71 





TAHI.F. 



ingathering." It was celebrated in the autumn, at the conclusion of 

 the vintage, and lasted eight days, namely, from the 15th to the 23rd 

 of the seventh month (Tisri, which corresponds to October). The 

 first and last days were holy convocations, in which no work might be 

 done, and the last was the greatest day of all the feast (John vii. 27). 

 In the opinion of many biblical antiquarians, the feast of tabernacles 

 properly lasted only for seven days, the eighth being peculiarly " the 

 least of ingathering." (Nehem. viii. 18.) 



This feast lasted longer than either of the other great feasts ; it was 

 kept with greater demonstrations of joy, and more sacrifices were 

 offered during its continuance. (Levit. xxix. 12-33.) 



During the feast the people dwelt in booths, which were made on 

 the tops of their houses (Nehein. viii. 16). These booths were made 

 of the leafy branches of certain trees, which are mentioned in Levit., 

 xxiii. 40, and include the citron, the palm, the myrtle, and the willow, 

 though in Nehem., viii. 15, the olive and the pine are also mentioned. 

 These booths were meant to represent the tents in which the Israelites 

 dwelt in the wilderness. In the sabbatical year, the law was read in 

 the presence of all the people at this feast. (Deut. zxzi. 10-13; 

 Nehem. viii.) 



Like many others of the institutions of the Mosaic law, the feast of 

 tabernacles was neglected during the period from the settlement of 

 Israel in Palestine to the Captivity. It was revived in the time of 

 Ezra and Nehemiah. (Nehem. viii.) 



Plutarch (Sympos. iv. 6) gives an account of the feast of taber- 

 nacles, which he supposed to be in honour of Bacchus. 



The later Jewa have added other ceremonies to those which are 

 assigned to this feast in the law. 1. They carry a citron in the left 

 hand, and a bundle of branches, namely, one of the palm-tree and two 

 of the willow and myrtle, in the right, with which they walk in pro- 

 cession round the reading-desks in the synagogues, singing Hosannahs. 

 This ceremony, which is repeated seven times on the seventh day, is 

 aid to be in commemoration of the taking of Jericho by such a 

 repeated procession round its walls. (Joshua vi.) 2. On each of the 

 seven days of the feast they pour out a libation of water. They assert 

 that this was done anciently before the altar at Jerusalem, with water 

 brought from Siloa. 3. They assert that lights were burnt in the 

 court of the women on the first evening of the feast. These lights 

 were in large golden candlesticks, anJ their brightness was visible 

 over all the city. 



TABES. This word belongs to a period in the history of medicine, 

 when nosologista were less informed than they now are of the true 

 nature of many diseases ; and, instead of classifying these according to 

 their essential characters in reference to the single standard of healthy 

 function, selected and arranged such signs and appearances only as 

 were sensibly manifest to the observer, or were described by the patient. 

 The nomenclature founded on this arrangement consisted in naming 

 by uninterpreted symptoms : it involved many breaches of natural 

 affinity, and gave great opportunity for empirical practice. Thus a 

 cough, a dropsy, a palpitation of the heart, would be spoken of as indi- 

 vidual diseases ; whereas they may on the one hand be joint symptoms 

 of a single malady (as imperfect valvular action of the heart) ; or, on 

 the other hand, taken singly, each would be but a sign, common to 

 many disorders, which might have no other feature of resemblance, 

 and might require even opposite treatment. Such a name is " tabes," 

 and under it are isolated certain symptoms, afforded by the nutritive 

 functions in various conditions of un health : the acceptation of the 

 word being a " cachexia (or state of chronic ill-health) attended by 

 emaciation ; " in which sense it is synonymous with the words 

 " atrophy " and " marasmus." 



TABES MESENTEKICA. This name is applied to a particular 

 slowly-disorganising affection of the mesenteric glands, and expresses 

 the marked emaciation which attends the disease. It is through the 

 mesenteric glands that the nutritive products of digestion are trans- 

 mitted in their course to the great current of the circulation ; and any 

 disorder which destroys or obstructs these organs must, in proportion 

 to iU intensity, affect their function, and derange the process by which 

 healthy materials of renovation should constantly be commingled with 

 the blood. Hence in part arises the loss of flesh in this form of tabes ; 

 but the direct hindrance of nutrition which the disease involves is not 

 the sole, though an important cause of the symptom ; for the gen eral 

 ill-health, of which tabes mesenterica is but a part, and other co-existing 

 complaints, usually co-operate in producing it. 



The disease is one among many manifestations of scrofula ; and is 

 essentially the same to the glands of the mesentery as those obstinate 

 glandular enlargements of the neck, with which the eye is more 

 familiar, are to their region of the body. From difference of position 

 and of relations it includes other symptoms and graver consequences 

 than theirs; but it originates hi the gam>- constitutional tendencies, 

 and follows the same general progress. It belongs, like other forms 

 of scrofula, to early life; the ordinary period of its invasion being 

 from the second to the twelfth year. In the Hopital des Knt'ans, 

 of Paris, children ar received from a year after birth till the com- 

 fiction i.f Hixteen year* of age; and M. Guersent, the physician <>i 

 thi* institution, states that the disease exists among those admitted in 

 th. proportion of 7 or 8 to 100; and that it is more frequent among 

 female children than among males. 



