

SUTUtl-:. 



SWAN. 





and custom of Hindu castes, oompUed by Arthur Steele, tad priuted at 

 Bombay by order of the governor in 1827, the most virtuous mode of 

 becoming a suttee M to die of affliction and grief on Uie hiuband'* 

 death. The uiual practice, indeed, is self-immolation on the husband's 

 funeral pile ; but the many cases under which a widow is excused 

 becoming a suttee, strongly support the supposition that none of the 

 Hindu law-books imperatively command it The success which has 

 attended the attempts of the British government to abolish the suttee, 

 is a sufficient proof that the native* themselves were not so averse to 

 its suppression as had been expected. In 1826 the government 

 declared the burning of a widow without the body of the deceased 

 (a**waratta), and under various other specified circumstances, illegal ; 

 and all persona, whether relations or others, aiding or abetting in such 

 an act, either before or after the death of the husband, were to be 

 committed for trial at the circuit courts, and were made liable to the 

 punishments for murder and homicide. It was, however, not until 

 1829 that a regulation was paused, on the 14th December, by the 

 governor-general. Lord W. Bentinck, in council, declaring the practice 

 of suttee, or of burning or burying alive the widows of Hindus, with 

 or without the body of the deceased (anumaratta or faJtamarana}. to 

 be illegal and punishable by the criminal courts. The practice is still 

 retained in some of the independent governments of India, but is much 

 less prevalent since its abolition in the English territories. 



The mode of burning was the same throughout India, varying only 

 according to the rank of the deceased or the province where it was per- 

 formed. The account* of all Eastern travellers abound with instances 

 of suttees : it will be sufficient here to give a short sketch of the cere- 

 mony. The husband is directed by the physician, when there are no 

 hopes of his recovery, to be carried to the river side, and the wife then 

 breaks a small branch from the mango-tree, takes it with her, and 

 proceeds to the body, where she sits down. The barber paints the 

 sides of her feet red, after which she bathes, and puts on new clothes. 

 During these preparations the drum beats a certain sound, by which it 

 is known that a widow is about to be burnt with the corpse of her 

 husband. On hearing this, all the village assembles. The son, or, if 

 there be no son, a relation, or the head man of the village, provides 

 the articles necessary for the ceremony. A hole is dug in the ground, 

 round which stakes are driven into the earth, and thick green stakes 

 hud across to form a kind of bed, upon which are laid abundance of 

 dry faggots, hemp, clarified butter, and other combustibles. The 

 widow now presents her ornaments to her friends, ties some red cotton 

 on both wrists, puts two new combs in her hair, paint* her forehead, 

 and puts some parched rice and cowries into the end of the cloth which 

 she wears. While this is going forward, the dead body is anointed 

 with clarified butter and bathed, prayers are repeated over it, and it is 

 dressed in new clothes. Ropes and another piece of cloth are spread 

 upon the pile. The widow walks seven times round the funeral pile, 

 rtrewing parched rice and cowries, and then she ascends the pile, or 

 rather throws herself upon it. 



(Ward's /Iindo->s, ii. 90 ; Elphinstone, Hitury of India, ; Parlia- 

 mentary Papert an Suttee; Sir John Malcolm's Memoir of Central 

 India.) 



SUTURE, in Surgery, is the method of sewing together the edges 

 of wounds ; and the term is also applied to the threads with which the 

 operation is effected. 



The only wounds in which the application of sutures can be bene- 

 ficial are those of which the edges, if held together, are likely to unite. 

 They are therefore improper in all contused wounds, in the majority 

 of laceration*, and in those wounds which extend so deep that, thougt 

 the superficial parts might be brought together, the deep ones would 

 remain open. But in cleanly-cut wounds, whose edges can be placed 

 and kept in contact without any painful stretching of the parts adjacent 

 to them, sutures are, if applied with proper cautions, by far the most 

 convenient and secure method of obtaining a speedy reunion. 



The necessary cautions are, that they should not be allowed to 

 remain in the wound till they excite acute inflammation, and that if 

 from any cause the wound become inflamed, they should be at once 

 removed. In general, thirty-six hours are sufficient for a wounc 

 through the skin and the superficial parts to unite so far that it does 

 not need sutures to keep its edges in contact. After this time, there 

 fore, the sutures should be removed ; and in cases of deeper wounds 

 and of amputations, it will not be necessary to retain them more than 

 twenty-four hours longer. 



The several kinds of suture employed in surgery are named the 

 interrupted, the uninterrupted, and the twisted. In the first, the 

 edges of the wound, having been duly cleaned, are brought together 

 by several single stitches placed an inch or more part. A thrcade< 

 curved needle is passed through the skin from one side of the wounc 

 to the other, so as to include about one-third of an inch of health] 

 skin on each side of It, and then, the needle being cut off, the two ends 

 of the thread are tied pretty firmly in a double knot over the line o 

 the wound. This is repeated as many times as the length of the 

 wound requires, and the spaces between the successive sutures, where 

 the edges of the wound usually gape a little, may be held together by 

 ticking-plaster. The latter alone will suffice when the sutures are 

 removed. 



In the uninterrupted or glover's suture, a single thread is carried 

 alternately from one side to the other along the whole length of thi 



wound, the needle being in each stitch passed from the border of the 

 wound towards the adjacent healthy skin. There-ore only two kinds 

 of cases in which this mode of suture can be usefully employed, 

 namely first, in certain wounds of -h and intestine-!., wlu-n 



.hose organs are to be returned into the abdomen, and it is of the 



lighest importance that every part of the opening into them should bo 

 closed, so that their contents may not escape; and secondly, in ordinary 

 cute of the palm of the hand or the fingers, where, the cuticle being 

 thick, the uninterrupted suture may be made without pain. 



