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the middle of the capital is open, and only the fides clofe, fo that there is only a half circulation of the flame, it is called an half reverberatory. The reverberatory furnace is chiefly used in the fufion and calcination of metals and minerals, and on other occafions, where the most intense heat is required, as in afsaying, &c. Whence it is alfo called the melting furnace, and affaying furnace. See the articles FURNACE, Asaying OVEN, LABORATORY, &c.

REVEREND, reverendus, a title of respect given to ecclefiaftics.

The religious abroad are called reverend fathers; and abeffes, prioreffes, &c. reverend mothers. With us, bishops are right reverend, and archbishops, moft reverend. In France, their bishops, archbishops, and abbots, are all alike most reverend. REVERIE, the fame with delirium, raving, or distraction. See DELIRIUM, &c. It is used also for any ridiculous, extravagant imagination, action, or propofition, a chimera or vifion. But the most ordinary ufe of the word, among english writers, is for a deep disorderly mufing or meditation.

REVERO, a town of Italy, in the dutchy of Mantua, fituated on the fouth of the Po, oppofite to Oftiglia, fifteen miles fouth-eaft of Mantua.

REVERSE, in law, &c. To reverfe fignifies to undo, repeal, or make void. REVERSE of a medal, coin, &c, denotes the fecond or back. fide, in oppofition to the head or principal figure.

REVERSE, in fencing, a back stroke. See the article FENCING.

REVERSED, in heraldry, a thing turned backwards, or upside down. REVERSION, reverfio, in law, is defined to be returning of lands, &c. into the poffeffion of the donor, or his heirs. Reverfion, in the law of England, has two fignifications; the one of which is an eftate left, which continues during a particular eftate in being; and the other is the returning of the land, &c. after the particular eftate is ended; and it is further faid, to be an intereft in lands, when the poffeffion of it fails, or where the flate which was for a time parted with, returns to the grantors, or their heirs. But, according to the ufual definition of a reverfion, it is the refidue of an eftate left in the grantor, after a particular eftate granted away ceases, continuing in the grantor of fuch an estate.

The difference between a remainder and

a reverfion, confifts in this, that the remainder may belong to any man except the grantor; whereas the reversion returns to him who conveyed the lands, &c. See the article REMAINDER. In order to render the doctrine of reverfions eafy, we fhall give the following table; which, fhew the prefent value of one pound, to be received at the end of any number of years not exceeding forty; discounting at the rate of 5, 4, and 3 per cent. compound intereft. See the article INTEREST.

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before the caufe is heard, or if heard, before the decree is inrolled: in which case this bill must be brought, praying that the former proceeding may ftand revived, and be put upon the fame footing as at the time of the abatement. REVOCATION, in law, fignifies the recalling, or annulling and making void fome power, grant, deed, &c, made before. REVOLUTION, in politics, fignifies a grand change or turn in government. In which fenfe, the revolution is used by way of eminence, for the great turn of affairs in England, in the year 1688, when king James II. abdicating the throne, the prince and princess of Orange were declared king and queen of England, &c. In geometry the revolution of any figure, is its motion quite round a fixed line, as

an axis.

The use of the preceding table.-To find the present value of any fum to be received at the end of a given term of years, discounting at the rate of 3, 4, or 5 per cent. compound intereft. Find by the above table the present value of 1. to be received at the end of the given term, which multiply by the number of pounds propofed (cutting off four figures from the product on account of the decimals) then the refult will be the value fought: For example, the prefent value of 10,000 1. to be received ten years hence, and the rate of intereft 5 per cent, is equal to .6139 × 10000 = 6139.0000 l. or 61391. Again, the prefent value of 10,000l. due in ten years, the rate of interest being 3 per cent. is .7441 X 10,000 = 7441. REVERSION of series, in algebra, a kind of reverfed operation of an infinite series. See the article SERIES. REVIEW, in chancery, is used for a bill, where a caufe has been heard, and a decree thereon figned; but fome error in law appearing upon the decree, or new matter being difcovered after it was made, this bill is given for a fresh examination into the merits of the cause. A bill of review must be exhibited by leave of the court, and is generally obtained upon oath made of the discovery of fuch new matter. The fum of 20 1. moft likewife be paid into court on the bringing of this bill, by way of fecurity for cofts and delay, in cafe the matter Should be found against the party. If one part of a decree in chancery be repugnant to another, the decree may be reverfed by a bill of review. REVIEW, in war, is the appearance of an army, or part of an army, in order of battle, and their being viewed by the general, that he may know the condition of the troops, fee that they are complete, and be a witness of the expertness with which they perform their evolutions and other exercises.

