matter.

an end, though the court will generally permit the plaintiff to amend his bill where it is not apparent from his own statement that he cannot make any case against the defendant; otherwise the only object attained by the demurrer or plea would be to drive the plaintiff to file a new bill, omitting or amending the objectionable part. But if the demurrer or plea is overruled, the defendant is compelled to answer fully, just as if he had not demurred or pleaded. When the answer is filed, the plaintiff, if from the disclosures made he deems it advisable, may amend his bill; that is, erase such part of his statements as he no longer considers necessary, and insert other statements which may appear necessary to sustain his case; and the defendant must answer to this new In cases where the bill is for discovery only, and in some others, the answer puts an end to the suit; and when the object of the bill is to obtain an injunction, which is granted either upon affidavits before answer or in default of an answer, the suit is also ended, unless the defendant desires to dissolve the injunction. But where a decree is necessary, the case must come on to be heard either upon evidence taken before the examiners of the court or commissioners appointed for the purpose [DEPOSITION]; or where the plaintiff considers the disclosures in the answer sufficient, the cause is heard upon bill and answer alone, without further evidence, and this is at the plaintiff's discretion. The cause is heard in its turn by the master of the rolls or the vicechancellors, if instituted in the Court of Chancery; for the lord chancellor rarely hears causes in the first instance. [CHANCERY.] If the nature of the suit admits, a final decree is made; or if any further inquiry be necessary, or any accounts are to be taken, references are made to the judge sitting at chambers for those purposes.

This is the form of the simplest suit by bill in equity, and is sufficient to point out the successive steps necessary to be taken. For certain cases of a simple kind a still more brief proceeding, called a claim, has recently been introduced. Formerly suits were of a far more complicated character. Many special applications to the court might become necessary at various stages before the cause was ripe for hearing; and the references made to the masters, their reports thereon, hearing on further directions, and fresh references, used frequently to consume much time. Under the present state of things, these matters are settled in a much more prompt way, and most successful efforts have been made to simplify and shorten procedure. The recent statute 15 & 16 Vict. c. 86, and some others, have so altered the practice that the old text-books have been nearly superseded. Those who wish for a more accurate knowledge of the proceedings in a suit in chancery may consult Daniell's 'Chancery Practice,' third edition. The principal English treatises on equity are those of Mr. Maddock and Mr. Fonblanque: the former treats of his subject under heads devoted to the several subject matters cognisable in courts of equity; the latter considers it with reference to the jurisdiction exercised by courts of law, as concurrent, assistant, exclusive. The American treatise of Mr. Justice Story unites these two modes, and explains the subject in a masterly and scientific manner.

EQUITY OF REDEMPTION. [MORTGAGE.]

EQUIVALENT NUMBER. [CHEMICAL EQUIVALENTS.] EQUU'LEUS (the Little Horse), a constellation of Ptolemy, surrounded by Pegasus, Vulpecula, Aquila, and Capricornus.

The following are the principal stars.

ther, the whole presenting a singularly picturesque group of the most studied irregularity, though the separate features are as studiously symmetrical. The back wall of the cella of the Temple of Erechtheus is decorated with four semi-columns in antis engaged in the wall, and of the same order as the portico, which is hexastyle, and raised on three steps, forming a basement which runs round the entire building with its adjuncts. In Stuart's 'Athens,' the prothyrum is restored, and forms a closed chamber, for which there does not appear to be sufficient authority. It is more probable that the prothyrum was open, like some other Greek temples, because, as shown on Stuart's plan, the portico from its shallowness would be of little use as a covering, and would also produce little architectural effect. In the side portico, called Minerva Polias, which was most probably constructed after the Erechtheium, there was no opportunity of producing a depth of shadow by the deep recess of an open prothyrum, and the architect accordingly appears to have adopted the pseudo-dipteral portico to produce a somewhat similar effect, as well as to gain a covered space for those who officiated. It would appear from the regularity of the plan of the Temple of Erechtheus, that it was constructed before the other, and of that regular parallelopipedal figure most commonly employed in these buildings; and that at a later period the Pandrosium was constructed, with the portico on the opposite side forming the entrance or vestibule to the cella of the temple, which was formed from a part of the cella of the Temple of Erechtheus, cut off from the end of that cella, which was either at that time or previously lighted with windows.

