not easy to contrive any method by which a question could be asked her, and an answer received. This, however, was at last effected, by talking with the fingers, at which she was uncommonly ready. But those who conversed with her in this manner, were obliged to express themselves by touching her hand and fingers, instead of their own. A lady who was nearly related to her, having an apron on, that was embroidered with silk of different colors, asked her, in the manner which has been described, if she could tell what color it was? and after applying her fingers attentively to the figures of the embroidery, she replied, that it was red, and blue, and green; which was true. The same lady having a pink colored ribbon on her head, and being willing still further to satisfy her curiosity and her doubts, asked what color that was? Her cousin, after feeling some time, answered that it was pink color: this answer was yet more astonishing, because it showed not only a power of distinguishing different colors, but different kinds of the same color; the ribbon was not only discovered to be red, but the red was discovered to be of the pale kind called a pink. This unhappy lady, conscious of her own uncommon infirmities, was extremely unwilling to be seen by strangers, and therefore generally retired to her chamber, where none but those of the family were likely to come. The same relation, who had by the experiment of the apron and ribbon discovered the exquisite sensibility of her touch, was soon after convinced by an accident, that her power of smelling was acute and refined in the same highly astonishing degree. Being one day visiting the family, she went up to her cousin's chamber, and after making herself known, she entreated her to go down, and sit with her among the rest of the family, assuring ner that there was no other person present; to this she at length consented, and went down to the parlour door; but the moment the door was opened, she turned back, and retired to her own chamber much displeased; alleging that there were strangers in the room, and that an attempt had been made to deceive her; it happened in deed that there were strangers in the room; but they had come in while the lady was above stairs, so that she did not know that they were there. When she had satisfied her cousin of this particular, she was pacified; and being afterwards asked how she knew there were strangers in the room, she answered, by the smell.' Her friends she generally distinguished by feeling their hands. A lady, with whom she was very well acquainted, coming in one very hot day, after having walked a mile, presented her hand as usual; she felt it longer than ordinary, and seemed to doubt whose it was; but after spanning the wrist, and measuring the fingers, she said, 'It is Mrs. M., but she is warmer to-day than ever I felt her before.' To amuse herself in the mournful and perpetual solitude and darkness to which her disorder had reduced her, she used to work much at her needle; and her work was uncommonly neat and exact. She used also sometimes to write; the characters were very pretty, the lines all even, and the letters placed at equal distances from cach other; but the most astonishing particular VOL. IV

of all, with respect to her writing, is, that she could by some means discover when a letter had by mistake been omitted, and would place it over that part of the word where it should have been inserted, with a caret under it. It being doubted whether she had not some faint remains both of hearing and sight, many experiments were made to ascertain the fact; some of which, when she accidentally discovered them, gave her prodigious uneasiness, on account of her being suspected of insincerity. At length Sir Hans Sloane, after being permitted to satisfy himself by such experiments and observations as he thought proper, pronounced that she was absolutely blind and deaf.

Institutions for the reception and instruction of the blind have long been the honor of London, Liverpool, and Paris. Dr. Guillié has published some modern improvements on the conduct of the latter, with extracts from which, we shall close this article. The discovery (says he) of printing books in relief, is one of the most important for the instruction of the blind. It is by the assistance of these books, which have no other inconvenience than that of being bulky, that they are taught the elements of languages, and fix in their minds the beautiful passages of history and morality which they have learnt; for they know much better what they have read, than what they have heard, and we therefore augment as far as our means will admit the library of the blind with works which we think fitted for their instruction. They have already two catechisms, the office for morning and evening, French, Latin, Greek, English, and Italian grammars. One would hardly believe with what rapidity they read in these books, if we did not see it at the public exercises. The use of a thicker ink, or one which would dry and be felt on the paper, has been tried it seems here and failed. By means of these books the blind are even said to teach young people who can see to read, and these in return then become their preceptors in many useful acquirements.