REVISE, among printers, a fecond or third

proof of a fheet to be printed, taken off in order to be compared with the laft -proof, to fee whether all the mistakes marked in it are corrected. See the article PRINTING.

REVIVIFICATION, in chemistry, the fame with refufcitation. See the article RESUSCITATION.

Bill of REVIVOR, in chancery, is a bill for reviving a caufe, where either of the parties dies after the bill and answer, and

The revolution of a planet, or comet, round the fun, is nothing but its course from any point of its orbit till its return to the fame. See ORBIT, PERIOD, PLANET and COMET.

REVULSION, in medicine, turning a flux of humours from one part to another, by bleeding, cupping, friction, finapifms, blifters, fomentations, bathings, iffues, fetons, ftrong purging of the bowels, &c. Dr. Van Sweiten, in his Commentaries upon the Aphorifms of Boerhaave, obferves, that the ufe of revulfions in difeafes, is confirmed by daily experience as well as by reafon; for fo foon as the refiftance to the blood's motion is either diminished or totally removed in any part of the body, it immediately flows into that part with a greater velocity. Thus when all the veffels and vifcera of the abdomen are fuddenly freed from a confiderable preffure by the birth of an infant, all the blood is frequently derived into thofe veffels fo forcibly, that unless the fluid veffels and vifcera are compreffed by fwathing with a roller, the child-bed woman may fuddenly perifh in a fatal fwoon, for want of the blood's due presfure in the veffels of the brain and cerebellum; the same thing alfo happens if the abdomen is not fwathed, when all the water is discharged at once by paracentefis, in the dropfy. If again we confider, that the blood propelled by the heart is fent partly up to the head, and fuperior parts of the trunk, and partly downward to the vifcera and lower extremities, it will be from hence evident, that, by diminishing the refiftance of the lower

the limb patent, divided and acute at the base of every fegment: the petal has little fquammula, and is connivent inwardly; the fruit is a roundish naked berry, divided within into fewer cells than there are fegments of the corolla ; the feeds are fingle, roundish, gibbous, and compreffed on one fide,

lower veffels, or by evacuating them, the quantity and impulfe of the blood will then be derived more towards the inferior parts, and drawn from thofe that are fuperior. It is therefore poffible to make a revulsion of the arterial blood from an inflamed part to any other, especially when the part towards which the revulfion is made, receives its blood from the fame common trunks or larger arteries. The phyficians foment the external parts of the head in inflammatory diforders thereof, that the impulse of the blood, being increased in the branches of the external carotide, may prefs with a lefs force upon the parts contained in the head. And Galen has long ago obferved, that pains are eased almost as with a charm, by making a revulfion with cupping-glaffes,

The different kinds of revulfion are phlebotomy, cupping, friction, velicatories, iffues, fetons, warm bathing, fomentations, &c. See PHLEBOTOMY, CUPPING, FRICTION, VESICATORY, &c. REYGATE, or RYGATE, a borough of Surry, twenty-two miles fouth-weft of London.

It fends two members to parliament. REZANSKOI, the capital of the province of Rezan, in Ruffia: eaft long. 41°, north lat. 55°. RHABDOIDES, in anatomy, the fame with the fagittal future of the skull. See the articles SKULL and SUTURE. RHABDOLOGY, in arithmetic, the doc. trine of Neper's rods. See NEPER. RHABDOMANCY, jabdouavrila, a species of divination performed by means of rods. See the article DIVINATION, RHACHITIS, in medicine, the rickets. See the article RICKETS. RHAGADES, in medicine, denotes chaps or clefts in any part of the body; arifing either from an aridity of the parts, or acrimony of the humours; in both which cafes, cooling and emollient applications are proper.

RHAGOIDES, in anatomy, the fecond

coat or tunic of the eye, more ufually called uvea. See the article UVEA. RHALADERGWY, a market-town in Radnorfhire, in Wales, fituated fifteen miles west of Rador.

RHAMNUS, in botany, a genus of the pentandria-monogynia clafs of plants, the corolla whereof confifts of a fingle, imperforated, infundibuliform petal, rude on the outfide, and coloured within the tube is of a turbinated cylindric figure ;

