RHEYDT 



RHINE 



689 



RHEUMATIC DISEASES OF ANIMALS. These are 

 less common than the corresponding affections of 

 men. Horses are not very liable to acute rheu- 

 matism, but suffer from a chronic variety, 

 which occurs especially in conjunction with in- 

 fluenza. When affecting the limbs it often ex- 

 hibits its characteristic tendency to shift from 

 one part to another. In cattle and sheep rheu- 

 matic disorders are more common and acute 

 than in horses. The specific inflammation some- 

 times involves most of the fibrous and fibro-serous 

 textures throughout the body, inducing general 

 stiffness, constipated bowels, and high fever. This 

 is rheumatic fever the chine-felon or body-garget 

 of the old farriers. Sometimes the disease mainly 

 affects the larger joints, causing intense pain, lame- 

 ness, and hard swellings ; occasionally it is con- 

 fined to the feet and fetlocks, when it is recognised 

 as bustian-foul. Cattle and sheep on bleak exposed 

 pastures, and cows turned out or the dairy to feed 

 on strong alluvial grazings are especially subject to 

 rheumatism in it* several forms. Amongst dogs 

 rheumatism is known under the name of kennel 

 lameness, and is very troublesome and intractable 

 in low, damp, cold situations. Blood-letting is 

 rarely admissible except in the most acute cases 

 Amongst cattle. In all animals a laxative should 

 at once be given, with some saline matters and 

 colchicnm, and when the pain and fever are great 

 a little tincture of aconite may be added. For 

 cattle a good combination consists of one ounce of 

 nitre, two drachms of powdered colchicum, and 

 two fluid drachms of the Pharmacopoeia tincture of 

 aconite, repeated in water or gruel every three 

 hours : half this dose will suffice for horses. With 

 a simple laxative diet dogs should have a pill 

 night and morning containing five grains of nitre 

 and two of colchicum. Comfortable lodgings, a 

 warm bed, horse-rugs on the body, and bandages 

 on the legs will greatly expedite a cure. In chronic 

 cases, or after the more acute symptoms are 

 subdued, an ounce of oil of turpentine and two 

 drachms each of nitre and powdered colchicum 

 should lie given for a cow, half that quantity for a 

 horse, ana one- fourth for a sheep. Hartshorn and 

 oil, or other stimulating embrocations, diligently 

 and frequently rubbed in, will often abate the pain 

 .and swelling of the affected joints. 



RlH'.vdt, a town of Rhenish Prussia, 19 miles 

 by rail W. by S. from Diisseldorf, has manufactures 

 of silks, velvets, cottons, machinery, hardware, 

 paper, dyeworks, and breweries. Pop. (1880) 

 19,087; (1890)28,962. 



Rhime. See RHYME. 



1C hi II. B.\S and HAUT, until 1871 frontier 

 departments of France, corresponded pretty nearly 

 to what are now the two administrative districts of 

 Lower and Upper Alsace, in the German imperial 

 territory of Alsace-Lorraine (q.v.) Bas Rhin cor- 

 responding to Lower Alsace, and Haut Rliin to 

 L"i>j>er Alsace. See also BELFORT. 



