817 



BALUSTRADE. 



BAN. 



813 



cold, clammy sweat, or of a colliquative kind, the balsamic medicines 

 frequently check its flow. 



When given in large and long-continued doses, they act upon the 

 vascular system, and quicken the heart's action, as well as the extreme 

 or capillary vessels, which last they excite when brought into direct 

 contact with them, as in the case of wounds or ulcers. 



They possess some power over the nervous system, but less over the 

 nerves of animal than of organic life. It is in diseases referable to 

 morbid states of the nerves of organic life that balsamic medicines are 

 most useful, especially when they are in a state of weakness, torpor, 

 and imperfect action. They act also on the nervous system when 

 over-excited, calming it, and approaching in this respect to the character 

 of antispasmodics. Under this head benzoin is the most powerful and 

 most frequently employed, generally in the form called paregoric elixir. 



From what is stated above, it is clear that they are unsuited to the 

 beginning or early stages of the diseases in which they are most com- 

 monly employed by uninformed persons. So long as any acute inflam- 

 matory action exists they are decidedly hurtful ; but after this has 

 subsided they are frequently very beneficial in common colds, to lessen 

 the cough and facilitate the expectoration, in the later stages of 

 hooping-cough, and in the humid cough of old or weak persons ; that 

 is, in one of the morbid states popularly called asthma. Balsamic 

 medicines are however totally inadmissible when the asthmatic 

 symptoms are connected with any organic change of the heart or lungs. 

 They may be advantageously employed in the later stages of influenza 

 and suffocative catarrh. The early use of paregoric in common colds 

 is frequently productive of much injury. 



The external employment of balsams is almost completely banished 

 from modern surgery. The evil of their employment was obvious to 

 the eyes. Friar's balsam, wound balsam, balsam for cuts, &c., as certain 

 combinations or solutions of balsam of Tolu, storax, and benzoin in 

 rectified spirits were called, had, when applied to recent wounds, the 

 manifest bad effect of stimulating the edges, and interposing a mechani- 

 cal impediment to their union by the first intention, as the direct 

 re-union of divided surfaces is termed by surgeons. In this way they 

 were healed by suppuration and granulation, which is a much more 

 tedious process. To some indolent wounds and sores, especially in 

 parts not possessed of much vascularity, their application is sometimes 

 beneficial. Internal wounds and ulcers are in general equally injured 

 by them. Their vaunted power of curing consumption is only main- 

 tained by ignorant and unprincipled persons, who vend their pernicious 

 compounds to the weak and credulous among their suffering fellow- 

 creatures, whom they delude both of health and money. 



[For balsam of Canada, see PINUS BALSAMEA ; for balsam of 

 Copaiba, see COPAIFERA ; and for balsams of Peru and Tolu, Bee 

 MYROSPERMUM in NAT. HIST. Drv.] 



BALUSTER, or BALLISTER, has been derived from balustrum, 

 or balustrium, a place railed off in the ancient baths. (Nicholson's 

 ' Architectural Dictionary.') It is also conjectured to be derived from 

 ' balaustium ' (0a\a6<mov), the flower of the wild pomegranate, which 

 it is said to resemble. (' Encyclopeclie Me'thodique d' Architecture.') 

 It is difficult to imagine how the word ' baluster ' is derived from 

 the Greek name of the flower of the pomegranate, when we do not 

 even know the form of the ancient baluster, or whether it bore any 

 resemblance to that of the moderns. We think it more probable that 

 the word was derived from balista, an engine used by the Romans for 

 throwing stones, &a (Vitruvius.) Balista was the engine, and balis- 

 tarium the place where the balista was put; and it is possible the 

 balistarium was railed in. The balistarium was, according to Lipsius, 

 the engine itself. (Plautus, ' Poenul.', i. 1, 73 ; Lipsius, ' Poliorcet." c. iii. 

 dial. 2.) The balista, or balistarium, was in the form of a bow, and 

 the profile of the baluster or ballister is also in the form of a bow. The 

 Norman-French word for a crossbow is arbalastre, and the modern 

 French word for baluster is balustre. There is so much resemblance 

 in the form of the two objects, and in the words by which they are 

 expressed, that we are of opinion that the word baluster, or balister, 

 is derived from *he Roman engine of war balista, or balistarium. 



The baluster is a peculiar kind of column, of the form of an ancient 

 lx>w in its profile ; it is employed in balustrades. [BALUSTRADE.] The 

 baluster has of late years been formed after the model of Greek 

 and Roman columns. Balusters are placed on a plinth, and are 

 surmounted with a cornice. (See the published works of Palladio, 

 Vignola, Scamozzi, and others.) The proportions of balusters are given 

 in the work of Sir William Chambers on Architecture, where they 

 are proportioned to the orders, and are made heavier or lighter 

 according to their destination ; the heaviest balusters are given to the 

 Tuscan, and the lightest to the Corinthian and Composite orders. 



