Cudgel

“ Acting under an impulse, [Pg 180] I groped around until I found the rough cudgel which I had wrenched loose from my beautiful rustic cot—perchance a foolish freak might tempt the curmudgeon to thrust his shocking head through the inviting hole I had made in his old door, and if I could manage to drop that bit of cypress with more or less emphasis upon his caput, it would be well. ”

“ These individuals are represented belabouring their unfortunate victim with cudgels considerably larger than their own bodies, which have the most revolting appearance from deformity and disease, enormous tumours being generally appended to their throats. ”

“ I believe I may as well take this opportunity of saying that real Irish cudgels must be root-growing, either oak, black-thorn, or crab-tree—although crab-tree, by the way, is apt to fly. They should not be too long—three feet and a few inches is an accommodating length. They must be naturally top-heavy, and have around the end that is to make acquaintance with the cranium three or four natural lumps, calculated to divide the flesh in the natest manner, and to leave, if possible, the smallest taste in life of pit in the skull. ”

“ Massel sitting hard by, humming happily like a kettle, or moving about the kitchen with happy bird-like noises, and producing finally a remnant of Saturday's kuggel (which is a thick brown soft pudding with many raisins and a celestial crisp crust) ! ... Until the shuffling of Reb Monash's feet overhead might be heard, and there is the last gulping of tea and swallowing of kuggel, and the lifting of a laden satchel of books, and from Philip's lips a fatuous "So long, old mother, toodle-oo!" ”

“ He took one glance and at once turned, and, avoiding the open grave, ran down the steps and across the green. “Come here, Cuddy; if I die of rheumatism I’ll take you up and show you that ghost. I’ll conjure you with every charm in the witch-book if you don’t come.” Cuddy was weak with terror, and the Doctor seized him by the collar, pulled him out of the chaise and up the steps. ”

“ The cuticular lining which gives rise to all the complicated apparatus which has just been described, must not be confounded with the proper wall of the stomach, which invests it, and to which it owes it origin, just as the cuticle of the integument is produced by the soft {61} true skin which lies beneath it. The wall of the stomach is a soft pale membrane containing variously disposed muscular fibres; and, beyond the pylorus, it is continued into the wall of the intestine. ”

“ It would seem, from the cases on record, that needles in the system rather assist in the digestion and promote longevity.
For instance, we will suppose that the hysterical girl above alluded to, with 495 needles in her stomach, should absorb the midsummer cucumber. Think how interesting those needles would make it for the great colic promoter!
We can imagine the cheerful smile of the cucumber as it enters the stomach, and, bowing cheerfully to the follicles standing around [Pg 176] , hangs its hat upon the walls of the stomach, stands its umbrella in a corner, and proceeds to get in its work. ”

“ CUPPING. The operation of cupping is one of the methods that have been adopted by surgeons to draw blood from an inflamed part in order to relieve the inflammation. The skin is washed and dried; a glass cup with a rounded edge is then firmly applied, after the air in it has been heated; the cooling of the air causes the formation of a partial vacuum, and the blood is thus drawn from the neighbouring parts to the skin under the cup. ”

“ That on the outside is a thin, white, elastic membrane, called the cuticle, or scarf skin; that on the inside is a strong membrane, denominated the cutis, or true skin; between these two is a very thin membrane, to which anatomists have given the name rete mucosum, and in which is situated the substance which gives color to the animal. The cutis is composed of fibres, which run in every direction, and, being by far the thickest layer, is the one that is converted into leather.
6. The skins of large animals, such as those of the ox and horse, are denominated hides ”

“ The cupping glass, as perhaps should be explained to the reader of the present day—since the apparatus went out of vogue in ordinary medical practise two or three generations ago—consists of a glass cup in which the air is exhausted, so as to suck blood from any part of the surface of a body to which it is applied. Hero describes a method of exhausting air by which such suction may be facilitated. But neither he nor any other philosopher of his period at all understood the real nature of this suction, notwithstanding their perfect familiarity with numerous of its phenomena. ”

