known, we can tell what quantity of it we decompose without any fear of weakening the confidence which we ought to have in our results. This quantity rises at most to six decrigrammes besid s, if there was the smallest doubt as to their exactne s, we could get rid of it upon recollecting that we fill successively with gass two, and sometimes three, flasks of the same capacity; that these gasses are identical, and always proceed from one and the same weight of materials. We might add, that the exactness of any analysis consists rather in the accuracy of the instruments, and of the methods which we employ, than in the quantity of matter upon which we operate. The analysis of the air is more exact than any analysis of the salts, and yet it is performed upon 2 or 300 times less matter than the latter. This is because in the former, where we judge of weights by volumes which are very considerable, the errors which we may commit are perhaps 1000 or 1200 times less perceptible than in the latter, where we are deprived of this resource. Now as we transform into gass the substances which we analyse, we bring our analyses not only to the certainty of the common mineral analyses, but to that of the most precise mineral analyses; more particularly as we collect at least a litre of gass, and as we find even in our way of proceeding the proof of an extreme exactitude and of the most trifling errors. We have already methodically analysed, with all the precautions just mentioned, sixteen vegetable substances; viz. the oxalic, tartarous, mucous, citric and acetic acids; turpentine in resin; copal, wax, olive oil; sugar, gum, starch, sugar of milk, oak and ash wood, and the crystallisable principle of manna. The results which we obtained seem to us to be of the first rate importance, for they led to three very remarkable laws to which the composition of vegetables is subjected, and which may be thus expressed: First law. A vegetable substance is always acid when the oxygen is to the hydrogen in a greater proportion than in water. Second lure. A vegetable substance is always resinous, oily, or alcoholic, &c. when the oxygen is in a less proportion to the hydrogen than in water. Third law. Lastly, a vegetable substance is neither acid nor resinous, and is analogous to su gar, gum, starch, sugar of milk, to the ligneous fibre, to the crystallisable principle of manna when the oxygen is in the same proportion as in water. Thus, supposing for a moment that hydrogen and oxygen were in the state of water in vegetable. substances, which we are far from thinking is the case, the vegetable acids would be formed of carbon, water, and oxygen in various proportions. The resins, the fixed and volatile oils, alcohol, and ether, would be formed of carbon, water and hydrogen, also in various proportions. Lastly, sugar, gum, starch, sugar of milk, the ligneous fibre, the crystallisable principle of manna, would only be formed of carbon and water, and would only differ in the greater or less quantities which they contained. This may be shown by citing various analyses of acid and resinous substances, and of substances which are neither acid nor resinous. The oxalic acid contain, therefore, more than half its weight of oxygen in excess, in proportion to the hydrogen, whereas in the acetic acid this excess is not quite three centiemes. These two acids occupy the extremes of the series of the vegetable acids: of all the acids the one is the most, and the other is on the contrary the least oxygenated: this is the reason why it requires so much nitric acid to convert sugar and rum, &c. into oxalic acid; and this is the reason, on the contrary, that so many vegetable and animal substances produce so easily acetic acid in a great many circumstances, and that wine in particular is changed into vinegar without any intermediate acid being formed; a phænomenon which had not been hitherto explained, because vinegar has been regarded as the most highly oxygenated of all the acids. One hundred parts of common resin contain: Carbon 75.944 .... Hydrogen and oxygen in the proportions in which they exist in water ...... 15.156 Hydrogen in excess.. 8.900 Carbon 51.192 .......... One hundred parts of oxalic acid contain: Carbon ........ Oxygen Hydrogen 51.192 48.808 100 These results prove a very important fact, viz. that water per se or its principles are seized upon by the vegetable in the act of vegetation: for, all the vegetables being almost entirely formed of ligneous fibres and mucilage, which contain oxygen and hydrogen in the same proportions as water, it is evident that when carried into the substance of the vegetable, it is then combined with carbon in order to form them. If, therefore, it were in our power to unite these two bodies in every given proportion, and to bring their molecules together in a proper manner, we should certainly make all the vegetables which hold the middle rank between the acids and the resins, such as sugar, starch, the ligneous fibres, &c. Among the animal substances we have only as yet analysed fibrin, albumen, gelatin, and the caseous substance. It results from our analyses, that in