerative changes, the affected parts either healing slowly with resulting disfigurement, as on the neck, or continuing to retain traces of the products of the diseased action, which may set up serious disturbance of the health at some future time. Further, the scrofulous constitution always influences the duration and progress of any disease from which the individual may suffer, as well as its results. Thus in pneumonia, to which the scrofulous would seem to be specially liable, the products of the inflammation are not readily absorbed as in previously healthy persons, but, remaining in the lung -tissues, are apt to undergo caseous degenerative changes, which may issue in phthisis (see PNEUMONIA and PHTHISIS). The connexion of scrofula with tubercle is pointed out in the article PATHOLOGY- (loc, cit.). Scrofula may under favourable circumstances tend to improvement as age advances, and it occasionally happens that persons who in early life showed unmistakable evi- dences of this condition appear ultimately to outgrow it, and become in all respects healthy and vigorous. The treatment is essentially similar to that described for rickets or phthisis, and is partly preventive and partly curative. It consists mainly in hygienic measures to pro- mote the health and nutrition of the young, and of suitable diet, tonics, &c., where evidences of the disease have declared themselves. See RICKETS, PHTHISIS. SCRUB-BIRD, the name (for want of a better, since it is not very distinctive) conferred upon the members of an Australian genus, one of the most curious ornithological types of the many furnished by that country. The first examples were procured by the late Mr Gilbert between Perth and Augusta in West Australia, and were described by Gould in the Zoological Society's Proceedings for 1844 (pp. 1, 2) as forming a new genus and species under the name of Atrichia clamosa, the great peculiarity observed by that naturalist being the absence of any bristles around the gape, in which respect alone it seemed to differ from the already known genus Sphenura. In March 1866 Mr Wilcox obtained on the banks of the Richmond river on the eastern side of Australia some other examples, which proved the existence of a second species, described by Mr Ramsay in the Proceedings for that year (pp. 438-440) as A. rufescens-, but still no suspicion of the great divergence of the genus from the ordinary Passerine type was raised, and it was generally regarded as belonging to the Maluridat. or Australian Warblers. However, the peculiar formation of the sternum in Atrichia attracted the present writer's attention almost as soon as that of A. clamosa was exhibited in the museum of the College of Surgeons, and at his re- quest Mr Ramsay a little later sent to the museum of the university of Cambridge examples in spirit of A. rufescens, which shewed a common structure. One of the sternal peculiarities was noticed by Mr Sclater (Ibis, 1874, p. 191, note) ; and in the present work (BIRDS, iii. p. 741) the Scrub-birds were declared to form a distinct Family, Atrichiidse, standing, so far as was known, alone with the Lyre-birds (see vol. xv. p. 115) as "abnormal Passeres." Much the same view was also taken the next year by Garrod, who, in the Proceedings for 1876 (pp. 516, 518, pi. Hi. figs. 4-7), further dwelt on the taxonomic importance of the equally remarkable characters of the syringeal muscles exhibited alike by Menura and Atrichia, which he accord-