“ Sometimes blood-filled cavities, as large as filberts, are found in the mucosa; each cavity enclosing one or two worms and, probably, communicating by means of a small hole with the interior of the intestine. Old extravasations are indicated by punctiform pigmentations. There may be evidence, in the shape of vesiculations and thickening of the mucosa, of a greater or lesser degree of catarrh. Occasionally, streaks or large clots of blood are found in the lumen of the bowel. ”

“ Cinch both jocosely and ruefully.
"Yes, sir, bow-legs."
"What!"
"Bow-legs, too—why not? Just as easy bow-legs as biles."
"Well, go on."
"All such things, she says, is appearances. Our souls being sick, they look through our eyes in a sorter cock-eyed way and see some [Pg 252] thing they call a bile or a pair of bow-legs. The bile and the bow-legs aint really there, you know; we only think so, which is just as bad as if they was there. If we was to go to her and get our souls well, we'd look out of our eyes straight and wouldn't see no bile or bow-legs. Neither would nobody else. ”

“ Cubebs, are hot and dry in the third degree, they expel wind, and cleanse the stomach of tough and viscous humours, they ease the pains of the spleen, and help cold diseases of the womb, they cleanse the head of flegm and strengthen the brain, they heat the stomach and provoke venery. ”

“ The extremity of the jaw bends, and forms a kind of little knob, called condyle, which fits into a cavity of the temporal bone. With us the cavity is not very deep, nor the knob very large, so that it can play very freely; and it is this which allows us that second movement from side to side, of which I spoke to you formerly, and thanks to which, our little mills reduce a mouthful of bread into paste. ”

“ Glue, Glue-pots, and Glue-brushes.—Glue, size, and gelatine are varieties of the same substance, differing only in the quantity of moisture and of impurities which they contain. Gelatine-yielding substances employed in glue manufacture include skins of all animals, tendons, intestines, bladders, bones, hoofs, and horns. Glue is manufactured by boiling the animal matter and straining the product into coolers, where it thickens into a jelly, which is cut into sheets and dried in the open air on frames of wire netting. ”

“ Figure 46 shows portions of typical glands [178] from the mucosa of the middle region of the stomach, the posterior border of the large stomach cavity; A is a longitudinal section through two ducts where they open to the surface; B is a similar section through the body of a gland below the region of the duct; C is a transsection through the bottom or fundus of a gland; all are drawn with a camera under the same magnification. ”

“ A patient will complain of a frequent desire to make water; each effort so to do, will be accompanied with excruciating pain. A small quantity, or a few drops only, will dribble away, excoriating the passage as though vinegar was passing over it, and putting on an appearance almost resembling muddy port wine, or a thick solution or suspension of brick dust: there will be present much fever and constitutional disturbance. ”

“ On opening the cavity of the abdomen all the viscera contained in it appear, in general, more vascular than natural, and invariably of a darker colour than in the state of health. Several of the organs are affected in a uniform and peculiar manner, but that which is by far the most constantly diseased is the mucous membrane of the small intestines ”

“ Glue or mucilage containing glycerine (in the proportion of one or two teaspoonfuls to an ordinary bottle of mucilage) is the best thing to use for sticking on the backs. While the slides are drying they should be either under a weight or in a clamp screwed up tightly, so as to prevent their twisting out of shape. The mucilage may be prevented from being squeezed in round the edges of the hole, by taking care when putting it on not to have it come too near the hole. ”

“ Preternatural thickening of the membrane is often of very considerable extent: deposition of matter beneath it appears to be confined to the situations of the mucous glands. These glands are found in all states and stages of disease from the least to the greatest enlargement, and from the mere abrasion of their surface to the entire ulceration of their substance. Perhaps one of the glandulæ solitariæ enlarged and covered with inflamed mucous membrane may constitute the only morbid appearance discernible in the intestine ”