Rhine (Ger. Rhein, Fr. Rhin, Dutch Rhijn, 

 Lat. Rhenua), in every way one of the most import- 

 ant rivers of Europe. A large numlier of rivulets, 

 ;ing from glaciers, unite to form the young 

 Rhine ; but two are recognised as the principal 

 sources the Nearer and the Farther Rhine. The 

 former emerges on the north-east slope of the Gott- 

 hanl knot (7690 feet above sea-level ), and only a 

 dozen miles from the cradle of the Rhone, on the 

 other side of the same mountain-knot ; the Farther 

 Rhine has its origin on the flank of the Rheinwald- 

 horn (7270 feet), not far from the Pass of Bernar- 

 dino. The two mountain-torrents meet at Reiche- 

 nau, 6 miles SW. of Coire (Chur) in the Grisons 

 canton, after they have descended, the Nearer Rhine 

 707 feet in 28 miles in a north-east direction, the 

 408 



Farther Rhine 5347 feet in 27 miles along a northerly 

 course. At Coire the united stream strikes due 

 north, and, after ploughing its way for 45 miles 

 between Switzerland and Austrian Vorarlberg, 

 enters its clearing basin, the Lake of Constance 

 ( 1306 feet above the sea). It leaves this lake at 

 its north-western extren>ity,a little below Constance, 

 its water a deep transparent green, and flows 

 generally westwards, in three or four wide 

 curves, to Basel, separating Baden on the north 

 from Switzerland on the south. Along this stretch 

 the river (490 feet wide) plunges down the falls of 

 Schaffliausen, nearly 70 feet in three leaps, and 

 races over narrow rapids at three separate places 

 where the terminations of the Jura Mountains 

 intrude into the bed of the river ; from the left it 

 receives the waters of the Swiss Aar. Basel is 

 280 miles distant from the source pf the Nearer 

 Rhine following the windings of the channel, but 

 only 85 miles as the crow flies. 



At Basel (742 feet) the river, now 225 yards 

 wide, wheels round to the north, and traversing 

 an open shallow valley that separates Alsace 

 and the Bavarian Palatinate from Baden, reaches 

 Mainz (50 N. lat.) in Hesse-Darmstadt, north- 

 north-east from Basel. This valley is fenced in 

 by the Black Forest on the east and by the 

 \ osges on the west ; in it stand the cities of 

 Miilhausen, Colniar, Strasburg (on the 111, 2 

 miles from the Rhine), Germersheim, Spires, 

 Ludwigshafen, and Worms, all on the Alsatian 

 side, and Freiburg, Baden, Rastatt, Carlsruhe, 

 Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Darmstadt on the 

 opposite side of the river. Along this section the 

 Rhine splits into many side arms that flow parallel 

 to the main stream, and is studded with green 

 islands. Navigation, however, which begins at 

 Basel ( although teats ply for short stretches on the 

 upper waters above that point, even as high as Coire ) 

 is facilitated by artificial means, in that the current 

 is made to flow in a carefully kept, straightened 

 channel. Of the numerous affluents which add 

 their waters to the volume of the Rhine along this 

 section the largest are the Neckar and the Main, 

 both coming from the right, and both navigable ; 

 the 111, which falls into it from the left, is also 

 navigable. A little below Mainz the Rhine (685 

 yards wide) is turned west by the Taunus range ; 

 but at Bingen it forces a passage through, and 

 pursues a north-westerly direction across Rhenish 

 Prussia, past Coblenz, Bonn, Cologne, Diisseldorf, 

 Ruhrort, and Wesel as far as the Dutch frontier, 

 which it reaches a little below Emmerich, and 

 opposite Cleves ; here it is 1085 yards wide and 36 

 feet above sea-level. The first half of this portion 

 of the river from Bingen to Bonn is the Rhine of 

 song and legend, the Rhine of romance, the Rhine 

 of German patriotism. Its banks are clothed with 

 vineyards that yield wine esteemed the world over 

 (see below); the rugged and fantastic crags that 

 hem in its channel are crowned by ruined castles ; 

 the treasure of the Nibelungs rests at the bottom 

 of the river, but higher up, at Worms ; the Binger- 

 loch (see BINGEN) and the Mouse Tower of Bishop 

 Hatto, the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, the rock of 

 the siren Lorelei, the commanding statue of Ger- 

 mania ( the trophy of German victory in 1870), and 

 innumerable other features lend interest to this the 

 middle course pf 'Father Rhine,' as his German 

 children call him. It still inspires them, as in 

 1870, when Max Schneckenburger's Wacht am 

 Rhein (written in 1840 ; the music by K. Wilhelm, 

 1854) was sung by them with the greatest enthu- 

 siasm as they poured into France. There is the 

 Rheinlied, too, of Nikolaus Becker, with Alfred de 

 Musset's retort. Nous I'avons en, votre Rhin ulle- 

 mand, Imth of them written in 1841. Between 

 Biniren and Bonn the steep rocky walls that fence 