The length of the Temple of Erechtheus is 73 feet 2 inches from the columns of the portico to those at the back of the cella; the width is 36 feet 6 inches. The depth of the portico of Minerva Polias is 21 feet 1 inch, and the width 33 feet 1 inch. The Pandrosium is 18 feet 4 inches wide, and 11 feet 9 inches deep. (Stuart's Antiquities of Athens,' edited by W. Kinnard, architect.) The columns of the Erechtheium are 2 feet 3.8 inches in diameter at the base, and 1 foot 11-2 inches at the upper diameter; and those of the Minerva Polias 2 feet 6.9 inches, and the upper 2 feet 3.5 inches: while the intercolumniations are respectively-Erechtheium 4 feet 7.95 inches, Minerva Polias 7 feet, 8.19 inches, although there is a slight variation in the intercolumns, which may be the effect of time and inaccuracy in setting them out originally. The columns of the Minerva Polias are on a much lower level than those of the Erechtheium. The capitals of the order of these two temples are very richly carved. The volutes are very graceful [COLUMN], and the spiral lines are elaborately arranged. The necking of the capital is enriched with leaves, as well as with an enriched ovolo and astragals, and the volutes are connected by an enriched twisted band or guilloche ornament. The shafts are fluted. But with regard to many peculiarities in the detail, we must refer to the plates in Stuart's Athens.' The entablatures have several of their members enriched, and are similar in design; the bases of the columns however vary. The height of the columns of the Erechtheium

ERATO. [MUSES.]

ERBIUM; (Er.) a metal discovered by Mosander associated with yttria. Its properties are but little known. Some of them are as follows:-Its oxide becomes of a dark orange colour when heated in contact with the air, which colour it loses with a little weight, when heated in hydrogen gas. It is to the presence of this oxide that yttria owes its yellow colour, when prepared as hitherto directed. The sulphate and nitrate of erbium are free from colour. It has not been reduced to the metallic state.

Fntrance to the Cells.

frotbyrum.

Wall restored by Stuart.

Portico of the Erechthelum.

مسلنا

Seale of Feet

20

90

[Plan of the Erechtheium.]

EREMACAUSIS, Decay. Eremacausis literally signifies slow burning; that is, gradual oxidation.

In popular language, the word decay is expressive of the constant retrogressive change of which matter is susceptible. The crumbling walls of an old ruin, the few hollow trunks in its vicinity, and the traces of life that once animated the scene, are familiar examples of a state of things that is somewhat loosely expressed by the term decay. A dead animal, under ordinary circumstances, soon commences to alter in colour, noxious odours are emitted from it, and an appeal is made to the eyes and nose of the observer sufficient to indicate that a consider able change from the normal condition of the animal is taking place. This change is generally denoted by the word decay, and consists in the gradual wasting or burning away of the animal by the chemical action of the oxygen of the air; by which all parts of it, except bones, are slowly and almost entirely resolved into gaseous compounds. Old walls crumble away, not by true decay, not by the chemical action of the oxygen of the air, but principally by the mechanical action of wind and rain. In order therefore to avoid much ambiguity, it has long been the practice in scientific treatises, and is now becoming the general custom, to indicate decay proper by the term eremacausis. This term has also the advantage of perfectly describing what is known to take place.

