I : 



NEURITIS. 



NE\\ 



, and, after the cuticle has been removed, the sprinkling over 

 th<- .'.-nudcd surface a quarter or half a grain of the aoeUte or hydro- 

 chlorate of morphia. Moxas and issues have also been tried with 

 niece**. [Issue; MOXA.] 



After .ill other remedies, both internal and external, have foiled, tin- 

 patient's lat resource is the operation either of dividing the nerve or 

 removing the limb ; and even this will very often fail also. When the 

 ilisnann depend* on some local irritation, or reside* in the extremity of 

 the uerve, the operation i* frequently successful : but when it proceeds 

 from constitutional causes, or exists either in the brain itself or nearer 

 to it than the point where the nerve can be divided, in this case it is 

 manifest that, as no benefit can reasonably be expected from the ope- 

 ration, the experiment ought never to be tried but at the earnest 

 request of the patient. Sometimes the nerve is simply divided ; hut 

 in these cases the pain very often returns as soon as the two extremities 

 are re united. Sometimes a portion of the nerve in removed ; but even 

 this appears only to obtain for the patient rather a longer respite. 

 Latterly, after part of the nerve has been cut away, tho two ends have 

 been touched cither with nitrate of silver or the actual cautery, ami in 

 some instances this phn appears to have succeeded where the simple 

 section of the nerve had failed. 



(Cooper's Dictionary of Practical Sutytry; Good's Study of Mrdirinf ; 

 Dr. KllioUou, in the Cyrlopadia of Practical Medicine ; Franck, 

 Pnureot ifrdinc l'nirerm Praccpta, t. iv. ; M. Jolly. JHctiunnaire de 

 e tt de Cliirurgie Practi'/uet, t. xii. ; Sir Benjamin Brodie, On 

 Local Xcrroiu Afeeti'mt, 8vo, Lond., 1837 ; Dr. Rowland, Treatise OH 

 Neuralgia, 8vo, Lond., 1838; Watson, Lecture* on the Pra 

 Pkync. ; Romberg, On Daeae* of tlte Nerroui System; Inman, On 

 fy.inul /rritatiiin ) 



NKriUTIS. fNEVRALGIA.] 



NKfTER. [(ii.xi.KH.] 



NEITIiAL AXIS. The neutral axis of a loaded body is an imagi- 

 nary line, sejiarating those portions of the body which are exposed to 

 the action of opposite forces ; as for instance, in the cases of girders, 

 or occasionally of columns, there are some laminic which are exposed 

 to compression, nnd others which ore exposed to become extended, 

 whilst there are lamina; about which those forces of compression and 

 extension are balanced in such a manner as to leave them in a neutral 

 state, so long as the conditions of elasticity of the affected portions are 

 not permanently injured. It had long been known, and has recently 

 been proved by the investigations of Mr. E. Hodgkinson, that every 

 body, or substance, used in the mechanical operations of building, or 

 of machinery, has its own peculiar laws of elasticity ; and it therefore 

 follows that the position of the neutral axis in any of them must vary 

 in an almost endless variety of manners, according to the shape of the 

 particular body experimented upon, or to its physical properties. Thus 

 wood has been ascertained to resist efforts of compression in nearly 

 the same manner that it resists efforts of extension ; whereas, eist 

 iron resists the former class of efforts with a far greater degree of 

 energy than it does the latter class; and wrought iron, again, is known 

 to compress under smaller efforts than are requ red to extend it. 

 Under tbnse circumstances, the position of the neutral axis would vary 

 in beams of either of those materials, if the same form of section be 

 employed ; or, in case it should be required to cause the neutral axis 

 to pasi through the same points, it would be necessary to change the 

 form of the body, co as to bring into play the peculiar elastic pro- 

 pertied it may posses* in such a manner as to allow the sum of the 

 refinanced to contraction and expansion to balance one another on 

 either side of the line of the immovable fibres. In rectangular beams 

 of materials of an equal degree of elasticity under any description of 

 effort, that is to say, under efforts either of compression or of exten- 

 sion, the neutral axis will be found to pass through the centre of 

 gravity of the loaded beam ; and in all cases the ratio of the moments 

 of the material undergoing compression and extension about the neutral 

 axis must be made equal to the ratio of the forces of extension and 

 compression to secure stability. [RESISTANCE.] 



NKUTHAI, SALTS. [SALTS.] 



NEUTRALISATION. In chemistry the operation of adding an 

 acid to an alkaline solution, or vice versa, an alkali to an .-ii-i.l liquid, 

 until the Utter neither reddens Hue litmus paper nor browns turmeric 

 paper. Such a liquid is then said to be neutral or to possess a neutral 

 re-art 



NKKTRIA. [KCRRIFRT.1 



XKW TESTAMENT. [TESTAMENT, OLD AND NEW.] 

 NEW YKAIIS DAY. Of the customs formerly practised at the 

 opening of the new-year, none appear to have been so universal as 

 (easting and sending presents, both of which the moderns appear to 

 have derived from the Roman*. Suetonius ('August.' 57, edit. Y.ni..r.. 

 8vo. 1647) alludes to the practice among the Romans of bringing 

 presents to the Capitol on new-year's-day, whether the emperor was 

 present or absent ; and Tacitus speaks of an order of Tiberius, foi Lid- 

 ding the giving or demanding of new-year's-gifU Unless it were on the 

 caJends of January. The early fathers of the church condemned tlii- 

 practice as superstitious, because the gifts were considered a 

 of success for the ensuing year. 