these four substances, and probably in all analogous animal substances, the hydrogen is in a greater proportion to the oxygen than in water; that the greater the excess of hydrogen, the greater is the quantity of azot which they contain also; that these two quantities are almost both in the same proportion as in ammonia, and that it is probable that this proportion, which we nearly approach, does actually exist: the more, probably, because we always find a little too much hydrogen, and as all the errors which we can make tend to increase the quantity of it. We shall judge of this by the two following analyses. One hundred parts of fibrin contain: Carbon Hydrogen in excess .... Azot 26.607 5.387 16.331 ration. If we are guided by analogy, we might compare under this point of view the autumnal acids with the vegetable acids, and the animal fats (if there are any which contain azote) with the resins and vegetable oils: consequently, the hydrogen could not be in a sufficient quantity in the uric acid, for saturating the oxygen and azot which this acid contains, or to form water and ammonia by combining with these two bodies, and the contrary NUTRITIOUS. a. (from nutria, Latin.) Nux BARBADENSIS. See RICINUS NUX BEEN. NUX METELLE. See NUX VOMICA. NUX MOSCHATA. (nux, nucis.) Nucista. Nux myristica. The nutmeg. The seed or kernel of the myristica moschata. Myristica foliis lanceolatis, fructu glabro. Thumb. Class dioecia. Order syngenesia. A spice well known, and which has been long used both for culinary and medical purposes. There are three kinds of unctuous substances, called oil of mace, nutmeg. The best is brought from the East that are really expressed from the Indies in stone jars; this is of a thick consistence, of the colour of mace, and has an agreeable fragrant smell; the second sort, which is paler coloured, and much inferior in quality, comes from Holland in solid masses, generally flat, and of a square figure; the third, which is the worst of all, and usually called common oil of mace, is an artificial composition of suet, palm oil, and the like, flavoured with a little genuine oil of nutmeg. The medicinal quali ties of the nutmeg are supposed to be aroma tic, anodyne, stomachic, and astringent; and hence it has been much used in diarrhoea and dysenteries. The officinal preparations of nutmeg are a spirit and an essential oil, and the 18.778 nutmeg in substance, roasted, to render it more 5-680 astringent: both the spice itself and the es18-352 sential oil enter several compositions, as the confectio aromatica, spiritus animoniæ compositus, &c. See MYRISTICA and OIL. 100 One hundred parts of caseous matter contain: Carbon Hydrogen and oxygen in the proportion in which they exist in water Hydrogen in excess 57.190 100 Admitting this report to be correct, these substances would correspond, with respect to the rank which they ought to hold among the animal substances, to the rank occupied by sugar, gum, ligne ous fibre, &c. among the vegetable substances: for in the same way as hydrogen and oxygen, the gase ous principles of the former may be reciprocally saturated and form water; in the same way hydrogen, oxygen, and azot, the gaseous principles of the latter may be also reciprocally saturated and form water and ammonia: so that the carbon, which is the only fixed principle which all of them contain, does not possess any property relative to that satu NUX VOMICA. Nux metella. The nux vomica, lignum colubrinum, and faba sancti Ignatii, have been long known in the materia medica as narcotic poisons, brought from the duced them were unknown, or at least not East Indies, while the vegetables which probotanically ascertained. By the judicious discrimination of Linnéus the nux vomica was found to be the fruit of the tree described and figured in the Hortus Malabaricns under the name of caniram, now called strychnos. To this genus also, but upon evidence less conclusive, he likewise justly referred the colubrinum. But the faba sancti Ignatii he merely conjectured might belong to this family, as appears by the query, an strychni species? which subsequent discoveries have enabled us to decide in the negative; for in the Supp. Plant. it constitutes the new genus Ignatia, which Loureiro has lately confirmed, changing the specific name amara to that of philippinica. The strychnos and Ignatia are however nearly allied, and both rank under the order sola naceæ. Dr. Woodville has inquired thus far into the botanical origin of these productions, from finding that by medical writers they are generally treated of under the same head, and in a very confused and indiscriminate manner. The seed of the fruit or berry of this tree, strychnos nux vomica, is the officinal nux vomica; it is flat, round, about an inch broad, and near a quarter of an inch thick, with a prominence in the middle on both sides, of a grey colour, covered with a kind of woolly matter; and internally hard and tough like horn. To the taste it is extremely bitter, but has no remarkable smell. It consists chiefly of a gummy matter, which is moderately bitter: the resinous part is very inconsiderable in quantity, but