Eremacausis, fermentation, and combustion, are phenomena that are frequently very intimately associated; but no difficulty will be found in assigning to each its proper limits, if it be remembered, first, that fermentation is simply a rearrangement of the constituents of a compound; second, that eremacausis is a slow oxidation of the compound at common temperatures; and third, that combustion is rapid oxidation of a compound at a temperature sufficiently high to produce light. [COMBUSTION; FERMENT.]

ones; hence it might be expected that the elements composing these complex compounds having been, so to speak, drawn out of their first and most stable condition, should have a tendency to return to that state in which the forces that operated upon them are either removed or altered in direction. Such is indeed the case, and this retrogressive change, or eremacausis, soon commences after the cessation of life, and goes on at, according to circumstances, a slow or rapid rate. In illusor two of its circles of usefulness. Thrown into the atmosphere, from the combustion of coal or wood, under the form of carbonic, acid, it is absorbed and assimilated by plants, the oxygen of the carbonic acid being returned to the air. The leaves of the plant will probably die when winter comes, and then will either undergo thorough or partial eremacausis, the carbon being either slowly but completely burnt into carbonic acid and returned into the atmosphere, or partially oxidised and converted into humus, or vegetable mould.

Other parts of the plant are perhaps eaten by man or the lower animals, and their carbon thus becomes part of an animal body, there to do duty until chemical affinity, under the form of eremacausis, once more restores the carbon to the air as carbonic acid, only to pass again through the same cycle of changes.

The three remaining chief elements of organised bodies are also affected by eremacausis, the hydrogen being converted into water, and the nitrogen, either into nitric acid or ammonia, while the oxygen escapes either as water or carbonic acid.

Eremacausis appears essentially to precede and determine the processes of fermentation and putrefaction, and hence, if organic substances be rigidly excluded from contact with oxygen, they cannot be subject to either of these processes; since eremacausis can only occur in the presence of free oxygen. Advantage is taken of this fact to preserve meat and vegetables in all their original freshness, by enclosing them in air-tight canisters, from which atmospheric air has been carefully expelled. If the smallest trace of air be suffered to remain in the canisters or in the pores of the enclosed substances, eremacausis commences, and determines putrefaction, which latter process, once commenced, is scarcely retarded by exclusion of air, and thus it is that meats carelessly preserved are found, on opening the cases, to be utterly putrid. [FERMENT; PUTREFACTION.]

Eremacausis is almost entirely confined to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Few minerals are acted upon by the oxygen of the air, and even when this action does take place the change is never a retrogressive one. Iron pyrites, for example, a compound of sulphur and iron (FeS2), undergoes slow oxidation on exposure to air, but the resulting compound, sulphate of iron (FeO,SO,), is more complex than the pyrites.

Animals and vegetables grow or are built up by virtue of certain influences which are sometimes aggregated under the name vital force; and when these influences cease, not only does the progressive action terminate, but eremacausis commences, especially if air and moisture are present. Organised bodies are composed of matters called proximate principles. Such are, in vegetables, starch, cellulose, gluten, sugar, &c., while in animals some of these principles form fat, others blood, &c. These proximate principles are again composed of other substances, called ultimate principles or elements. The elements necessary to notice here, are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Organised bodies get these elements from the inorganic world, that is, from the earth and atmosphere. Vegetables get carbon from carbonic acid (CO), a gas, composed of carbon and oxygen, and always present in the air; hydrogen and oxygen they chiefly obtain from water, and nitrogen from various sources, though the ultimate but indirect source is, no doubt, the atmosphere, of which four-fifths are nitrogen. In addition to these elements, vegetables contain bone-forming material (phosphate of lime, &c.), which they have obtained by their roots directly from the earth, and which material, after having performed its office of building up the animal skeleton, is again returned to the earth without going through re-composition, or decomposition. Some animals derive the elements enumerated, by feeding upon vegetables; whilst others derive these principles more directly by feeding upon animals. Thus are animal and vegetable organisms built up, but at every step the combination of forces above alluded to, is essential, and its action consists chiefly in the production of complex compounds from more simple

ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. IIL

ERGOT, Medical Uses of. Ergot is a name bestowed upon a peculiar state of the seed of several cereal grains, but most frequently of the rye, which resembles a spur, or horn; hence, likewise, termed Secale cornutum, or spurred rye. Even the common rye-grass is liable to its attacks, and more rarely some cyperaceous plants. A partial list of these is given in the papers of Smith, Quekett, and Bauer, in Trans. of Linnæan Society,' vol. xviii. pp. 449-482, and a more complete one by Phoebus (Deutschl. Kryptogam. Giftegewächse. Berlin, 1838). Whether this state of the grain be merely an altered condition of the pistil, or the result of the puncture of insects, or of the development of a fungus, is doubtful; but the best authorities incline to the opinion that it is a fungus. (See Mr. Bauer's paper on the Uredo fœtida siders the fungus to be the Sclerotium clavus. It is termed Spermedia clavus by Fries; Sphacelia Segetum by Lévillé; Ergotatia abortifaciens by Quekett; Hymenula clavus by Corda; and, lastly, Oidium aborti faciens (see Lindley, Medical and Economical Botany,' p. 14), by Berkeley, who considers it analogous to the parasitic fungus so destructive to the vines. The spur is of variable length, from a few lines to two inches, and is from two to four lines in thickness; when large, only a few grains in each ear are affected; when small, in general all of them are diseased. In colour the exterior or husk is of a bluish-black or violet hue, with two or three streaks of dotted gray; the interior is of a dull whitish or gray tint. It is specifically lighter than water, which affords a criterion for distinguishing sound from tainted grain. When fresh it is tough and flexible, but brittle and easily pulverised when dry. The powder is apt to attract moisture, which impairs its properties. Time also completely dissipates its peculiar qualities. A small Acarus attacks it. It is more potent in proportion to its freshness. "It has a disagreeable heavy smell (which being analogous to that of many fungi, strengthens the opinion that it belongs to that class of vegetable substances), a nauseous, slightly acrid taste, and imparts both its taste and smell to water and alcohol. Bread which contains it is defective in firmness, liable to become moist, and cracks and crumbles soon after being taken from the oven." [ERGOTIN.] Bread prepared from grain which has a large admixture of the spur occasions very distressing and often fatal effects, which are shown more or less rapidly according to the quantity present in the food, and the circumstances in which those who use it are placed. These effects have been observed to be most serious in seasons of scarcity, when they produce dreadful disease-the Raphanes of Linnæus, Cullen, and other nosologists. The symptoms which result from spurred grain, when used for a considerable time, are of two distinct kinds, one of a nervous nature, characterised by violent spasmodic convulsions, the other a disordered state of the constitution, which terminates in the peculiar disease called Gangræna ustilaginea, or dry gangrene. A single dose of the spur, not diluted by admixture with sour flour, excites effects which vary according to the quantity taken and the state of the person, and are chiefly limited to the stomach and intestinal canal, if the dose be small; but if so much as two

3 P

drachms be taken, it causes giddiness, headache, flushed face, pain and spasms in the stomach, nausea and vomiting, with colic, purging, and a sense of weariness and weight in the limbs. In the case of parturient females, when given at a certain stage of the labour, it is admitted by most practitioners and writers to produce specific effects, and to expedite the labour in a very marked manner. It is by some persons alleged to produce hurtful effects upon the child; but such consequences probably occur only when it has been used at an improper stage of the labour; or when it ought not to have been employed under any circumstances. The rules for its employment are given in works devoted to obstetrics, to which we refer. It has likewise been recommended in menorrhagia and in leucorrhoea, against the former of which it is most useful when dependent on debility.