BALUSTRADE, the termination of a modern edifice. There does 

 not appear to be any example of a balustrade in the remains of anti- 

 quity now existing ; although there are examples of railing or fencing. 

 Balustrades are most commonly placed over the cornices of large 

 edifices, after the manner of a parapet, as at the Banqueting House at 

 Whitehall, St. Paul's cathedral, London, and on Blackfriars and West- 

 minster bridges when they were first erected, though these have been 

 long since removed. Balustrades are not only employed in large edifices, 

 above the orders of architecture, but also to inclose stairs, terraces, altars, 

 fonts, and the balconies of houses. The balusters forming a balustrade 

 are placed on a plinth, at equal distances from one another, with a small 



ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. I. 



opening between them ; they support a cornice, and are divided at 

 intervals by a pedestal. (For the proportions of a balustrade over an 

 order of columns, see Chambers' ' Architecture.') When a balustrade 

 is placed over an order of columns, it is usual to set the die of the 

 pedestal over the columns, making the breadth of the die equal to 

 the breadth of the shaft. Balustrades are made of iron and wood, 

 as well as stone. In Italy balustrades are of very frequent occur- 

 rence, and of prodigious extent. At Frascati there is a balustrade in 

 the Villa Conti, more than 2000 feet in length. The colonnade of St. 

 Peter's, by Bernini, is surmounted with a balustrade. But perhaps the 

 moat elegant balustrade in Rome is at the Villa Albani ; the form of 

 the baluster in this differs from the old and bow-shaped baluster com- 

 monly employed. Barry introduced balusters imitated from Italian 

 forms, and his example has been since frequently followed. 



Examples of Balusters employed in four different structures. 



Old Westminster 

 Bridge. 



Blackfriars Bridge 

 (now removed). 



The cuts represent four kinds of baluster ; one like the bow above- 

 mentioned, the others as if the bow-like baluster had been cut in two 

 horizontally to form two balusters. The latter is the baluster most 

 commonly used ; but the former appears to be the oldest and earliest 

 form ; an example of it may be seen in some of the galleries of old 

 wooden buildings in England and other countries of Europe. The 

 court-yard at Chillingham Castle, and the gate of honour leading into 

 Caius College, Cambridge, present examples of the bow-like baluster. 

 There are examples also in the works of Palladio, Vignola, Scamozzi, 

 and other architects of Italy. 



BAN, BANNS. These words are found in many of the modern 

 languages of Europe in various senses. But as the idea of ' publica- 

 tion ' or ' proclamation ' runs through them all, it is probable that it is 

 the ancient word ban still preserved in the Gaelic and the modern 

 Welsh in the simple sense of ' proclaiming.' 



As a part of the common speech of the English nation, the word is 

 now so rarely used that it is put into some glossaries of provincial or 

 archaical words, as if it were obsolete, or confined to some particular 

 districts or particular classes. Yet, both as a substantive and a verb, 

 it is found in some of our best writers ; among the poets, Spenser, 

 Marlowe, and Shakspere ; and among prose-writers, Knolles and 

 Hooker. By these writers however it is not used in its original sense 

 of ' proclamation,' but in a sense which it has acquired by its use in 

 proclamations of a particular kind ; and it is in this secondary sense 

 only that it now occurs in common language, to denote cursing, 

 denouncing woe and mischief against one who has offended. A single 

 quotation from Shakspere's tale of 'Venus and Adonis' will show 

 precisely how it is used by writers who have employed it, and by the 

 people from whose lips it may still sometimes be heard : 



' All swollen with chafing down Adonis sits, 

 Banning the boisterous and unruly beast. 



The improvement of English manners having driven out the prac- 

 tice, the word has nearly disappeared. But in the middle ages the 

 practice was countenanced by such high authority, that we cannot 

 wonder at its having prevailed in the more ordinary ranks and affairs 

 of life. 



When churches and monasteries were founded, writings were xisually 

 drawn up, specifying with what lands the founder and other early bene- 

 factors endowed them ; and these instruments often conclude with 

 imprecatory sentences in which torments here and hereafter are invoked 

 on any one who should attempt to divert the lands from the purposes 

 for which they were bestowed. It seems that what we now read in 

 these instruments was openly pronounced in the face of the Church 

 and the world by the donors, with certain accompanying ceremonies. 

 Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Albans, who has left one of the best of 

 the early chronicles of English affairs, relates that when King Henry III. 

 had refounded the church of Westminster, he went into the chapel of 

 St. Catherine, where a large assembly of prelates and nobles was col- 

 lected to receive him. The prelates were dressed in full pontificals, 

 and each held a candle in his hand. The king advanced to the altar, 

 and laying his hand on the Holy Evangelists, pronounced a sentence 

 of excommunication against all who should deprive the church of any- 

 thing which he had given it, or of any of its rights. When the king 

 had finished, the prelates cast down the candles which they held, and 

 while they lay upon the pavement, smoking and stinking (we use the 



3 Q 