intensely bitter; hence rectified spirit has been considered its best menstruum. Nux vomica is reckoned amongst the most powerful poisons of the narcotic kind, especially to brute animals; nor are instances wanting of its deleterious effects upon the human species. It proves fatal to dogs in a very short time, as appears by various authorities. Hillefeld and others found that it also poisoned hares, foxes, wolves, cats, rabbits, and even some birds, as crows and ducks; and Loureiro relates, that a horse died in four hours after taking a dram of the seed in an half roasted state. The effects of this baneful drug upon different animals, and even upon those of the same species, appear to be rather uncertain, and not always in proportion to the quantity of the poison given. With some animals it produces its effects almost instantaneously; with others not till after several hours, when laborious respiration, followed by torpor, tremblings, coma, and convulsions, usually precede the fatal spasms or tetanus, with which this drug commonly extinguishes life. From four cases related of its mortal effects upon human subjects, we find the symptoms corresponded nearly with those which we have here mentioned of brutes; and these, as well the dissections of dogs killed by this poison, not showing any injury done to the stomach or intestines, prove that the nux vomica acts immediately upon the nervous system, and destroys life by the virulence of its narcotic influence. The quantity of the seed necessary to produce this effect upon a strong dog, as appears by experiments, need not be more than a scruple; a rabbit has been killed by five, and a : cat by four grains and of the four persons to whom we have alluded, and who unfortunately perished by this deleterious drug, one was a girl ten years of age, to whom fifteen grains were exhibited at twice for the cure of an ague. Loss, however, tells us, that he took one or two grains of it in substance without discovering any bad effect; and that a friend of his swallowed a whole seed without injury. In Britain, where physicians seem to observe the rule saltem non nocere more strictly than in many other countries, the nux vomica has been rarely if ever employed as a medicine. On the continent, however, and especially in Germany, they have certainly been guided more by the axiom, "What is incapable of doing much harm is equally unable to do much good." The truth of this remark was lately very fully exemplified by the practice of baron Stoerck, and is farther illustrated by the medicinal character given of nux vomica, which, from the time of Gesner till that of a modern date, has been recommended by a succession of authors as an antidote to the plague, as a febrifuge, as a vermifuge, and as a remedy in mania, hypochondriasis, hysteria, rheumatism, gout, and canine madness. In Sweden it has of late years been successfully used in dysentery; but Bergius, who tried its effects in this disease, says, that it suppressed the flux for twelve hours, which afterwards returned again. A woman who took a scruple of this drug night and morning two successive days is said to have been seized with convulsions and vertigo, notwithstanding which the dysenteric symptoms returned, and the disorder was cured by other medicines; but a pain in the stomach, the effect of the nux vomica, continued afterwards for a long time. Bergius, therefore, thinks it should only be administered in the character of a tonic and anodyne in small doses (from five to ten grains), and not till after proper laxatives have been employed. Loureiro recommends it as a valuable internal medicine in fluor albus; for which purpose he roasts it till it becomes perfectly black and friable, which renders its medicinal use safe without impairing its efficacy. NUYS, a town of Germany, in the electorate of Cologne. It was taken by the French in 1794; and is seated on the Erfft, five miles S. W. of Dusseldorf, and 20 N.W. of Cologne. Lon. 6. 52 E. Lat. 51. 11 N. To NUZZLE. v.a. (corrupted from nursle.) 1. To nurse; to foster (Sidney). 2. To go with the nose down like a hog (Arbuth.). NYCTALOPIA. (nyctalopia, VUXTakuzia, from vug, the night, and w, an eye). A defect in vision, by which the patient sees little or nothing in the day, but in the evening and night sees tolerably well. The proximate cause is various: 1. Nyctalopia from a periodical amaurosis, or gutta serena, when the blind paroxysm begins in the morning, and terminates in the evening. 2. Nyctalopia from too great a sensibility of the retina, which cannot bear the meridian light. 3. Nyctalopia from an opaque spot in the middle of the crystalline lens. When the light of the sun in the meridian contracts the pupil there is blindness; about evening, or in more obscure places, the pupil dilates, hence the rays of light pass through the limbus of the crystalline lens. 4. Nyctalopia, from a disuse of light; thus persons who are educated in obscure prisons see nothing immediately in open meridian light; but by degrees their eyes are accustomed to distinguish objects in day-light. 