Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/560

 556 CUBIT CUCKOO are hard, round, blackish, stalked, and veined, with an aromatic taste and smell. They contain a volatile oil and a hard and soft resin. The latter may be regarded as cubebic acid, and Piper cubeba. seems to be the active medicinal constituent. It passes into the urine and imparts to it a pe- culiar odor, when taken in doses of 10 grains every two hours ; in larger doses it increases the quantity of the urine and causes irritation of the urinary passages. Cubebs modify the secretions of all the mucous membranes, but act especially on those of the urinary passages. They are accordingly used in the treatment of those membranes. The diseases in which they are commonly employed are gonorrhoea, gleet, leucorrhoea, chronic inflammation of the bladder, and chronic bronchitis. When the latter affection is attended with profuse expectoration and debility, the administra- tion of cubebs is often followed by the hap- piest results. Acute inflammation of the mu- cous membrane, whether bronchial or urinary, contraindicates the use of cubebs. They may be administered in the forms of powder, oleo- resin, which is another name for the fluid ex- tract of cubebs, oil, and tincture. One to three drachms of the powder may be given three times a day. The dose of the fluid extract is from a few drops to a drachm; of the oil, 10 or 12 drops ; of the tincture, from half a drachm to one or two drachms. All of these prepara- tions are most agreeably taken when mixed with some thick sirup or mucilage. Cubebs enter into many of the bronchial lozenges or troches that are sold for the relief of bronchitis, coughs, &c. CUBIT (Lat. culitus, the elbow), an ancient measure, taken from the human arm as mea- sured from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. ^ Its length was in practice somewhat indefinite and varied among different nations. According to the most recent investigations, the Roman cubit was 17 inches, and the He- brew cubit less than 22 in., the different mea- surements varying from 20-24 to 21-888 in. The measurements of the Egyptian cubit vary from 20-472 to 20'748 in. ; that on the Nilo- meter at Elephantine is 20-625 in. CHOKING STOOL, an instrument formerly used in Great Britain for the punishment of persons whose conduct made them specially obnoxious to the public. It consisted of a stool or chair in which the offender was placed in front of his own door, and subjected to the insults and peltings of the mob. Extortionate or dishon- est brewers and bakers were sometimes com- pelled to submit to this punishment, and for common scolds the chair was attached to the end of a long beam, by means of which the offender was ducked under water ; hence the instrument came to be designated ducking stool. It was also sometimes called tum- brill, trebucket, and castigatory. Scolding wives continued to be punished in this manner in England up to the beginning of the present century. CUCKOO (cuculus, Linn.), a genus of birds of the order scansores and family cuculidm, in- habiting the temperate and warmer regions of the old world. The cuckoos of America be- long to another subfamily of the same order. The true cuckoos, as exemplified in the genus cuculus, have the bill broad, rather depressed at the base, curved, gradually compressed to the acute tip ; the nostrils are round and ex- posed; the wings are long and pointed, the third quill being the longest; the tail is long and graduated, or even, and the outer feather of each side is shorter than the others; the tarsi are very short and partially feathered ; the toes, two before and two behind, are unequal, the outer anterior one being the longest, and united to the inner at the base. More than 40 species are well determined, of which the best known and most interesting is the common European Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus). European cuckoo (C. canorus, Linn.). In this bird the corners of the mouth and eyelids, and the inside of the mouth, are of an orange color ; the plumage of the head, neck, breast, and