Gall

“ From the extreme bitterness of the secretion, “gall,” like the Lat. fel, is used for anything extremely bitter, whether actually or metaphorically. From the idea that the gall-bladder was the dominating organ of a bitter, sharp temperament, “gall” was formerly used in English for such a spirit, and also for one very ready to resent injuries. It thus survives in American slang, with the meaning “impudence” or “assurance.”
“Gall,” meaning a sore or painful swelling, especially on a horse, may be the same word, derived from an early use of the word as meaning “poison.” ”

“ Poison be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks!
Their softest touch as smart as lizards' sting!
Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,
And boding screech-owls make the concert full! ”

“ For, if it were so, perhaps the more gentle animals would either have no gall at all, or less than the wild beasts; the more timid ones would have more heart, the more lustful would have more liver, the more playful more spleen. As, therefore, we perceive that we hear with our ears, that we see with our eyes, that we smell with our nostrils; so assuredly we should perceive that we are angry with the gall, that we desire with the liver, that we rejoice with the spleen. ”

“ Then they both went on their way, until they drew near to Ecbatane. 6 Then the young man said to the angel, “Brother Azariah, of what use is the heart and the liver and the gall of the fish?” 7 And he said to him, “Concerning the heart and the liver, if a devil or an evil spirit troubles anyone, we must make a smoke of these in front of the man or the woman, and then the person will no longer be troubled. 8 As for the gall, it is used to anoint a man who has whiteness in his eyes, so he shall be healed.” ”

“ There are some authors who say that the gall exists in the horse, not in the liver, but in the paunch, and that in the stag it is situate either in the tail or the intestines; and that hence it is, that those parts are so bitter that dogs will not touch them. The gall, in fact, is nothing else but the worst parts of the blood purged off, and for this reason it is that it is so bitter: at all events, it is a well-known fact, that no animal has a liver unless it has blood as well. The liver receives the blood from the heart, to which it is united, and then disperses it in the veins. ”

“ MidHG. galle, OHG. galla, f.; common to Teut. in the same sense (only in Goth. is the weak neu. *gallô not recorded) ; comp. OSax. galla, Du. gal, AS. gealla, OIc. gall, n. Like a great number of terms relating to the body (see Fuß, Herz, Niere, Nase, Ohr) , Galle too has numerous correspondences in the cognate languages, which points to the antiquity of the Aryan term (Goth. *gallin- or *galzin-, from pre-Teut. ghal-) ; comp. Gr. χολή, χόλος, Lat. fel, fellis, n., ‘gall.’ Many etymologists connect the word with gelb (OHG. gëlo) , as if gall was named from its colour ”

“ Often the gall bears no visible resemblance to the structures out of which it is developed; commonly, however, outside the larval chamber, or gall proper, and giving to the gall its distinctive form, are to be detected certain more or less modified special organs of the plant. The gall of Cecidomyia strobilina, formed from willow-buds, is mainly a rosette of leaves the stalks of which have had their growth arrested. ”

“ The gall is well known by witch-doctors to be the seat of fierceness in all animals. Matiwamè, chief of the destroying horde of Fetcani, drank the gall of every chief he slew, with the view of increasing that very liberal endowment of ferocity which nature had given him. Moreover, the gall of snakes is supposed not alone to endow the drinker thereof with ophidian rancour and malice, but to give immunity from the effects of snake-bite. ”

“ In all these pretended demonstrations of an over-anxiety for our welfare, we may detect a great deal of spite and ill-nature lurking under the disguise of a friendly and officious zeal. It is wonderful how much love of mischief and rankling spleen lies at the bottom of the human heart, and how a constant supply of gall seems as necessary to the health and activity of the mind as of the body. ”

“ For even assuming the activity of particular organs corresponds to specific passions, we cannot say that anger, for instance, has its local position in the gall bladder, but, in so far as anger is corporeally related, the gall is pre-eminently that in which its active appearance asserts itself. ”