New-year's day with us, like many others, in modem times, has lost 

 much of the ceremonial* of its observance. In a vol.une of ' Miscel- 

 lanies/ printed in Queen Anne's time, we read, " January. On tin 



first day of this month will be given many more gifts than will be 

 kindly received or gratefully rewarded. Children, to their inexpres- 

 sible joy, will be drest up in their bet bibs and aprons, and may be 

 seen handed along streets, some bearing Kentish ] ppiiis, others 

 oranges stuck with cloves, in order to gain a blessing of their god- 

 fathers and godmothers." 



Gifts at new-year's-tide formed a charge of no small amount in the 

 privy-purse expenses of royalty, from very early times to the time of 

 Charles II. ; they were mostly made in plate. 



Moresin, who published his ' Papatus ' in the time of James I., tells 

 that in Scotland it wan then the custom to tend new-year's-gifts on 

 new-year's-eve ; nnd on new-year's-day they wished each other a happy 

 day, and ail-tit a new-year's-gift. When Brand wrote his ' Popular 

 Anti'iuitie--.' it was still usual in Northumberland for perrons to 

 ask for a new-year's-gift on that day. The practice of " first-fo. 



'and, is now dying out before the advance of temperance and 

 education. 



In France the custom of giving new-year's-gifts is still kept 

 such an extent as to make a vast addition to the business of tin 

 towns in the articles usually selected for presi 



The modern Jews, on the first day of the month Tiari, which may 

 be considered as their new-year's-day, usually have a splendid 

 tainment, and wish each other a happy new year. 



Hospinian says, that at Rome on new-year's-day (he speaks of 

 modern practices) no one would suffer a neighbour to take fire out of 

 his house, or anything of iron, or lend anything. (Brand'* ' Popular 

 Antiq.') 



New-year's-eve was celebrated by hospitality and drinking, 

 the old year out and the new-year in ; the church bells were rung as 

 the clock struck twelve. But these customs are disappearing like the. 

 others, although as yet the bell ringing is by no uie.ui 

 midnight mass is now, wo believe, held in most Roman Catholic 

 places of worship in England ; and a midnight sen-ice in many 

 churches of the Establishment. Religious services, termed a " watch 

 night," are also commonly conducted on New Year's eve, closing at a 

 few minutes past twelve, in Wesleyan Methodist chapels, and by many 

 Dissenters. 



NEWSPAPERS. Some persons are of opinion that the origin of 

 newspapers may be traced to the ' Acta Diurna ' of the It 

 [ACTA DIURNA.] However this may be, it was not till tin' 

 cent my that anything at all approaching to the nature of tl.> 

 Diurua* existed in modern times. The war which the repu' 

 Venice waged against the Turks in Dalmatia gave rise, in 1563. to the 

 custom in Venice of communicating military and commer< 

 written sheets, which were read in a particular place to those desirous 

 to hear them, and who paid for this privilege in a coin no longer in 

 use, called ijaizetta, a name which, by degrees, was transferred to tho 

 newspaper itself in Italy and France, and passed over in 

 The Venetian government eventually gave these announcements in a 

 regular manner once a month ; but they were too jealous to allow 

 them to be printed. Only a few written copies were transmitted to 

 various places, and read to those who paid to hear. Many volumes of 

 these manuscript newspapers exist in the Uagliabecchiau library at 

 Florence. 



For some time it was supposed that English newspapers were first 

 established in tins reign of Elizabeth, founded on the existence of three 

 papers, numbered 50, 51, and 54, preserved in Dr. Birch's ' Historical 

 Collections' in the British Museum, and imagined to belong to a 

 series. But they were suspected not to be genuine. The sn- 

 was well founded. In 1839 Mr. Thomas Watts, one of th, Hi , 

 of the British Museum, published a ' Letter to Antonio p,mi/./i. 

 in which he proved incontrovertiLly that they were forgeries, ami that 

 the forgery was perpetrated about 1766. The three numbers, whieh 

 are marked as 50, 51, and 54, purporting them to be part of a series, 

 contain seven articles, three of which ore in print and four in maim 

 script. The type is of the date of 1706, but an old style o 

 affected, while in the manuscript the spelling is modern, with an 

 of corrections in a different hand-writing; and the manuscript is written 

 on a paper with tho water-mark of the royal arms and initials of " 

 In 1850 Mr. Watts made public the result of his further invostijj 

 which showed that the manuscript was in the hand-writing of 1'liilip 

 Yorke, the second earl of Hardwicke, and a few of the corrections m 

 that of Dr. Birch. Mr. Watts also proved that the claim 

 for the earliest newspaper, the 'Gazette of Paris,' in 1631, ai 

 unfounded, and that the earliest specimen of this branch of literature 

 belongs " to Italy or to Germany." The el i.my is strongest : 



at Augsburg and Vienna printed sheets containing news were published 

 as early as 1524. 



In the reign of .Ian, ts of news were published in the 



"f small quarto pamphlets occasionally. The earliest we have 

 met with, preserved in the second volume of the series of new.- ] 



"d with Dr. Burncy's library (also in the British Museum), is 

 entitled ' News out of Holland,' pin h lid in 1619 for > 



' 



followed by other papers of news from dill'ercnt countries in 

 l';21,and 1'iJ'J. There can lie no doubt of the genuineness of these. 

 In 1622, when the Thirty Year.-' War and the exploits of Gustavus 

 Adolphus excited curiosity, these occasional pamphlets were converted 

 into a regular weekly publication, entitled ' The News of tho Present 