Writing is taught by means of a wide thick board, having a fixed bottom. Upwards there is a parallelogram opening with hinges on the left side, and kept shut on the right by two small copper bolts. An improvement has been lately made, by substituting instead of a wooden bottom a thick silk which receives and retains the traces of the letters from the stilet or pencil; this affords the blind man the advantage of reading what he has written. Mr. Heilman, a blind man, who proposed this improvement, has also contrived a portative portfolio for the blind, by means of which they may write, and read directly with the greatest ease what they have written. This frame is furnished with several movable rods of iron. Below its two great ascending pannels, there is on each side a broad steel spring, stretching from one extremity to the other, fixed at one end by two English screws, and at the other only stopped at pleasure by a turning bolt. It is between these springs and the lower part of the sides of the frame that the paper is placed, which remains immovable under the rods. The mathematics are taught on an improvement of Saunderson's method, by rejecting the symbols

that have merely an arbitrary value. The letters and cyphers which we make use of at present, (says Dr. G.) are in no respect different from the common ones. These cyphers are mounted on a transversal chevron, the fractions are mounted in the same manner, but the upper part of the chevron is hollowed in a square form to receive a movable cylinder in the form of a wedge, by means of which the numerator and denominator are indicated, and then the necessary changes. Strings that may be placed horizontally or vertically, serve to indicate the divisions of the

numbers.'

'People (he continues) are astonished to see our pupils go through a course of optics as well as those who see, and they admire their sagacity in speaking of dioptrics and catoptrics. As we do not wish to enjoy an admiration that is unmerited, we must declare that what makes the demonstration of all the phenomena of optics easy to them, is that they reduce every thing to lines. They perceive only palpable points where we see colored prints; for they have not, nor can they have any idea of colors.' Yet the following anecdote approaches to some idea. One of the pupils at the institution, translating at a public exercise the first strophe of the second ode of the first book of Horace, was stopped at these words, et rubente dexterà, &c. by the examiner, who asked him the proper translation of the words rubente dexterà: the young man translated it, his flaming right hand. Being pressed again to translate literally the epithet rubente, he gave the equivalent red. Being asked again what he understood by a red arm, he answered that he did not think, like Locke's blind man, that the color red was like the sound of a trumpet; nevertheless he could form no proper idea of it, but that he had at first translated rubente, flaming, because he had been told that fire is red, whence he had concluded, that heat is always accompanied by redness, which determined him to mark the anger of Jupiter by the epithet flaming, because when one is irritated one is hot, and when one is hot, one must be red.' At an early period of the Paris institution, the pupils of the deaf and dumb school were mixed with them at the same convent, and various successful and unsuccessful attempts were made by each of these interesting groups of children, to communicate with the others. At first when the blind had learnt that the deaf and dumb spoke to each other in the dark, by writing on the back, they conceived that this method might succeed also with them. This new language soon became common to the two families; the deaf and dumb, who found it tiresome to have written on their back what they could see perfectly well, attempted to make the blind write in the air, as they do themselves; this means, which was as long as the former, appeared more uncertain, as the blind wrote ill in that way; they therefore preferred the characters the latter made use of; but as these characters cannot be easily transported, the dumb taught the blind their manual alphabet, and the one by sight and the other by touch, easily found by the inspection of their fingers, the letters that are formed by their different combinations. Nevertheless this

manual alphabet only exhibiting words, slackened conversation amazingly. They felt the want of a more rapid communication, and the blind learnt the theory of the signs of the deaf and dumb: each sign thus representing a thought, the communication was complete. This study was long and tedious, because it supposes a pretty complete knowledge of grammar: but the wish to talk got the better of all these difficulties, and in a few months, the signs being perfectly well known, took place of all the other means till then employed. The exchange between them was performed in the following manner. When the blind had to speak to the deaf and dumb, he made the representative signs of his ideas, and these signs more or less exactly made, transmitted to the deaf and dumb the idea of the blind. When the deaf and dumb in his turn wished to make himself understood, he did it in two ways; he stood with his arms stretched out and motionless before the blind person, who took hold of him a little above the wrists, and without squeezing them, followed all the motions they made; or if it happened that the signs were not understood, the blind man put himself in the place of the deaf and dumb, who then took hold of his arms in the same manner, and moving them about as he would have done his own before a person who could see, he filled up the deficiencies of the first operation, and thus completed the series of ideas which he wished to communicate to his companion. the degree of instruction of the scholars not being the same, they could not make use of the signs equally well." In fact it sometimes became a mournful failure altogether. See DEAF and DUMB. And for the first effects of sight on those who have been couched, See COUCHING.

But

BLINDNESS, in farriery, a disease incident to horses, especially those of an iron-gray, or dapplegray color, when ridden too hard, or backed too young. It may be discovered by the walk, which in a blind horse is always unequal, because he dares not set down his feet boldly when led; though if the same horse be mounted by an expert horseman, and if himself be mettled, the fear of the spur will make him go more freely; so that his blindness can hardly be perceived. Another mark of loss of sight is, that upon hearing any body enter the stable, he will prick up his ears, and move them backwards and forwards, being in continual alarm by the least noise. Dr. Lower first showed the ordinary cause of blindness in horses, which is a spongy excrescence, growing in one, sometimes in two, or three places of the uvea, which being at length overgrown, covers the pupil when the horse is brought into the light, though in a dark stable, it dilates again. Horses that lose their sight at certain periods of the moon, are said to be moon-blind.