The extraordinary effects of the ergot of rye have made it the subject of experiments in medicine. It has consequently become an article of commerce as a drug, and imported from the Continent. By an attentive observation of the circumstances which favour this disease in the rye, it might be profitable to cultivate the plant expressly for the ergot it produces. The seed which grows on the same ear with the ergot might be selected for seed, and a cold wet soil, with an ungenial aspect, might be chosen as most likely to perpetuate the disease, or steeping the most healthy seeds in water in which the sporidia of the oidium abortifaciens are contained, will, when planted, propagate the diseased form of the grain. The ergot is sold by druggists at from 10s. to 208. per ounce, so that, if only a pound of ergot could be collected, it would be worth more than the produce in sound grain of an acre of the best land. At all events, it will well repay the trouble of picking out the ergot from the rye, where it is infected, and it is easily discovered, before reaping, from its prominence and black colour.

The nervous symptoms arising from the use of bread formed of spurred rye, may in general be cured by emetics, laxatives, and frequent small doses of opium, provided this treatment be adopted in reasonable time, and the unwholesome food completely withdrawn.

The tendency to dry gangrene is to be combatted by the use of cinchona and cordials, with local applications to the part threatened. The noxious food must be completely relinquished. (Christison 'On Poisons.')

This diseased condition of the seeds of certain grasses is also a matter of very great agricultural importance; its prevalence being the probable cause of much of the abortion of which dairy herds are sometimes the subject. A writer in the 'Agricultural Gazette' thus refers to the matter:-"In the western climate of this kingdom, the existence of this disease in the grasses of our pastures is by no means uncommon in the autumn of the year. An examination of the seed stems of our meadows will generally give evidence of the disease, but it is only when it is abundant that its influence is so manifest. Unfortunately much of the grass land in the moist climate of the west is too frequently the cause of trouble and loss by causing the abortion of the cows fed thereon. The disease is seldom found upon grass land which has been mown in the same season, and even when it is found its occurrence is so casual as to be of little importance. The land which has been grazed during the summer is that upon which the ergotised grass is found to exist most abundantly, because the stock having avoided the seed stems, these have been enabled to fulfil their special functions and produce seed which has subsequently become diseased. It is clear that if prevention is the object to be aimed at, this will be best attained by keeping breeding stock from land thus bearing a diseased produce. This may be accomplished on the majority of farms by removing the breeding cows and heifers from their summer pasturage, say in July, and keeping them afterwards upon land which had been mown that season. The removal of the stock should not be delayed until any case of abortion has positively occurred, because, that having once commenced it rapidly spreads through any herd, and often in opposition to every care. As soon as there is seed formed upon the seed-stems of the grass, the prudent breeder may take notice of danger, and his wisest policy will undoubtedly be to put his cows and heifers upon the after-grass. There are very many districts where the climate, from being dry, does not render this precaution necessary, but at the same time there are numerous tracts of land where the moisture of the climate acts upon the grass seeds, and favours the growth of ergotised grass, and such land is noted for the difficulty experienced in keeping the stock in proper breeding order. The age of the foetus appears to be a matter of small importance, for it varies from two months upwards at the time when the abortion takes place. Some stock are much more sensitive to influences of this kind than others, and this is doubtless dependant upon their health and vigour; and thus stock which are well bred, i.., nearly related, are more liable to injury in this way than those which are inferior in this respect: for although by judicious breeding we improve the general character of an animal, yet at the same time this altered character is generally accompanied by diminished vigour.

"This explains how the best bred cows and heifers will often throw their calves, whilst some common stock about which the breeder is indifferent will frequently escape, although their treatment and food may be similar, and each may have partaken of this ergotised grass. Knowing as we do the action of this diseased form of grass seed, it

becomes highly important that we should in this way avoid a cause so prolific of trouble and loss to many of our best breeders."

ERGOTIN is an active principle contained in ergot. [ERGOT, NAT. HIST. DIV.] It may be prepared by the following process, advantage being taken of its insolubility in water or ether and its solubility in alcohol. Powdered ergot is first thoroughly exhausted with ether by percolation, to get rid of fatty matter; it is then digested in boiling alcohol, filtered, the filtrate evaporated to the consistence of an extract, and the extract treated with water, which leaves the ergotin undissolved.

