Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/521

 CHOISEUL-GOUFFIER CHOLERA 509 tempt that he was dismissed and banished to his estate at Chanteloup. The regard in which he was held followed him to his place of exile, and his friends resorted thither to pay their respects to the fallen minister. He had en- deavored, but in vain, to prevent the partition of Poland, and when the event took place Lou- is XV. said, "This would not have been if Choiseul had been minister." He died child- less, and notwithstanding his income from his offices, and the large fortune brought him by his wife, the daughter of the wealthy financier Crozat, he was in debt to such an amount that all his estates were barely sufficient to satisfy his creditors. II. Claude Antoine Gabriel, duke de, a peer of France, nephew and prot6g6 of the preceding, born in 1762, died in Paris, Dec. 2, 1838. As colonel of dragoons, in 1791, he was active in preparing the flight of Louis XVI. and the royal family. On the failure of this attempt he was arrested, but re- covered his liberty by the amnesty granted on the acceptance of the constitution by the king. Appointed first gentleman usher to the queen, he attended her until her imprisonment, and left France only when a price was set upon his head. Raising a regiment of hussars, he joined the royalist army, was taken prisoner, escaped, embarked for India, was wrecked on the coast of France, arrested and sentenced to death by the directory, but saved by the revolution of the 18th Brumaire. He kept aloof from public life during the reign of Napoleon, but on the restoration he was appointed a member of the new chamber of peers. He refused to sen- tence Ney to death, pleaded for Gen. Merlin, implicated in a conspiracy, resigned on the ad- vent of the Villele ministry, in 1820, the rank of major general of the national guard, and when the revolution of 1830 broke out, he was without his knowledge nominated, with Gerard and Lafayette, a member of the provisional government. He was afterward appointed aide-de-camp to Louis Philippe. CHOISEUL-GOUFFIER, Marie Gabriel Florent An guste, count de, a French classical scholar, born in Paris, Sept. 27, 1752, died June 20, 1817. He studied under the direction of Barthelemy, travelled several years in Greece, and in 1782 published the first volume of his Voyage pitto- resque en Grece. He was then made ambas- sador at Constantinople. On the outbreak of the revolution he adhered to the king, and was proscribed by the revolutionary government. He retired to Russia, where he was intrusted with the direction of the academy of fine arts and the imperial libraries. In 1802 he returned to France. The second part of his great work was published in 1809 ; the last part did not appear till after his death, in 1824. CHOISY, Francois Timoleon de, a French writer, born in Paris in 1644, died Oct. 2, 1724. His delicate appearance induced his mother to dress him in feminine attire ; he continued to wear it for many years, and was in the early part of his life notorious for his dissolute habits. In 1676 he accompanied the cardinal de Bouillon to Rome to attend the election of Pope Inno- cent XI. In 1685 he went on a mission to the king of Siam, of which he has given an inter- esting account. On his return to France he devoted his whole time to literary pursuits, was elected to the academy in 1687, wrote the history of several French kings, and attempted to present the annals of the church in a more accessible form than the learned Fleury. His Memoires pour servir d Vkistoire de Louis XIV., which have been printed in Michaud's Collection de memoires, and his Journal du voyage de Siam fait en 1685 et 1686, are writ- ten in a lively and agreeable style. CHORE DAMP, the name given by miners to the irrespirable gas (carbonic acid) which fills the mine after an explosion of fire damp. This gas is also found in badly ventilated parts of mines, its presence being detected by the diffi- culty of making candles burn, and the violent headaches it brings upon those who remain for any time where it is abundant. When carbon- ic oxide is present, the gas is exceedingly dan- gerous to breathe for an instant ; but one may sometimes stay with safety for a minute or two in an atmosphere of choke damp in which a candle cannot be lighted. CHOLERA, a term used to designate a variety of diseases characterized by profuse discharges from the stomach and bowels upward, but more especially downward, and in their ex- treme stages by cramps, absence of the pulse, coldness and blueness of the skin, and suppres- sion of urine. The name has generally but er- roneously been derived from Gr. xW aQ d P^ u i signifying a flow of bile ; but it properly and more appropriately comes from x^P a i a rain- gutter, as marking the fluidity, rapidity, and copiousness with which the discharges take place. The principal varieties are : 1. Cholera morbus, or that induced by the use of indi- gestible food, unripe fruits, spoiled meats, mouldy or corrupt provisions, blighted grain, cucumbers, melons, fat pork, stale crabs, lob- sters, shell fish, incompletely fermented or sour liquors, bad drinking water, &c. The indica- tions are to empty the stomach and bowels of the offending substances, and then to give an anodyne. 2. Catarrhal or serous cholera, pro- duced by sudden check of perspiration, ex- posure to cold while heated, &c. The indica- tion is to reproduce heat of the skin by warm clothing, warm drinks, &c. 3. Bilious or com- mon cholera, produced in hot weather and by gross and luxurious feeding, &c. The indica- tions are to evacuate the excessive and un- healthy bile, and then check its further secre- tion. 4. Anabilious cholera, in which the bil- iary secretion is much diminished or entirely suspended, or else is of a very light color, dirty white, almost colorless, or milky, and when abundant resembling the rice water evacuation of epidemic cholera. The indica- tion is to restore the healthy secretion of bile. 5. Cholera infantum, a disease of warm sea-