BLIND RAMPART, cæcum vallum, among the ancients, was that beset with sharp stakes, concealed by grass or leaves growing over them. BLIND WORM, n. s. Cæcilia; from blind and worm. A small viper, called likewise a slow worm; believed not to be venomous.

The greater slow worm, called also the blind worm, is commonly thought to be blind, because of the littleness of his eyes.

Grew.

You spotted snakes, with double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; Newts and blindworms, do no wrong; Come not near our fairy queen.

BLINK', u. & n. BLINK'ERS,

BLINK'ING,

BLINK'ARD,

BLINK'EYED.

Shakspeare. See To BLANCH, and To BLENCH. To blink, is to give the eye the twinkling motion or apparent action of a star; to twinkle; to wink; to look with the eye partially closed; and as this is frequently done to avoid, evade, escape, elude, shun, or shrink from any sudden action upon the eye; to blench or to blink is consequently to avoid, or cause to avoid; to evade; to escape; to elude; to shun, shrink, or start from.-Ency. Met. art. BLINK. It also is used to mean seeing obscurely; and for the winking which indicates any thing rather than evasion, or a desire to avoid.

The swete visage, and amorous blenking Of fair Creside, sometime his oun darling.

BLISTER v. & n. Dutch bluyster; perhaps blæst, from Ang.-Sax. blæstan. To blow, to puff up as a pustule, or blain. A pustule formed by raising the cuticle from the cutis and filled with serous blood. This is sometimes the effect of disease, of accident, and of design.

In this state she gallops, night by night,
O'er ladies' lips, who strait on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Shakspeare.

Look, here comes one, a gentlewoman of mine,
Who falling in the flaws of her own youth,
Hath blistered her report.

Id.

Such an act

Marvell.

Upon the other were a spy;

That, to trepan the one to think

The other blind, both strove to blink.

Hudibras.

Pope.

Upon the leaves there riseth a tumour like a blister. Bacon.

His figure such as might his soul proclaim; One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame.

This floor let not the vulgar tread,
Who worship only what they dread,
Nor bigots who but one way see,
Through blinkers of authority.

Green. The Grotto. BLINKS, among ancient sportsmen, denoted boughs broken down from trees, and thrown in the way where deer were likely to pass, to hinder their running, or rather to mark which way the deer ran, in order to guide the hunter. BLINKS, in botany. See MONTIA. BLISS', BLISS'FUL, BLISS FULLY,

Sax. blirre, from bliðasian, to rejoice. The highest degree of happiness; blessedBLISS FULNESS, >ness; felicity; generally used of the happiness of blessed souls. See To BLESS.

BLISS'LESS, BLISS'EDNESS,

BLISS EDLY.

Ther-as a wedded man in his estat,

Liveth a lif blisful and ordinat,

Under the yoke of mariage ybond:

Wel may his herte in joye and blisse abound.

Chaucer. Canterbury Tales.

I found a great blister drawn by the garlick, but had it cut, which run a good deal of water, but filled again by next night. Temple I blistered the legs and thighs; but was too late : he died howling. Wiseman.

Dryden.

Embrace thy knees with loathing hands, Which blister when they touch thee. Blistering, cupping, bleeding, are seldom of use but to the idle and intemperate; as all those inward applications, which are so much in practice among us, are, for the most part, nothing else but expedients to make luxury consistent with health. Spectator.

BLISTER, in surgery and medicine, vesicatorium; epispasticum. 1. The name of a topical application, eplastrum vesicatorium, which when put on the skin raises the cuticle in the form of a vesicle, filled with serous fluid. Various substances produce this effect; but the powder of the cantharis, or blistering fly, is what operates with most certainty and expedition, and is now invariably used. It is an established principle, that where morbid action exists, it may often be removed from the system by inducing an action

of a different kind in the same or a neighbouring part. On this principle is explained the utility of blisters in local inflammation and spasmodic action, and it regulates their application in pneumonia, gastritis, hepatitis, phrenitis, angina, rheumatism, cholic, and spasmodic affections of the stomach; diseases in which they are employed with the most marked advantage. A similar principle exists with respect to pain; exciting one pain often relieves another. Hence blisters give relief in tooth-ache, and some other painful. affections. Lastly, blisters, by their operation, communicate a stimulus to the whole system, and raise the vigor of the circulation. Hence, in part, their utility in fevers, of the typhoid kind, though in such cases they are used with still more advantage to obviate or remove local inflammation.