The twisted suture is employed for wounds in th..-.- 

 skin which are very loose, and in which it is desirable to obtain a very 

 exact union by the first intention, such as the lips, the eye lid.-, the 

 cheeks, *c. Instead of threads, one or more pins are passed across i in- 

 wound ami through the adjacent skin; and the edges of the former 



Ming brought together, are retained in their oils of silk 



wound like the figure 8 upon the projecting ends of the pis 



the mode of suture commonly employed after the operation for hare-lip. 



"HARE-LlI'.] 



With all kinds of sutures it is of the highest importance that the 

 dressings over them should be very light and cool. It is probably 

 owing to the neglect of this caution, and of that already given respect- 

 ing the time during which they should be retained, that some surgeons 

 have been led to regard sutures as more mischievous than beuelk-ial, 

 ascribing to them the injuries produced by the injudicious management 

 of other parts of the treatment. 



SWAN. In England the swan is said to be a bird royal, in which 

 when at large in a public river or creek, no subject can have property, 

 except by grant from the crown. In creating this privilege the eiown 

 grants a swan-mark (cygninota), for a game of swans, called in Uw Latin 

 deductus (a pastime, un ddduit) cygnorum, sometimes volatus cygii 

 (7 Coke's 'Rep.,' 17.) In the reign of Elizabeth, upwards of 900 

 corporations and individuals had their distinct swan-inarks, some of 

 which may be seen in Yarrell's 'British Birds,' vol. in'., 121, &c. 



Sometimes, though rarely, the crown, instead of granting a .^wan- 

 mark, confers the still greater privilege of enjoying the prerogative 

 right (within a certain district) of seizing white swans not m 

 Thus the abbot of Abbotsbury in Dorsetshire had a game oi wild 

 swans in the estuary formed by the Isle of Portland and the Chesil 

 Bank. The swannery at Abbotsbury is the largest in the kingdom ; 

 though formerly considerably more extensive, it still numbers many 

 hundreds of these birds. It is now vested in the earl of Ilchester, to 

 whose ancestor it was granted on the dissolution of the monasteries. 

 (7 Co. ' Rep.,' 17 ; Hutchins, ' Dorset,' i. 538.) 



The privilege of having a swan-mark, or game of swans, is a free- 

 hold of inheritance, and may be granted over. But by 22 Edw. IV., 

 c. 6, no person, other than the king's sons, shall have a swan-mark, or 

 game of swans, unless he have freehold lands or tenements of the clear 

 yearly value of five marks (SI. 6. 8rf.), on pain of forfeiture of the 

 swans, one moiety to the king, and the other to any qualified person 

 who makes the seizure. In the first year of Richard III. the inhabi- 

 tants of Crowland in Lincolnshire were exempted from the operation 

 of this act upon their petition setting forth that their town stood " all 

 in marsh and fen," and that they had great games of swans, " by 

 which the greatest part of their relief and living had been sustained." 

 (6 ' Rot. Parl.,' 260.) 



Two of the London Companies have games of swans, the Dyers' and 

 the Vintners' Company, and are, with the crown, the principal < < 

 of swans in the Thames. The swan-mark of the Dyers' Company is a 

 notch, called a " nick," on one side of the beak. The swans of the 

 Vintners' Company, being notched or nicked on each side of the bc.-ik, 

 are called " swans with two nicks," whence by corruption the 1 ci-m 

 which has been long used as a sign by one of the large inns in London, 

 " swan with two necks." 



On the first Monday in August in every year the swan-markers of 

 the crown and the two Companies of the city of London used to go up 

 the river for the purpose of inspecting and taking an account of the 

 swans belonging to then- respective employers, and marking the young 

 birds. In ancient documents this annual expedition is called swan- 

 iipplny, and the persons employed are denominated swan-i'/v"''- s - 

 These are still the designations used amongst the initiated, il 

 popularly corrupted into swan-Aopptai and swan-Ao/>p's. 



The king had formerly a swanherd (magister deductus cygnorum, 

 ' Rot. Parl./ 16 R. II. ; 4 ' Inst.' 280) not only on the Thames (6 ' Rot. 

 Parl.,' 1 H. VII., fo. 8591, but in several other parts of the kingdom 

 ('Abb. Rot. Original.,' 260 b; ' Cal. Rot. Pat.,' 174 a). 



Stealing swans marked and pinioned, or unmarked, if kept in a 

 pond, or private river, and reduced to tameness, is felony. (Hale, 

 ' Pleas of the Crown,' 68.) Stealing swans not BO marked or so kept, 

 or so pursued, is merely a trespass or misdemeanor. (Dalton'x 

 ' Justice,' c. 156.) 



Under the 11 Henry VII., c. 17, stealing the eggs of swans out of 

 their nests was punished by imprisonment for a year, and a line at the 

 king's pleasure. But this enactment was superseded by the 1 Jac. I., 

 c. 27, 2, which declares that every person taking eggs of swans out of 

 their nests, or wilfully breaking or spoiling them, may upon conviction 

 before two justices be committed to jail for three months, unless he 

 pay to the churchwardens for the use of the poor 20s. for every egg ; 

 or, after one month of hU commitment, become bound, with two 