Ergotin has an acrid bitter taste, and, when warmed, a peculiar, unpleasant odour. It is soluble in caustic alkalies from which it is precipitated unchanged on addition of dilute acids. Strong sulphuric and acetic acids also dissolve it, dilution with water causing it to be again thrown down. It is infusible, and in contact with the air burns with a peculiar odour. Nitric acid decomposes ergotin. Under the name of Bonjean's Ergotin, there occurs in pharmacy a preparation obtained by digesting the aqueous extract in alcohol and evaporating the solution to a proper consistence. As ergotin, properly so called, is in the pure state insoluble in water, it follows that Bonjean's preparation must owe its activity either to some other substance than ergotin, or that in the process for obtaining the aqueous extract, the ergotin is rendered soluble in water by the presence of other bodies in the ergot.

Ergotin is a poison, slow but deadly.

ERI'DANUS (the river Eridanus), a constellation first mentioned by Aratus, who calls it Eridanus. Hyginus states it to have been from the Nile, and assigns a reason [CANOPUS]; but the scholiast on Aratus states this to have been peculiar to the Egyptians. In the heavens it is a winding stream, not very well marked by stars, extending from a bright star (a) of the first magnitude, called Achernes, and situated near the southern part of Phoenix, past the feet of Cetus, and ending at the star Rigel in Orion. Its principal stars are as follows:

693 c

717

4

Φ ERIOMETER, an instrument invented by Dr. Thomas Young, for measuring the diameter of minute fibres, such as those of wool, whence the name (from epiov, wool, and uérpov, a measure).

If we gently breathe upon a plate of glass, or scatter some very fine powder upon it, such as Lycopodium dust, and look through it at the sun or a candle, a number of rings of colour will be seen. There will be first round the luminous source a light area, terminating in a reddish dark margin; then a ring of bluish green, succeeded by a red ring, and these two last colours will be repeated several times if the particles are uniform in diameter. The effect is something like that produced by a halo round the sun or moon. As the diameter of the rings varies with the size of the particles, or fibres, it occurred to Dr. Young that the diameters of these minute bodies might be measured by determining the size of the rings produced by them. His eriometer consisted of a piece of card or a plate of brass with a hole about th of an inch in diameter in the centre of a circle about half an inch in diameter, the circumference of which was perforated with eight or ten holes made as minute as possible. The fibres or particles to be measured are fixed in a slider, and the instrument being placed before a strong light, the observer, assisted by a lens behind the small hole, will see the rings. The slider must be drawn out until the limit of the first green ring and the red one coincides with the circle of perforations, and the index will then show on the scale the magnitude of the particles or fibres. The unit on this scale is that of the seed of the Lycoperdon bovista, which was ascertained by Dr. Wollaston to be

organ of smell, and even of the neighbouring organs, being supposed to influence the vessels of the eye, and even of the brain. Some affections of the eye, and also of the head, are certainly relieved by such means, and their occasional use may be permitted; but the habitual use of errhines is in most cases objectionable, and followed by hurtful consequences. The membrane of the nose becomes thickened, its sensibility impaired, and the power of discriminating odours greatly lessened; while, if the substance be possessed at the same time of narcotic qualities, such as snuff procured from tobacco, the palate, the stomach, and other organs concerned in digestion likewise suffer, and loss of appetite with other symptoms of indigestion result. [STERNUTORIES.]