Practitioners used formerly to mix powder of cantharides with an ointment, and dress the part with this composition. But such a dressing not unfrequently occasioned very painful affections of the bladder, a scalding sensation in making of water, and very afflicting stranguries. The treatment of such complaints consists in removing every particle of the fly from the blistered part, making the patient drink abundantly of mucilaginous drinks, giving emulsions and some doses of camphor. These objections to the employment of salves containing the lytta, for dressing blistered surfaces, led to the use of mezereon, euphorbium, and other irritating substances, which, when incorporated with ointment, form very proper compositions for keeping blisters open, which they do without the inconvenience of irritating the bladder, like the blistering fly. The favorite application, however, for keeping open blisters, is the savine cerate. On the use of the savine cerate, immediately after the cuticle raised by the blister is removed, it should be observed that experience has proved the advantage of using the application lowered by a half or two thirds of the unguentum ceræ. An atten tion to this direction will produce less irritation and more discharge, than if the savine cerate were used in its full strength. Fomenting the part with flannel, wrung out of warm water, has been found a more easy and preferable way of keeping the blistered surface clean, and fit for the impression of the ointment, than scraping the part, as has been directed by others.

An occa

sional dressing of unguentum reṣinæ flavæ, is a very useful application for rendering the sore free from an appearance of slough, or rather dense lymph, which has sometimes been so firm in its texture as to be separated by the probe, with as much readiness as the cuticle is detached after blistering. As the discharge diminishes, the strength of the savine dressing should be proportionably increased. The ceratum sabinæ must be used in a stronger or weaker degree, in proportion to the excitement produced on the patient's skin.

BLITE, in botany. See BLITUM.
BLITH. See ВLYн.
BLITHE,

BLITH'LY, BLITH'SOME, BLITH'NESS.

Belithe, belithesome, belissom, or blithe, blithesome, blissom. See BLEST. Gay; sprightly; cheerful; lively; lively; joyous;

freshness of spirits; the high pulsation of corporeal and mental health, not often possessed, especially by compilers of dictionaries.

Would'st ser blithe looks, fresh cheeks, beguile
Age? would'st see December smile? Crashoms.

We have always one eye fixed upon the countenance of our enemies; and, according to the blithe or heavy aspect thereof, our other eye sheweth some other suitable token either of dislike or approbation. Hooker.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny.

1

Shakspeare

The blithsome year: trees of their shrivelled fruits
Are widowed.
Philips.
Should he return, that troop, so blithe and bold,

Precipitant in fear, would wing their flight. Pope. BLITUM, the Blite: a genus of the digynia order, monandria class of plants; natural order, twelfth, holoraceæ: CAL. trifid; no petal; SEED single, included in a berry-shaped calyx. There are three species, viz. 1. B. capitatum, with flowers in clustered heads at the joints and crown of the stalks, a native of Spain and Portugal, but has been long preserved in the British gardens, for the beauty of its fruit. 2. B. Tartaricum with triangular acutely indented leaves, a native of Tartary. 3. B. virgatum, with small heads growing from the sides of the stalks, a native of the south of France and Italy. It seldom grows more than a foot high; the leaves of the same shape with those of the capitatum, but smaller. BLOAT, v. & adj. See BLOW. To swell with Probably from blow.

BLOAT EDNESS.

wind; to grow turgid; to be swollen with intemperance; turgidity. The bloat king.

Shakspeare. Hamlet.

His rude essays Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise, That he may get more bulk before he dies. Dryden. I cannot but be troubled to see so many well-shaped innocent virgins bloated up, and waddling up and down like big-bellied women. Addison.

If a person of a firm constitution begins to bloat, from being warm grows cold, his fibres grow weak. Arbuthnot.

་

Lassitude, laziness, bloatedness, and scorbutical spots, are symptoms of weak fibres. Id.

Fast by her side a listless maiden pined With aching head and squeamish heartburnings; Pale, bloated, cold, she seemed to hate mankind, Yet loved in secret all forbidden things. Thomson. BLOATED FISH, or BLOATED HERRINGS, in our statutes, are those which are half dried. Stat. 18 Car. II. c. 2. They are made by steeping them in a peculiar brine, and then hanging them in a chimney to dry.

See

BLOATING, in medicine, a puffing up of the exterior habit of the body, lodged chiefly in the adipose cells. It is styled by physicians emphysema.

sel.