“ WHERE SITUATE, AND IN WHAT ANIMALS IT IS DOUBLE. ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NO GALL, AND OTHERS IN WHICH IT IS NOT SITUATE IN THE LIVER.
In the liver is the gall, which, however, does not exist in every animal. At Chalcis, in Eubœa, none of the cattle have it, while in the cattle of the Isle of Naxos, it is of extraordinary size, and double, so that to a stranger either of these facts would appear as good as a prodigy. The horse, the mule, the ass, the stag, the roe-buck, the wild boar, the camel, and the dolphin have no gall, but some kinds of rats and mice have it. ”

“ The gall is extracted, put in the magic drum, and after various incantations taken out and placed over the fire, in a pot carefully covered; if, after subjecting the gall to a certain amount of roasting, a stone is found in the bottom of the pot, it is declared to be the means by which death was produced. ”

“ The young gall is in fact a callus enclosing the living larva, and it is the continued irritation of the latter which keeps up the stimulation. The final shape and constitution of the gall depend on mutual reactions—not as yet explained in detail—between the species of plant and the species of gall-insect concerned, as may readily be seen from the extraordinary variations in size, shape, colouring, hairiness and other structural peculiarities of the galls on one species of, for instance, the common oak. ”

“ Others follow them; perhaps they [283] too are attracted by the brilliant sunshine. Then we see none at all. The festival of the light is not for them. For a week or two longer they lead a hand-to-mouth existence in the ruined gall, but their end is not far off. The withered gall starves them and old age kills them where they stand.
So far there is nothing new: my laboratory experiments have already shown me what the terebinth in the garden tells me. The window-panes and test-tubes have even taught me more than the tree: they have enabled me to realize the part played by the winged Lice. ”

“ Cotypes.—Cotype females, males, and galls in The American Museum of Natural History, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
This gall is the better-known form of the species, due apparently to its longer persistence on the tree. The gall very closely resembles that of Neuroterus batatus batatus, from specimens of which it is often difficult to distinguish this species. The more highly distinct larval cells of noxiosus is often a good basis for making the distinction. ”

“ The animal may, therefore, lose all that Gall calls surface of the brain, without losing any of his faculties. Therefore it cannot be that the organs of the faculties reside at the surface of the brain.
And comparative anatomy is not less opposite to Gall’s opinions than is direct experiment itself. I shall not follow him here in the detail of his localizations. How could these localizations have any meaning? He does not even know whether an organ is a fascicle of fibres, or a fibre. ”

“ Gall, gawl, n. a light nut-like ball which certain insects produce on the oak-tree, used in dyeing—also Gall′-nut.—v.t. to fret or hurt the skin by rubbing: to annoy: to enrage.—v.i. (Shak.) to act in a galling manner.—ns. Gall′ate, a salt of gallic acid; Gall′fly, an insect which occasions gall on plants by puncturing.—adj. Gall′ing, irritating.—adv. Gall′ingly.—Gallic acid, a crystalline substance obtained from gall-nuts, and used in making ink. ”

“ The infusion or decoction is also used as an antidote to poisoning by the alkaloids, and was formerly given as a tonic in intermittents. See Gallic Acid, Ink, &c.
GALL′STONE. Syn. Calculus biliosus, C. cysticus bovinus, L. Formed in the gall-bladder of neat cattle in winter, when they are fed upon dry food. Used as a yellow pigment, and in medicine—Dose, 1 gr.; in dyspepsia and flatulency. Man is also subject to gall-stone, the presence or passage of which is attended with the most acute pain, frequently accompanied with nausea and sickness. ”

“ The gall overflows into the vital essences, and becomes gall-fever or cholera, consequently take care you don't aggravate me.
"Moreover, the morbus in question is to be found inside this year's melons, apricots, and all sorts of fruit; so every man jack of you who doesn't want to be a dead 'un mustn't go guzzling berries and such like." [Pg 181]
Here a couple of Scythians from the northern counties began squabbling loudly on the back benches. ”

