Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/109

* PIZAEBO. 81 PLACENTA. with abuses in the treatment of the Indians, Gonzalo was persuaded to head a revolt against the Viceroy (1544). He occupied Cuzco, gathered a considerable army, and marched on Lima, cap- turing the city. The royal audiencia recognized i'izarro as Governor of Peru, and on October 28, 1544, he made a formal entiy into Lima. The 'icero3' returned from Panama, but was defeated at Anaquito, .June 18, 1546, and all the royal party recognized Pizarro or left Peru. Gonzalo devoted himself to developing the mining regions, founding cities, and making large agricultural grants to settlers. In the spring of 1547 Pedro de !a Gasca arrived with a powerful force to reestablish the royal power. Gonzalo, mustering his forces, marched against the royalists near Lake Titicaca, where he completely defeated tliem, October 26, 1547. Gasca soon collected his forces and marched on Cuzco. The armies met on the plain of Sacsahuana, April, 1548, and as the battle was about to begin most of Gonzalo's best troops went over to the enemy. Realizing the situation, Pizarro followed surrendering him- self. Gasca promptly called a council of war, which condemned Pizarro to death, and he was beheaded a few days afterwards. PIZAEKO. A melodrama by Sheridan, pro- duced in 1799. It was taken from Kotzebue's drama Die Spanier in Peru, with some altera- tions, and became very popular on account of its patriotic sentiments. PIZZICATO, pet's^-ka'td (It., twitched), abbreviated pizz. A word used in music for stringed instruments to denote that the strings, instead of being played as usual by the bow, are to be twitched with the fingers in the manner of a harp or guitar. The letters c. a. (col arco, with the bow) indicate that the use of the bow is to be resumed. PLACE, Francis (1771-1854). An English reformer. He was apprenticed to a maker of leather breeches and afterwards worked at that trade and as a tailor. In 1794 he joined the Lon- don Corresponding Society, a reform club, and for three years was prominent in its work. After ten years of retirement (1707-18071 he returned to politics, made the acquaintance of William God- win, Robert Owen, Jeremy Bentham, James ilill, and many others, and about 1812 began indirectly a great work, acting as tutor or coach to various Parliamentary reformers, among whom Joseph Hume should be mentioned. In 1824 he procured the abolition of the provisions against working- men's combinations. Seven years afterwards he was interested in the Reform Bill, and by his placard. '"Go for Gold and Stop the Duke," brought on a brief run on the Bank of Eng- land and contributed to the causes preventing Wellington's forming a Cabinet. With Roebuck he AVTote various political pamphlets in 1835. Consult Wallas. Life of Francis Place (London, 18981. PLACE, plas. Victor (1822-75). A French Assyriologist and diplomat, born in Paris. He entered the Foreign Office in 1839, acted as consu- lar agent in Xaples. Gibraltar, and Haiti, showing himself able and brilliant, but grasping and self- seeking. In 1851 he became consul at Mosul, suc- ceeding Botta. whose work of excavation at Khor- sabad he continued in conjunction with Oppert and Fresnel. His discoveries, especially regard- ing Assvrian architecture, the large use made of colored enameled bricks on the lower parts of city walls, and the variety and brilliance of borders and figure decorations on these mural facings, were very valuable. The actual spoils of the ex- cavations were loaded on a float buoyed with bladders, but in spite of these precautions they were lost in the river near Basra and could not be recovered. Place was highly honored by the Academy of Inscriptions on his return to France in 1855, and became consul-general at Jassy in Moldavia, a post from which he was soon re- moved because of his abuse of power. He was sent to Adrianople in disgrace, but in 1870 was transferred to New York, where he took advan- tage of his office and his country's need, bought defective rifles for the French army, and charged so high a price for them that he made more than 600,000 francs for himself before he was discov- ered. He was twice tried in Paris, and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in 1872, but was pardoned by Thiers. Place's Xinive et VAs- syrie (1867-70), text 2 vols., plates 1 vol.) is an authority on Xineveh. PLACENTA (Lat., flat cake). The after- birth — a spongy vascular mass attached to the uterus before the birth of a young animal and expelled after labor is completed. It is the structure that unites the foetus to the wall of the maternal uterus. It occurs in all mammals ex- cept the egg-laying Ornithorhyncus and Echidna, though only rudimentary in the marsupials. It presents a variety of forms among the different mammals. Thus in the pig, mare, and the Cetacea it is diffused over the whole interior of the uterus and is termed diffuse; in ruminants it is attached in scattered segments over the uterine wall, coiyledonary ; in certain of the Edentata, the elephant, and Carnivora it occurs as a zone around the uterine surface, zonary ; in most of the Edentata, the Insectivora, and Rodentia it is found as a circular disk, discoidal : while in the monkeys and man. being first ar- ranged in scattered patches and later as a disk, it is kno^vn as meta-discoidal. The placenta is formed in its greater part from hypertrophy and other changes in those chorionic villi which chance to be in contact with the uterine surface when foetation begins. The development of these adherent villi produces what is known as the foetal portion of the placenta, while the re- mainder, the deeidua serotina, furnishes the ma- ternal portion. Around the placental villi are de- veloped vascular spaces in which certain arteries and veins from the uterine wall communicate freely. The villi being thus immersed in the maternal blood, osmotic interchange takes place between the foetal and maternal circulations. On gross inspection the placenta presents itself as a round or slightly oval disk from six to eight inches in diameter and from three-quarters to an inch in thickness. Its weight is about a pound. The foetal surface is smooth and covered by the amniotic membrane, which is reflected from the cord on to the placenta at its centre and again from the placental margins to the uterine wall. The maternal surface is deep red, rough, and irregular, and divided by numerous grooves or sulci. A close inspection shows this surface to he covered by a fine delicate mem- brane which dips down into the sulci and which is the stripped-off cellular layer of the deeidua serotina. Attached to the foetal surface of the placenta, usually at its centre, but occasionally