ERROR (in Law), a fault in the pleadings or in the process, or in the judgment, upon which a writ, called a Writ of Error (breve de errore corrigendo), might, and in some cases may, still be brought to reverse the judgment. The proceeding of bringing error, which now in ordinary cases consists of simply suggesting that "there is error in the record and proceedings," is the ordinary mode of appeal from a court of record, and is in theory a commission from the crown to the judges of a court superior to that in which the judgment was given, by which they are authorised to examine the record, and on such examination to affirm or reverse the judgment according to law. ERUCIC ACID (CHO), a colourless crystalline acid contained in the expressed oil of mustard (Sinapis alba). It fuses at 93° Fahr., is insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol and ether. ERYSIPELAS (Ignis Sacer, the Rose, St. Anthony's Fire), an inflammation of the skin, occasioning a spreading redness, which occupies a broad surface, on which are formed vesicles or blisters, preceded by and accompanied with fever. The whole of the inflamed surface is painful; but the pain is not acute, it is rather a sensation of burning or stinging than of severe pain. The redness is not intense like that produced by phlegmon or boil, but is of a pale rose colour. There is always considerable tumefaction; the tumour is not surrounded by a definite boundary, but is diffuse, irregularly circumscribed, and unattended with a sensation of throbbing. The tumour is often soft and boggy. It is characterised by the vesications which form upon it. The proper seat of erysipelas is the skin, but the appearance of the disease is somewhat modified according to the part of the skin which is more especially inflamed. If the rete mucosum, or the part of the skin which is placed immediately beneath the cuticle [SKIN], be the principal seat of the inflammation, the vesication is remarkable; there is commonly a considerable discharge from the vesicles, and a free exfoliation of the cuticle. If, on the contrary, the inflammation be chiefly seated in the cutis vera, or the true skin,-namely, that portion of the skin which lies immediately beneath the rete mucosum,-the cellular tissue beneath the skin is always more or less involved in the inflammation, and then the tumefaction is considerable on account of the infiltration of the cellular tissue with serum poured out from the blood by the inflamed cuticle.

Erysipelatous inflammation is characterised by its tendency to spread, and thereby to cover a considerable portion of the external surface of the body. It creeps on in succession from one part of the skin to another until it extends to a great distance from the part originally attacked, the inflammation often disappearing from the former as it becomes established in the latter. Sometimes the inflammation appears to pass from the external surface to the internal organs; and occasionally the disease quits the surface as it attacks the internal organs, although more commonly the external and internal inflammation go on simultaneously, greatly increasing the severity and danger of the attack.

Erysipelas most commonly attacks the face, but it sometimes seizes on one of the extremities. The disease is always more severe when it attacks the head than when it is seated in any other part of the body. The inflammation which appears on the external surface of the body in erysipelas is not the primary and essential part of the disease, but a remote event depending on a preceding state of disease affecting the whole system. This is proved by the fact that constitutional disturb ance always precedes, commonly for the space of two or three days, the appearance of the local affection.

An attack of erysipelas comes on either with chills or a distinct cold shivering, attended with a sense of lassitude, aching in the limbs, restlessness, and that disordered state of the skin which has been expressively termed febrile uneasiness. There is from the beginning uneasiness or confusion in the head, which soon amounts to decided pain. This is accompanied with such a degree of drowsiness that the attack may sometimes be predicted long before there is any appearance of redness or swelling in the face, from the inability of the patient to keep himself awake. The chilliness is soon succeeded by heat of skin; the appetite fails; the bowels are constipated; the tongue is dry and parched; there is sometimes nausea and vomiting; the pulse is always frequent, sometimes full, soft, and compressible, but occasionally hard

and tense.

After these symptoms have continued some time, always one, generally two, and sometimes three days, there appears on some part of the face a redness, attended with burning heat and tingling. Commonly a red spot appears on one cheek; after a short time a similar spot appears on the other cheek; often the redness spreads successively from one cheek to the other across the nose, which is completely

involved in the affection. From the nose it extends to the forehead, and thence over the whole scalp. Soon after the redness appears the face begins to swell; and by the second night or the morning of the third day from the commencement of the fever, the eyes are completely closed, the eyelids exceedingly prominent, the nose distended, and the ears tumid, red, shining, and burning. On the fourth or fifth day the vesications appear on the inflamed surface, which break on the fifth or sixth, when the redness changes to a yellowish hue. The whole face is now so turgid that the form and expression of the features are completely lost, and the patient could not possibly be recognised by his most intimate friends.