“ Any one who has watched a cow or sheep lying at ease, calmly and steadily chewing the cud, has seen a picture of quiet enjoyment.
The lowest division of the stomach of a cud-chewer is called the rennet-bag, from a fluid called rennet, which it contains, which digests all the food. Rennet has the property of curdling milk, or rather of making it partly solid without rendering it sour. It is used in making cheese. This rennet, mingled with the well-masticated food of the cud-chewers, completes the process of digestion. ”

“ The floor is thrown into numerous wrinkles by ridges in the supporting gelatine resulting in increase of digestive surface. The four perradial grooves of the proboscis are continued in the perradii along the floor of the stomach as four fairly deep furrows, which lead directly to the gastric ostia and stomach pockets—structures to be described presently. These furrows are lined with crowded columnar cells, smaller and denser than the other cells of the digestive epithelium, containing no granules and but little beside the relatively large, compact, deeply staining nuclei. ”

“ Medicinal Uses. Galls are most powerfully astringent. The native practitioners of India not only administer them as astringents in dysentery, but as tonics in cases of intermittent fever. Forms of Exhibition. In that of powder; and in combination with other astringents (Form. 51,) or with aromatics and bitters. As a local remedy the gall-nut enters into gargles and injections; for blind piles, an ointment composed of 21⁄2 parts of finely powdered galls, and a small portion of opium, with three parts of simple ointment as an excipient, offers a very valuable resource. ”

“ The mucilage of carrageen, like many similar bodies, obstinately retains inorganic matter; after it had three times been dissolved in water, and as many times precipitated with alcohol, we found it still to yield the same quantity of ash as the raw drug itself, that is to say, more than 15 per cent. The mucilage, perfectly dried, is a tough horny substance, of a greyish colour; it quickly swells up in water, forming a jelly which is precipitable by neutral acetate of lead. ”

“ The bark of the Tree doth bind and dry very much, and the leaves are much of the same temperature: but the leaves when they are older, are heating and drying in the second degree, and harder of digestion than when they are fresh, which, by reason of their sweetness, are more pleasing, and better digesting in the stomach; and taken with sweet wine, they move the belly downwards, but being old, they grieve the stomach; and in hot bodies cause the choler to abound and the head-ach, and are an enemy to those that have the cough ”

“ Thus the proper wall of the stomach invests only the outer face of the gastrolith, the inner face of which is adherent to, or at any rate in close contact with, the cuticula. The gastrolith is by no means a mere concretion, but is a cuticular growth, having a definite structure. ”

“ The thin upper-skin—the epidermis—which consists only of cellular tissue, and is of no special importance for the manufacture of glue. 2. The actual leather-skin, or corium, which consists of fibres of connective tissue and forms the actual object of the tanner as well as of the glue boiler. Underneath the corium lies the under-skin, which consists only of cellular tissue contaminated with particles of flesh and fat, which are detrimental to the manufacture of glue. Fig. 1 represents a section of the animal skin. O, is the epidermis, L, the corium, U, the under-skin. ”

“ Glue.—This is made, by boiling, from horns and bones; it is essentially the same as gelatine. It is the most generally known of all adhesives, and may be modified by certain admixtures to suit almost any substance. It has the peculiarity that it must always be boiled in a balneum mariæ, or in a kettle in hot water in another kettle. Its strength is vastly increased by admixture with nitric acid or strong vinegar. On the subject of glue in all its relations, the reader may consult Die Leim- und Gelatine-Fabrikation, or “The Manufacture of Glue and Gelatine,” by F. Dawidowsky ”

“ Pure glutin or gelatin is obtained by treating buckshorn, etc., with water containing hydrochloric acid, until the phosphate of lime which serves, so to say, as a frame for the glue-yielding substance, is dissolved, and the organic tissue called collagen or ossein, remains behind. ”