This genus comprehends the buckthorn, the black alder, Chrift's thorn, the alaternus and the jujube-tree, See the articles JUJUBE and ALATERNUS. Buckthorn-berries bruifed on white paper, give it a green tincture; they are in confiderable efteem as a cathartic, and are celebrated in dropfies, rheumatisms, and even in the gout; but they generally occafion gripes, fickness, dry the mouth and throat, and leave a thirst of long duration: the dofe is about twenty of the fresh berries in fubstance, and twice or thrice this number in de coction; an ounce of the expreffed juice, or a dram of the berries dried. A fyrup prepared of the juice is kept in the fhops. RHAPHONTICUM, the name for the root of the rheum. See RHEUM. RHAPSODI, patadoi, rhapfɔdifts, in antiquity, perfons who made a business of finging pieces of Homer's poems. Cuper informs us, that the rhapsodi were cloathed in red when they fung the Iliad, and in blue when they fung the Odysee. They performed on the theatres, and fometimes ftrove for prizes in contests of poetry, finging, &c. After the two antagonists had finished thair parts, the two pieces or papers they were written in were joined together again: whence the name, viz. from pawrw, fuo, and wồn, canticum: but there feems to have been other rhapfodi of more antiquity than these people, who compofed heroic poems or fongs in praise of heroes and great men, and fung their own compofitions from town to town for a livelihood, of which profeffion Homer himfelf is said to be.

RHAPSODOMANCY, an antient kind of divination performed by pitching on a paffage of a poet at bazard, and reckoning on it as a prediction of what was to come to pafs. There were various ways of practising this rhapfodomancy. Sometimes they wrote several papers or fentences of a poet on fo many pieces of wood, paper, or the like, fhook them together in an urn, and drew out one which was accounted the lot; fometimes

they

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they caft dice on a table whereon verfes were written, and that whereon the die lodged, contained the prediction. third manner was by opening a book, and pitching on fome verfe at first fight. This method they particularly called the fortes Præneftine; and afterwards, according to the poet made use of, fortes Homericæ, fortes Virgilianæ, &c. See the article SORTES.

RHAPSODY, padia, in antiquity, a difcourfe in verfe fung or rehearsed by a rhapfodift. Others will have rhapsody to fignify a collection of verses, especially thofe of Homer, which having been a long time difperfed in pieces and fiagments, were at length, by Pififtratus's order, digefted into books called rhap. fodies, from pawrw, fuo, and wòn, canticum. Hence, among moderns, rhapfody is also used for an affemblage of paffages, thoughts, and authorities raked together from divers authors, to compofe fome new piece.

RHE, or REE, a little ifland in the bay of Bifcay, near the coaft of Aunis in France: west long. 1° 30′, north lat. 46° 14'.

RHEEDEA, in botany, a genus of plants the characters whereof are not perfectly afcertained: there is no calyx; the corolla confifts of four patent, concave, vertically ovated petals; the filaments are numerous, the germen globofe; the fruit is oval, fmall, fucculent, and uniJocular; the feeds are three, of an ovatooblong figure, long and odly furrowed. RHEIMS, or REIMS, a city of France, capital of the province of Champain, one of the most elegant cities in France, fituated feventy-five miles north-east of Paris: eaft long. 4°, north lat. 49° 20′. RHETORIANS, a fect of heretics in Egypt, fo denominated from Rhetorius their leader. The diftinguifhing doctrine of this herefiarch, as represented by Philaftrius, was, that he approved of all the herefies before him, and taught that they were all in the right. RHETORIC, rhetorica, the art of speaking copiously on any fubject, with all the advantage of beauty and force. Lord Bacon defines rhetoric very philofo. phically, to be the art of applying and addreffing the dictates of reafon to the fancy, and of recommending them there fo as to affect the will and defires. end of rhetoric, the fame author observes, is to fill the imagination with ideas and

The

images which may affist nature without oppreffing it. Voffius defines rhetoric, the faculty of discovering what every fubject affords of use for perfuasion. Hence, as every author muft invent arguments to make his fubject prevail, difpose those arguments, thus found out, in their proper places, and give them the embelifhments of language proper to the fubject; and if this difcourfe be intended to be delivered in public, utter them with that decency and force which may Atrike the hearer; rhetoric becomes divided into four parts, invention, difpofition, elocution, and pronunciation. See INVENTION, DISPOSITION, ELOCUTION, and PRONUNCIATION. Rhetoric and oratory differ from each other as the theory from the practice; the rhetorician being he who defcribes the rules of eloquence, and the orator he who uses them to advantage. Ordinarily, however, the two are used indifferently for each other. See the article ORATORY.

For the characters in rhetoric, fee the article CHARACTER. RHETORICAL NUMBERS. See the article NUMBER.

RHEUM, geva, a thin ferous humour, occafionally oofing out of the glands about the mouth and throat. See the article HUMOUR.

Rheum is also used for a catarrh. See the article CATARRH.

For the rheum in the eyes, see the article EPIPHORA.

