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 SMAET introduced into civilized Europe from Constan- tinople through the sense and courage of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, but since the discov- ery of vaccination by Dr. Jenner has been dis- continued. (See VACCINATION.) For a lorfg time the dangers of smallpox were aggravated by the means used for its cure ; in accordance with the theories of the time, which still have their influence among the vulgar, the eruption was looked upon as an effort made by nature free the system of morbid matter ; the more 'undant it was, the better for the patient, e eruption was accordingly encouraged by arm drinks and a heated atmosphere. Syden- was the first to inculcate the necessity of p ee ventilation and a cooling regimen. Mild require little except attention to hygienic ures ; the disease is attended with little r, and should run its course uninfluenced by art. When it is severe, attention should be early directed to supporting the strength of the patient. The diet should be as nutritious as he can bear, and, when indicated by the pul^e, wine and stimulants should be freely administered. The troublesome itching, which causes great suffering, may be alleviated by e application of sweet oil, cold cream, or " ; opiates may be useful to procure sleep, d the bowels should be occasionally moved >y mild laxatives or enemata. SMART, Christopher, an English author, born Shipborne, Kent, April 11, 1722, died in king's bench prison, London, May 18, 1770. e was educated at Cambridge, and elected a 'ellow of Pembroke hall in 1745, and gained the Seatonian prize for poems on the Supreme Being for five years consecutively. In 1753 he married, removed to London, and support- ed himself by writing. Through intemperance and extreme poverty he lost his reason, and was confined in a lunatic asylum for two years. He made a prose translation of Hor- ace, and metrical versions of Horace and Phse- drus, and of the Psalms. Among his other works is " The Hilliad, an Epic Poem," a satire on Sir John Hill, who had criticised him. In 1752 he published a collection of his poems. A posthumous edition appeared in 1791 with a memoir (2 vols. 12mo). His Horace has had several editions in the present century. SMARTWEED. See POLYGONUM. SMEATON, John, an English civil engineer, born at Austhorpe, near Leeds, May 28, 1724, died there, Oct. 28, 1792. Before he reached his 15th year he had made mechanical inven- tions and discoveries. He began to study law, but in 1750 took up the business of a mathe- matical instrument maker, and in 1751 invented a machine for measuring a ship's way at sea. He made valuable improvements in hydraulic machinery, and in 1759 read a paper on this subject before the royal society, for which he received the Copley gold medal. The Eddy- stone lighthouse being destroyed by fire in 1755, Smeaton rebuilt it. (See LIGHTHOUSE.) He afterward built canals and locks on the 748 ' TOL. xv. 8 SMELL 111 Derwentwater estate, constructed the great canal from the Forth to the Clyde, improved the Calder navigation, supplied Greenwich and Deptford with water, erected the Spurn light- house, preserved the old London bridge, and erected several bridges in Scotland. About 1783 he withdrew from business. He pub- lished a volume on the Eddystone lighthouse (1791), and his professional reports were pub- lished by the institution of civil engineers (3 vols. 4to, 1812-'14). See Smiles's "Lives of the Engineers." SMELL, the special sense by which we take cognizance of the odoriferous qualities of for- eign bodies. The main peculiarity of this sense is that it gives us intelligence of the physical properties of substances in a gaseous or vapor- ous condition. An odoriferous body gives off emanations which diffuse themselves through the atmosphere, and we thus perceive its ex- istence at a distance and when it may be con- cealed from sight. The actual quantity of vaporous material necessary for making an impression upon the olfactory organ is very small ; and a substance like musk or attar of roses may fill an entire apartment or even a house for days or weeks with its peculiar odor, readily perceptible by all the occu- pants, without suffering any appreciable loss of weight. The organ of smell is the mucous membrane of the upper part of the nasal pas- sages, supplied by the filaments of the olfac- tory or first pair of cranial nerves. These nerves are endowed with the special sense of smell, but are destitute of ordinary or general sensibility. Thus they can perceive the odors of foreign substances, but not the physical contact of a solid body. On the other hand, the lower portion of the nasal passages -is sup- plied by filaments from the fifth pair of cranial nerves, which are nerves of general sensibility, but not susceptible to the impression of odors. Not all vapors are odoriferous ; some are simply irritating or stimulating to the mucous membrane. The odors proper are generally of an organic origin, such as those of musk, asafcetida, the leaves and blossoms of plants, and the exhalations of living or decomposing animal bodies. Other gaseous emanations are simply irritating, like those of ammonia, chlo- rine, and acetic acid. Sometimes the two kinds of exhalations are mingled ; thus pure alcohol is nearly or quite destitute of odor, but in cologne water we have the stimulating prop- erties of the alcohol, mingled with odoriferous ingredients of a vegetable origin. Ammonia is irritating to the mucous membrane of the nose for the same reason that it is irritating to the skin when brought in contact with it ; but the skin is incapable of perceiving a true odor. The dissemination of odors is favored by the movement of the atmosphere ; and when a disagreeable or noxious odor is con- tained in the air of an apartment, a free ven- tilation is the readiest method of expelling it. When we wish to perceive more distinctly a