BLOB'LIPPED, adj.

Carew. From blob, or blobber

They make a wit of their insipid friend, His blobberlips and beetlebrows commend. Dryden. Having swelled or BLOB BERLIPPED, thick lips. blobberlipped shell, seemeth to be a kind of musGrew.

His person deformed to the highest degree; flatnosed, and blobberlipped. L'Estrange.

BLOCH (George Castaneus), bishop of Ripen, in Denmark, was born in 1717, and died in 1773. He published Tentamen Phoenicologices Sacra, &c. 8vo. Hafn. 1767.

BLOCH (Mark Eliezer), a Jew, and a naturalist of Anspach, was born in 1723, and died in 1799. He was the author of Ichthyologie oder Naturgeschichte der Fische, 12 vols. 4to. Berlin. 1785; besides a Treatise on the Generation of Worms in the Intestines, and another on the Waters of Pyrmont, &c.

From the Ang.-Sax.

BLOCK', v. & n. BLOCK'ADE, v. & n. | lycan, belican; to shut; BLOCK HEAD, to close; to shut up; to BLOCKHEAD'ED, lock; quoted by the Ency. BLOCK'HEADLY, Met. from Somner. A BLOCK HEADISM, -block is a piece of timBLOCK HOUSE, ber, or other substance, BLOCK'ISH, capable of being placed BLOCK'ISHLY, any where; to close up BLOCK'ISHNESS, an avenue, or to obstruct BLOCK LIKE. ingress, either to include or exclude. It also is applied to any mass of matter, which in a rude or artificial shape may be used for various manual purposes, and employed in mechanics and naval architecture. Blockhead is metaphorically used to designate a lumpish, stupid, heavy, dull-witted animal of the human species. In this application it would be more correct to drop the head as superfluous, and to convert the adjective into the substantive.

with blade all burning bright

He smott off his left arme, which like a block
Did fall to ground, deprived of native might.
Spenser.

The country is a desert, where the good
Gained inhabits not; born 's not understood;
There men become beasts, and prone to all evils;
In cities blocks.
Donne.

What tongueless blocks were they, would they not speak? Shakspeare. Richard III. Rochester water reacheth far within the land, and is under the protection of some block-houses.

Raleigh. Can he ever dream, that the suffering for righteousness' sake is our felicity, when he sees us run so from it, that no crime is block enough in our way to stop our flight? Decay of Piety. Recommend it to the governor of Abingdon, to send some troops to block it up, from infesting the great road. Clarendon. The states about them should neither by increase of dominion, nor by blocking of trade, have in it their power to hurt or annoy.

Id.

Round the goddess roll

Id.

Pope.

Broad hats and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal; Thick, and more thick, the black blockade extends. Id. The enemy was necessitated wholly to abandon the blockade of Olivenza. Tatler. Homer's apotheosis consists of a groupe of figures; cut in the same block of marble, and rising one above another. Addison.

BLON'KET, n. s. I suppose for blanket.

Our blonket livery's been all too sad
For thilke same reason, when all is yclad
With pleasure.

Spenser. BLOCK, in architecture, statuary, &c. a piece of marble from the quarry, before it has received any form.

BLOCK, in carving of wood, is a form made of pear-tree, box, or other hard and close-grained wood, free from knots, on which figures are cut in relievo, with knives, chissels, &c.

BLOCK, in falconry, the perch whereon a bird of prey is kept. It is covered with cloth.

BLOCK, in geography, a small island of the United States, belonging to Rhode Island, lying twenty-one miles S. S. W. of Newport. It was incorporated in 1672, by the name of New Shoreham Township. It is a division of Newport county, and is the most southerly land in the state. The shores abound with great variety of fish.

BLOCK, in mechanic arts, a large piece of solid wood whereon to fasten work, or to fashion it; strength and stability being the requisite proper ties. In this sense, we say a chopping block; a sugar-fin block, &c.

BLOCK, MOUNTING, an eminence usually of stone, but in steps or notches, serving as a help to mount on horseback. These were much in use among the ancients, who were unacquainted with stirrups. The Romans erected them at proper stations all along their great roads. See ANABA

THRA.

BLOCKS, in the navy and marine architecture are a species of pulley very extensively used for the purposes of forming and regulating tackle, the lifting and removing of guns, anchors and stowage; they are also in use occasionally for other architectural and heavy works. The me chanical power employed is clearly that of the pulley, and the construction of this article having hitherto been very simple, and its appearance homely, it has received a name like the butchers' and the barbers' block, which would