The surface of the skin in the blistered places becomes covered with a brownish or dark-coloured scab, which often gives a livid or blackish appearance to the part; but this livid colour seldom goes deeper than the surface, and does not proceed from any degree of gangrene affecting the skin. On the parts of the face not affected with blisters the cuticle is destroyed, and desquamates, a new cuticle being formed beneath it. Though the face, in general, however intensely inflamed, seldom goes into suppuration, yet it is by no means uncommon for matter to form in the tumid eyelids.

Occasionally, though not often, when erysipelas attacks the face, it extends to the mouth and fauces, and even to the pharynx and larynx, at the same time that it covers the neck and chest externally. Dr. Copland mentions a case in which the enormous tumefaction of the neck and throat with the affection of the larynx and trachea, increased by the constriction produced by the integuments surrounding the neck and throat, caused suffocation in a few hours. When the inflammation extends to the fauces, throat, and larynx, it sometimes produces a species of croup.

On whatever part of the body the inflammation appears in erysipelas, even when it is strictly confined to the skin, its appearance is not attended with any remission of the fever which preceded it on the contrary, the fever generally increases with the augmentation and extension of the inflammation.

The progress of the disease is more or less rapid, and its duration longer or shorter, according to the age, the temperament, and the vigour of the individual. In the young, the sanguine, and the robust, the tumefaction is sometimes fully formed on the second day, and the whole terminates on the sixth or seventh, while in the aged and the less vigorous it may be protracted to the tenth or twelfth, and the desquamation may not be completed before the fourteenth day. The average duration of the disease may be stated to be from eight to ten days.

When the fever and inflammation are intense, delirium comes on, which sometimes rapidly passes into coma. These are most alarming symptoms, indicating a severe and too often a mortal inflammation of the brain. In such cases death frequently takes place, with many of the symptoms of apoplexy, on the seventh, ninth, or eleventh day of the disease. "In such cases," says Dr. Cullen, " it has been commonly supposed that the disease is translated from the external to the internal parts. But I have not seen any instance in which it did not appear to me that the affection of the brain was merely a communication of the external affection, as this continued increasing at the same time with the internal. When the fatal event does not take place, the inflammation, after having affected a part, commonly the whole of the face, and perhaps the other external parts of the head, ceases. With the inflammation the fever also ceases; and, without any evident crisis, the patient returns to his ordinary state of health.”

In the cases which prove fatal, on the examination of the body after death, the inflamed skin is found infiltrated with serum, which is sometimes mixed with pus, and occasionally portions of the skin are found disorganised, and in a state of gangrene. It is remarkable that the blood in the large vessels and in the cavities of the heart is semifluid, and that the veins which proceed from the inflamed parts are in a state of inflammation, and contain pus, more especially when the inflamma tion has extended from the skin to the cellular tissue and has passed into suppuration. In the cases attended with delirium and coma the membranes of the brain, and especially the arachnoid, are thickened and opaque with the effusion of serum between the membranes and into the ventricles. If the disease has been complicated with inflammation of the fauces, pharynx, cesophagus, trachea, and bronchi, these organs present the ordinary signs of inflammation; and the same is true with regard to the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestines; but in all these cases the signs of inflammation are much more closely allied to those which occur in fever than to those which are proper to pure inflammation.

There is a peculiar condition of the skin which seems to predispose to erysipelas connected with the irritable or bilious temperament, and a plethoric habit of the body. The occurrence of the disease once renders the skin peculiarly susceptible to its recurrence. Unwholesome and indigestible food, the excessive use of spirituous liquors, the sup pression of the excretions, and more especially the suppression of the perspiration, of the bile, and of the catamenial discharge, predispose to erysipelas.

The exciting causes are exposure to cold and moist air after the body has been previously heated; exposure to sudden and great alternations of temperature: exposure to great heat however produced, whether by the direct rays of the sun or by a fire; intemperance;