“ A Celtic or megalithic monument, more commonly called Tumulus.
Galiot, Galliot (dimin. of galère) . A ship moved by both sails and oars.
Gall (A.S. gealla) . In an animal, a bitter yellowish green fluid secreted by the gall-bladder. Ox-gall, clarified by boiling with animal charcoal and filtering, is used in water-colour and in ivory painting to make the colours spread more evenly upon the paper, ivory, &c.: mixed with gum-arabic it thickens, and fixes the colours. A coating of it sets black-lead or crayon drawings. ”

“ Only experience with each species, involving continued observation of specimens of the galls, and obtaining of such information as may be supplied by the size of the gall, the degree of development shown by the insect within the gall, etc., can supply information of the approach of the emergence date for a particular species. Most of the solid, hard, woody, or dry-shelled galls may be kept successfully for many months, but the adults of soft, spongy, or hollow, succulent galls cannot be raised if the galls are gathered more than a week or even a few days before the insects are due to emerge. ”

“ The gall of Andricus palustris palustris is one of the best-known of the galls of early spring, appearing abundantly on red oaks of many species, often before any leaves have appeared. They often crowd closely on the flowers of the oaks. When the galls first appear they are solid, with the larval cell distinct but entirely connected with the outer walls of the gall ”

“ The characters of galls are constant, and as a rule exceedingly diagnostic, even when, as in the case of ten different gall-gnats of an American willow, Salix humilis, it is difficult or impossible to tell the full-grown insects that produce them from one another. In degree of complexity of internal structure galls differ considerably. Some are monothalamous, and contain but one larva of the gall-maker, whilst others are many-celled and numerously inhabited. ”

“ Otherwise, in a few days the gall is formed, and the inheld louse, which, while eating its way into house and home, was also growing apace, begins a parthenogenetic maternity by the deposition of fertile eggs, as her immediate parent had done before. She increases in bulk with pregnancy, and one egg follows another in quick succession, until the gall is crowded. The mother dies and shrivels, and the young, as they hatch, issue and found new galls. ”

“ Lectures and Addresses of Brann.
SPEAKING OF GALL. Gall is a bitter subject, and I shall waste no time selecting sweet words in which to handle it. There's no surplus of sweet words in my vocabulary anyhow. I have never yet been able to rent my mouth for a taffy mill. Webster gives several definitions of Gall; but the good old etymologist was gathered to his fathers long before the word attained its full development and assumed an honored place in the slang vernacular of the day. It was needed. It fills what editors sometimes call a "long-felt want." ”

“ Gall′antry, bravery: intrepidity: attention or devotion to ladies, often in a bad sense, amorous intrigue: (Shak.) gallants collectively. [Fr. galant—O. Fr. gale, a merrymaking; prob. Teut.]
Galleass, gal′e-as, n. (Shak.) a vessel of the same construction as a galley, but larger and heavier.—Also Gall′iass. ”

“ Gall-stones infest more the adult, old, and sedentary; and it is alledged, more females than males. The symptoms at first are dubious, and are all to be weighed together in forming a diagnostick. In attempting to descend throughout the gall-ducts, they excite direful pain at the pit of the stomach and hepatick region, darting to the back, with restlessness, anxiety, dyspnœa, jaundice-colour of the eyes, costiveness, and commonly vomiting: the pain is aggravated by coughing or sneezing, and sometimes ascends to the right shoulder and arm; but the pulse and circulation are not accelerated. ”

“ It has long been known, and is now generally recognized, that a gall can only be produced when the tissue of a plant is interfered with during, or prior to, the actual development of the tissue. Little more than this is known. ”

“ On leaf, under side, rather large conic gall, whose distal 1⁄2-1⁄3 constitutes a very slender apical process. Through this passes the fine canal leading to the depressed, sub-globular chamber in the proximal part of the gall. The galls are either erect or more generally tilted to one side, always arising from one of the larger veins. 5-8 mm. long, 21⁄2-31⁄2 mm. wide at base. Outline of the flaring sessile base generally angular. Attenuate distal portion turning dark early. Light greenish yellow to brown when old. Smooth. Walls of chamber thick. ”