518 



COUCHANT 



COUNCIL 



Their call is loud and in some cases apparently 

 ventriloquistic. They build their own nests. See 

 CUCKOO. 



Couchant. In Heraldry, a beast lying down, 

 with his head up, is couchant. If the head is 

 down, he is dormant. 



Couch-grass ( Triticum repens ), also called 

 Wheat-grass, Dog-grass, Quickens, and Squitch 

 or Quitch, a grass which, although of the same 

 genus with wheat, is a widespread and trouble- 

 some weed. Its perennial creeping root-stocks 

 render it extremely difficult of extirpation ; they 

 are carefully gathered out of land under cultiva- 

 tion ; but in times of scarcity have been employed 

 as human food, as a source of beer, as a domestic 

 medicine, and more frequently as fodder. They 

 are sometimes useful in binding sand into pastur- 

 age of inferior quality. Cut early, couch-grass 

 makes very good hay. 



Couching. See CATARACT. 



Coucy, RAOUL or RENAULT, CASTELLAN DE, 

 was a French court poet or Trouvere ( q. v. ) of the 

 12th century, to whom twenty-three poems are 

 ascribed. He was named after the Chateau de 

 Coucy, near Laon. See Gaston Paris in Romania 

 (1872). 



Coughing, considered physiologically, consists 

 ( 1 ) in a long inspiration which fills the lungs to a 

 greater extent than usual ; (2) in the closure of 

 the glottis, or narrow opening in the organ of voice 

 (see LARYNX), at the commencement or the act of 

 expiration ; and (3) in the sudden forcing open of 

 the glottis by the violence of the expiratory move- 

 ment. In this way, a blast of air is driven up- 

 wards from the lungs through the mouth, which 

 carries with it any sources of irritation that may 

 have been present in the air- passages. Coughing 

 may occur from irritation in the back of the throat, 

 in the larynx, trachea, or bronchial tubes, and may 

 be excited by acrid vapours, by irritant gases, or 

 by articles of food or drink such as even a drop of 

 water or a crumb of bread making their way into 

 the air-passages instead of into the pharynx, or by 

 excessive or morbid secretion from the walls of the 

 air-tubes, or even by the entrance of cold air, when 

 the lining membrane of the air-passages is abnor- 

 mally irritable. More rarely it results from irrita- 

 tion of other parts, as the ear, and possibly the 

 stomach. 



The object of coughing in the animal economy is 

 unquestionably to guard against the danger of the 

 entrance of mechanical and chemical irritants into 

 the air-passages ; and accordingly the mucous 

 membrane, especially of their upper part, is en- 

 dowed with a most exquisite sensibility which, 

 when aroused by irritation or by a state of disease, 

 .provokes incessant coughing until the irritation 

 be allayed or removed. Cough is an exceedingly 

 common symptom of all diseases of the respiratory 

 organs. The treatment of coughing must first be 

 directed to the removal, if possible, of the cause 

 which excites it. But besides, when once begun, 

 coughing frequently becomes excessive, and so 

 irritating or exhausting to the patient, from too 

 great sensitiveness of the nervous mechanism which 

 produces it ; and this tendency, when injurious, 

 must also be combated. The remedies suitable to 

 most cases of cough are therefore Expectorants 

 (q.v.) and nervine sedatives, especially opium, 

 morphia, and hydrocyanic acid ; ' cough mixtures ' 

 generally contain both. Such household remedies 

 as liquorice, jujubes, black-currant jelly, or linseed 

 tea are often of service. See also under names of 

 diseases in which cough occurs. 



Cough occurs amongst the lower animals under 

 similar conditions. From continued breathing of 

 a close foul atmosphere, the bronchial mucous 



membrane becomes unduly irritable, hence the 

 prevalence of chronic cough amongst the cows in 

 our overcrowded town-dairies. Chronic cough 

 also occurs in horses, usually as a sequel to an 

 attack of cold. It constitutes unsoundness, is 

 best treated by repeated doses of belladonna and 

 camphor, but often requires for its entire removal 

 a run at grass. 



Cough is an accompaniment of teething, and is 

 also common in diseases of the digestive organs. 

 See PNEUMONIA, CONSUMPTION, BRONCHITIS, 

 CATARRH, &c. 



Couguar. See PUMA. 



CoulmierS, a French village, some 12 miles 

 WNW. of Orleans, where Von der Tann and his 

 Bavarians were defeated by an overwhelming force 

 under D'Aurelle de Paladines, 9th November 1870. 



Coulomb, CHARLES AUGUSTIN DE, famous for 

 his experiments on friction, and the invention of 

 the Torsion Balance for measuring the force of 

 magnetic and electrical attraction, was born at 

 Angoulgme in 1736. In early life he entered the 

 engineers, and served some 'time at Martinique. 

 In 1777 he gained an Academy prize by a work 

 on magnetic needles, and again two years later 

 by his Theorie des Machines simples. For speaking 

 the truth about a projected canal in Brittany, he 

 was for some time imprisoned, but earned the 

 hearty approval of the honest Bretons, as well 

 as his own conscience. Coulomb lived in retire- 

 ment during the Revolution, became a member of 

 the Institute in 1804, and died August 23, 1806. 



Coulter. See PLOUGH. 



Coumarin (C 9 H 6 O 2 ) is a fragrant crystalline 

 substance, analogous to volatile oils and camphor, 

 which is present in the well-known Tonka bean. 

 It is identical with the odorous principle of many 

 other plants, including the Woodruff, Melilot, and 

 Vernal grass. 



Council, or SYNOD, an assembly of ecclesiastics 

 met to regulate doctrine or discipline. We first 

 hear of such assemblies during the Montanist con- 

 troversy, about 150 A.D. (Ecumenical councils are 

 convoked from all parts of Christendom, and claim 

 to regulate the affairs of the whole church. Other 

 synods have represented the East and West re- 

 spectively. Patriarchal, national, and primatial 

 councils represent a whole patriarchate, a nation, 

 or the several provinces subject to a primate, 

 while the bishops and other dignitaries of a pro- 

 vince constitute a provincial ; the clergy of a 

 diocese under the presidency of the bishop, a dio- 

 cesan council. Mixed councils during the middle 

 ages dealt with civil as well as ecclesiastical 

 affairs, and were composed of secular persons as 

 well as churchmen. Sometimes, but not always, 

 the lay and ecclesiastical members voted in 

 separate chambers. 



The first eight general councils were convoked 

 by the emperor, all the later ones by the popes, and 

 tne fifth Lateran Council asserts (Sess. xi. ) the 

 modern principle that the right of convoking, 

 removing, and dissolving general councils belongs 

 to the pope. The right of voting was reserved in 

 early times to bishops and priests, or deacons who 

 acted as representatives of absent bishops. From 

 the 7th century onwards this right was sometimes 

 extended to abbots, and from the end of the medi- 

 eval period to cardinals who were not also bishops. 

 At the Vatican Council the members entitled to 

 vote were cardinals, bishops (even if only titular 

 bishops), mitred abbots, and generals of religious 

 orders. Priests acting as proxies of bishops were 

 not admitted. The presidency at the early oecu- 

 menical councils followed no fixed rule. In a 

 certain sense it belonged to the emperor, who 