5. Nyctalopia from an immoveable mydriasis; for in this instance the pupil admits too great a quantity of light, which the immobile pupil cannot moderate, hence the patient, in a strong light, sees little or nothing. 6. Nyctalopia from too great a contraction of the pupil. This admits a sufficiency of lucid rays in bright light, but towards night the pupil dilates more, and the patient sees better. 7. Nyctalopia endemica. A whole people have been nyctalops, as the Ethiopians, Africans, Americans, and Asiatics. A great flow of tears are excreted all the day from their eyes; at night they see objects. 8. Nyctalopia from a commotion of the eye; from which a man in the night saw all objects distinctly. NYCTANTHES. Arabian jasmine. In botany, a genus of the class diandria, order monogynia. Corol salver-shaped, with truncate segments; capsule two-celled, margined. One species only: an Indian shrub, with rugged branches; square stem; leaves opposite, ovate, pointed, entire; corol from six to eight cleft; pericarps membranceous, compressed; seeds fastened to the bottom of the cell. It is a highly ornamental and fragrant plant, and may be increased by layers or cuttings. The flowers are said to open instinctively in the evening and fall off the ensuing day: but this is an error. The natives of Ceylon infuse it in water, and obtain a fragrant and cordial drink; which is also reported to be useful in inflammations of the eyes applied topically. The tube of the flower when dried has the smell of saffron; and being pounded and mixed with sanders wood is used by the natives of the Malabar coast for imparting a grateful fragrancy to their bodies, which they rub or anoint with the mixture. NYCTASTRATEGI, among the ancients, were officers appointed to prevent fires in the night, or give alarm and call assistance when a fire broke out. NYCTEUS. The most remarkable of this name is, a son of Neptune by Celene, daughter of Atlas, king of Lesbos, or of Thebes, according to the more received opinion. He married a nymph of Crete, called Polyxo or Amalthæ, by whom he had two daughters, Nyctimene and Antiope. The first of these disgraced herself by her criminal amours with her father, into whose bed she introduced her self by means of her nurse. When the father knew the incest he had committed, he attempt ed to stab his daughter, who was immediately changed by Minerva into an owl. Nyctens made war against Epopeus, who had carried away Antiope, and died of a wound which he had received in an engagement See ANTIOPE. NYCTICORAX, night-raven. See AR DEA. NYCTOBASIS. (from veg, the night, and NYMPH, in mythology, an appellatire given to certain inferior goddesses, inhabiting the mountains, woods, waters, &c. said to be the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. All the universe was represented as full of these nymphs, who are distinguished into several ranks or classes. The general division of them is in celestial and terrestrial; the former of which were called uraniæ, and were supposed to be intelligences that governed the heavenly bodes or spheres. The terrestrial nymphs, caled epigeiæ, presided over several parts of the infe rior world; and were divided into those of the water, and those of earth. The nymphs of the water were the oceanitides, or nymphs of the ocean; the nereids, the nymphs of the sea; the naiads and ephydriades, the nymphs of the fountains; and the limniades, the nymphs of the lakes. The nymphs of the earth were the oreades, or nymphs of the mountains; the na pœæ, nymphs of the meadows; and the dryads and hamadryads, who were nymphs of the forests and groves. Besides these, we meet with nymphs who took their names from particular countries, rivers, &c. as the Citharoniades, called from mount Citharon in Boeotia; the Dodonides, from Dodona; Tiberiades, from the Tiber, &c.-Goats were sometimes sacri ficed to the nymphs; but their constant offer ings were milk, oil, honey, and wine. They were supposed to enjoy longevity, bet not to be immortal. They were believed to de light in springs and fountains. They are de scribed as sleepless, and as dreaded by the coun try people. They were susceptible of passive. The Argonants, it is related, landing on the shore of the Propontis to dine in their way to Colchos, sent Hylas, a boy, for water, who discovered a lonely fountain, in which nymphs Eunica, Malis, and Nycheia were preparing to dance; and these seeing him were enamoured, and, seizing him by the hand as he was filling his vase, pulled him in. The deities, their copartners in the cave, are such as presided with them over rural and pastoral affairs. NYMPH, among the naturalists, that state of winged-insects between their living in the form of a worm and their appearing in the winged or most perfect state. The eggs of insects are first hatched into a kind of worms or maggots; which afterwards pass into the nymph state, surrounded with shells or cases of theirown skins: so that, in reality, these nymphs are only the embryo wrapped up in this covering; from whence they at last get loose, though not with out great difficulty. During this nymph-state the creature loses its motion. Swammerdam calls it nympha aurelia, or simply aurelia; and others |