814 



SUPPORTERS 



SUPREMACY 



lev\ing and collecting the land tax or 



offered 



as 'supply ' to the sovereign, were long the chief 

 county authority in Scut land for administrative 

 and rating purposes. They were first appointee! 

 I iy the Act of Comention of 1667, and in order to 

 qualify them to act they required formerly to be 

 possessed of 100 Soots of yearly valued rent in 

 property, superiority, or lifereut. I'ntil 1K.V4 they 

 were individually named ill acts of supply; but 

 since the passing of the Valuation Act in that year 

 they have consisted of all owners of lands and 

 heritages (other than houses) of the annual value 

 of 100, of owners of houses of the value, of i.':>00 

 a year, of the eldest sons of owners of lands of 

 400 annual value, and, in the absence of their 

 constituents, of the factors of owners of 800 a 

 year, together with the sheriff and sheriff-substitute 

 and certain representatives of the burghs within 

 the county. It was by them that the general 

 business of tin 1 county used to lie conducted ; they 

 executed the statute- regulating its administra- 

 tion and finance ; under the County General Assess- 

 ment Act of 1868 they raised by rate the money 

 necessary to meet the general expenditure of the 

 county ; they prepared annually a valuation roll of 

 all lands and heritages within the county; they 

 appointed the county ollicials ; anil in each county, 

 with the exception of Orkney ami Shetland, they 

 maintained a force of jMilire. My the Local Govern- 

 ment (Scotland) Act, 1889, all these powers and 

 duties were transferred to and vested in the 

 County Council. Under the Act of 1889 the Com- 

 missioners of Supply still meet annually in May 

 on the same day as the County Council. They 

 transact no business, however, other than elect- 

 ing a convener and concurring with the County 

 Council in the appointment of a standing joint 

 committee which superintends the police aim the 

 capital expenditure of the county. For a parlia- 

 mentary Committee of Supply, see PARLIAMENT, 

 Vol. VII. p. 774. 



Supporters. See HKRALDRY, Vol. V. p. 067. 



Suppuration is a morbid process which gives 

 rise to the formation of Pus (q.v. ), which, as is 

 well known, is one of the commonest products of 

 inflammation. The fluid portion of pus is agreed by 

 all to be derived mainly from the liquor sanguinis ; 

 but with regard to the origin of the pus-corpuscles 

 there has been a singular fluctuation of opinion. 

 Before 1850 it was generally held that they 

 developed in the lluid exudation of an inflamma- 

 tion by aggregation or growth of granules con- 

 tained in it. This doctrine was replaced by that 

 of Virchow ( 1858), who believed that they resulted 

 from rapid multiplication of t he cells of the irritated 

 ii--ue. In 1867 Cohnlieini. repeal ing accurate but j 

 neglected observations made in England more than ! 

 twenty years before, showed that during Inflamma- 

 tion (q.v.) white I, loud corpuscles escape from the 

 capillaries, and make their way through the tissues ; 

 and he maintained that these, and not fixed tissue- 

 cells, give origin t<> pus corpuscles. At present 

 'oh n he i m's view is generally regarded as the true 

 explanation in the majority of instances; but it is 

 maintained by gome pathologist* that at least in 

 some cases many of the corpuscles arise from multi- 

 plication and alteration of the cells of the inflamed 

 t i"iie, an opinion which has not yet been altogether 

 disproved. 



With regard to the causes which lead to suppura- 

 tion there has been almost as great a change of 

 current opinion during the same period. It used 

 to ! regarded as the natural result of any kind of 

 severe irritation, and a necessary incident in the 

 healing of the great majority of wounds. But when 

 Lister demonstrated the possibility of preventing 

 it in many cases by Antiseptic (q.v.; methods, and 



when micrococci were found in the pus of many 

 abscesses, even where there had been no visilifc 

 breach of surface, it became clear that microHcopio 

 organisms play an important part in the process. 

 The experiments of some ohserveis indeed led them 

 to conclude Unit though some of the results of 

 inflammation may l>e manifested, suppuration 

 cannot take plaee without their piesence and 

 activity. It has l>een shown, however, (l)that 

 dead micro-organisms can excite suppuration 

 that a fluid in which they have grown, even when 

 completely freed from solid particles, can d. 

 - i.e. that their influence dejiends at least in part 

 not on the organisms themselves, Imt on chemical 

 products of their growth ; (3) that certain chemical 

 irritants (e.g. mercury, turpentine, croton-oil) 

 experimentally introduced into the tissues of 

 animals with the most complete antiseptic pre- 

 cautions do lead to suppuration. Such conditions, 

 however, can hardly occur except as the result of 

 a carefully planned experiment ; and in cases 

 coming under the care of the surgeon it ma\ ! 

 assumed that where suppuration is present 'it is 

 dne to micro-organisms. 



Suppuration must thus l>e regarded as one 

 i phase of that effort of the organism to resist the 

 causes of disease which takes so prominent a place 

 in pathology at the present day. But though 

 es-cntiallv a defensive process, it very frequently 

 becomes harmful, and leads to serious results. If 

 suppuration takes place beneath a surface which 

 does not participate in the morbid change, or 

 which is capable of resisting it for a time, an 

 abscess is formed ; when pus-cells are poured forth 

 from an exposed surface we have an 



KIT some of the controverted points discussed above, 

 see Leber, On the Origin of Inflammation, &c. (Leip. 

 1>:M i. and Metschmkoff, On the Comparative Pathology 

 of Inflammation (Paris, 1892). 



Supralapsarian. See PREDESTINATION. 



Supra-renal Capsules, two small, flattened, 

 glandular Unite- of a yellowish colour, situated, as 

 their name implies, immediately in front of tin- 

 upper end of each Kidney (q.v.). In weight they 

 vary from one to two drachms. They belong to 

 the class of ductless glands, and on making a per- 

 jiendicular section each gland is seen (like the 

 kidney) to consist of cortical and medullary suli- 

 stance, surrounded by a librous investment which 

 is intimately connected with the subjacent struc- 

 ture, and is continuous with the fibrous stroma 

 which pervades the organ. In the cortical portion 

 the cells are arranged in rows or columns, and are 

 polyhedral in shape, while in the medullary pott ion 

 the stroma forms a network, in the meshes ot which 

 groups of cells of more irregular outline are found. 

 The blood-vessels and nerves of the glands are 

 exceedingly numerous. Their function is extremely 

 obscure, and with regard to it nothing is positively 

 known. In 18. r >.">, however, Dr Thomas Addison 

 showed that a rare form of disea-e. characterised 

 by progressive debility and emaciation, with in- 

 creased pigmentation of the skin (known as Ailili- 

 son's Jhxi-n.tr, or Bronzed Skin), is associated with 

 di-case of these organs. It has since been proved 

 that only one particular form of degeneration leads 

 to this result ; cancer, sarcoma, &c. have no similar 

 consequence. 



Supremacy, ROYAL. The term supremacy 

 is, in politics, chiefly used with regard to authority 

 in matters ecclesiastical. From the time of Pope 

 i :d.L-ius (494 A.D.) to the Reformation the pope 

 exercised a very extensive authority, judicial, legis- 

 lative, and executive, over all the churches of 

 western Europe, somewhat undefined in its limit-. 

 varying in different countries and at different 

 periods ; and this continues to be more or less 