RHEUM, the RHAPHONTIC PLANT, in botany, a genus of the enneandria-trigynia clafs of plants, the corolla whereof confifts of a fingle petal, which is narrow at the bafe, and impervious: the limb is divided into fix obtufe fegments, alternately smaller: there is no pericarpium: the feed is fingle, large, triquetrous, acute, and furrounded with membranaceous rims,

The root of this plant, which appears evidently to have been the rhubarb of the antients, is by many comfounded with the modern rhubarb, though confiderab. ly different both in appearance and quality. The raphontic root is of a dusky colour on the furface, of a loose spongy texture, confiderably more aftringent, but lefs purgative than the rhubarb; in this laft intention two or three drams are required for a dofe. It is an ingredient in the venice-treacle, and in fome of the ~, colder

colder compofitions of the fhops, but in these rhubarb is generally used in its place.

Rhaphontic-root, the pound, pays, on importation, 23. and 7 d. and, on exportation, draws back 2 s. 3. RHEUMATISM, in medicine, a ditemper that happens most commonly in Spring or autumn, when there is a remarkable change of air from bot to cold, and from cold to hot, or when the wind fuddenly fhifts to any oppolite point. It begins, according to Sydenham, with a fhivering and other symptoms of a fever, and in a day or two's time, or fometimes fooner, a vehement pain feize: one or more of the limbs raging sometimes in one place and fometimes in another, especially in the arms, wrifts, shoulders, and knees: very often there is a redness and fwelling, and the fever gradually goes off while the pain remains. This diftemper often runs out into a great length, continuing fometimes for fome months or years, not perpetually, with the fame violence, but coming and going, and from time to time renewing its paroxyfms.

This

It chiefly attacks perfons in the flower of their age, after violent exercife, or a great heat of the body from any other caufe, and then being too fuddenly cooled. Its proximate caufe Boerhaave takes to be an inflammation of the lymphatic arteries of the membranes near the ligaments of the joints, but not fo violent as to bring on a fuppuration. difeafe is nearly a-kin to the gout and fcurvy, and the blood is like that of thofe afflicted with the pleurify. The pain is exasperated upon the leaft motion: it fometimes attacks the loins and coccendix, and fometimes the brain, lungs, and vifcera: when it feizes the loins it is then called lumbago: in this cafe, Sydenham obferves that there is a moft violent pain in the fmall of the back, which fometimes extends to the os facrum, and is like a fit of the gravel, only the patient does not vomit. If this dif eafe is unfkilfully treated, it may continue feveral months or years, but not always with the fame violence, but by fits. If it continues and increales, it may cause a stiff joint, which will fcarce yield to any remedy.

Sydenham directs to take away ten ounces of blood on the fide affected; this must be repeated three or four times, or oftener, once every other or every third VOL. IV.

day, according as the ftrength of the pa tient will bear. The diet must be very thin, and an emulfion of the four cold feeds may be given; as alfo a pultice of white-read and milk, tinged with a little faffron, may be laid to the part affected a clyfter of milk and fugar may be injected on thefe days the bleeding is omitted. If the patient cannot bear frequent bleeding, after the fecond or third time give the common purging potion every other day, and an ounce of diacodium at night, till he recovers.

In an incipient rheumatifin of the fhoulders, Hoffman fays that nothing is better than a blister laid between the fcapulæ ; but if it happens to the plethoric, cupping, with facrification in the lower parts, repeated every month, does fignal fervice. The fam: phyfician thinks it may be proper to chew rhubarb, from two fcruples to a dram, with raifins or currants, two or three times a week. The spirit of hartfhorn and the balfam of guaiacum, given in the quantity of twenty or thirty drops, three or four times a day, Dr. Shaw lays, is of great fervice: but he thinks nothing better than a decoction of the fudorific woods, to the quantity of a quart a day, for a month or fix weeks together. This laft, when affifted with crude antimony and mercurius dulcis, Hoffman recommends in the venereal rheumatism, which often rifes from the remains of a lues venerea contained in the mafs of blood. In a fcorbutic rheu maritim, or that arifing from the fcurvy, Sydenham directs the patient to take the Icorbutic eleЯuary and water, if he cannot bear any kind of evacuation.

He obferves, that young perfons who live temperately may be cured by a fimple refrigerating diet, and moderate nourishing, with as much certainty as by repeated bleeding: for instance, let the patient live four days upon whey alone; and after that white bread may be allowed for dinner, and on the last day of his illness he may be allowed it for fup

per.

When the tymptoms ceafe he may have boiled chickens, or any thing of eafy digeftion, but every third day he mut live upon whey only, till his ftrength returns. Boerhaave's method of cure is to the fame effect, only he advifes warm baths and ftrong b'ifters to be laid upon the part affected, nay even cauteries themfelves: but Hoffman obferves that great caution fhould be used with regard to topics, for if the patient's conttitution

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