The morbid appearance* on dissection of fatal cases are, a more or 



less complete transformation of the glands into tubercular masses, 

 with various consequent or coincident diseases of the adjoining organs. 

 The glands appear at the commencement of the complaint to lie tin- 

 seat of a feeble inflammatory action, under which they merely swell 

 and become pretematurally reddened with blood ; but this stage of 

 simple congestion soon induces a further change, in which the charac- 

 teristic product of scrofulous inflammations becomes deposited in the 

 tissue of the gland. The dull white granular tubercles, by which tlie 

 infiltration commences, are gradually multiplied in number or increased 

 in volume ; and, in like proportion, the glandular substance itself is 

 absorbed to make room for the encroaching disease, till at length a 

 rounded tubercular mass results, varying for each tumour from the 

 size of a marble to that of an egg. In a still more advanced condition 

 of the disease suppuration frequently occurs in these tumours, and 

 they are then seen to contain the cheese-like matter of softened 

 tubercle mixed with pus. The abscess so formed excites irritation in 

 its neighbourhood ; the folds of peritoneum covering it become glued 

 together, and its progress occasionally extends to discharging itself 

 into the nearest intestine, or through the external integument of the 

 abdomen. A certain amount of inflammation of the peritoneum, with 

 adhesions and effusion of serum (ascitcs), attends these latter stages ; 

 and some inflammation and ulceration of the mucous membrane of the 

 intestines are likewise frequently found. 



For a particular account of its causes the reader may refer to those 

 of ScuoFi'LA. Original weakness of constitution, shown in general 

 susceptibility to the impressions of disease, in slowness and insufficiency 

 of reactive and reparative power, is the groundwork of these, and n in- 

 stitutes the main peculiarity of the so-called scrofulous diathesis. But 

 this weakness may, where inborn, be aggravated, or, where naturally 

 absent, be artificially produced by a variety of depressing 

 insufficient or unhealthy food, by neglect of cleanliness and e> 

 and clothing, by residence or constant occupation in ill-ventilated 

 buildings, by exposure to cold and damp : all of them influences to 

 which the young of the poor in crowded towns are exposed, and with 

 which too frequently an inherited predisposition powerfully co-O] 

 Derangement of the bowels must be considered the most 1Y 

 special cause of this particular form of scrofula; the irritations, inflam- 

 mations, and ulcerations of their mucous surface (of which such full 

 evidence is given in the state of the tongue and excretions, and in the 

 tympanitic abdomen) excite corresponding conditions in the absoi In nt 

 glands connected with them (precisely as a lesion of the hand irritates 

 the glands of the axilla), and the inflammation so beginning takes a 

 course determined by the peculiar constitution of its subject. 



As regards symptoms, it may be observed that in its earliest stages 

 the disease has no signs by which it maybe certainly distinguished; 

 that it is not till the glands are so enlarged as to become sensible ex- 

 ternally that their att'ection can be positively declared. The early 

 symptoms are those of the intestinal disorder or irritation, which is 

 acting as a cause of the disease : capricious appetite, irregular and 

 unhealthy stools, flatulence or occasional vomiting, loaded t 

 foul breath, harsh skin, sallow complexion, and loss of flesh, v 

 accelerated pulse, may have existed for some tune, before enlargement 

 of the abdomen attracts notice. It will then usually be found that 

 steady pressure on this part causes uneasiness or pain. As the L 

 of the glanular tumours continues, the signs of intestinal < 

 become more marked ; diarrhoea with mucous stools, increased 

 emaciation, frequent pulse, and evening accession of fever, marking this 

 stage, in which the tumid abdomen contrasts remarkably with the 

 wasted limbs and shrunken wan face of the patient. Finally, hectic 

 fever with exhaustive diarrhoea, or acute abdominal inflammation, or 

 the progress of the constitutional disease in other organs, or absolute 

 starvation (atrophia), terminates life. 



The treatment of tabes mesenterica must be in accordance with the 

 general rules for management of scrofula, and consists in that modified 

 tonic system, to which the name of "alterative "is given. [Sciiort I.A], 



TABLATURE, in Music, is the old mode of notation for instruments 

 of the lute kind. For this purpose six parallel lines were use. ! 

 representing a string, on which were placed letters referring to the 

 frets on the neck of the instrument. The time, or duration, of the 

 notes was marked by characters over the letters, answering to the 

 minim, crotchet, &c., and often, as by Mace, in his ' Mustek's Monu- 

 ment,' by the notes themselves. There were different systems of 

 Tablature; but the subject is not now worth the trouU' which a 

 knowledge of it would demand. 



TABLE.* By a table is meant a quantity of information arranged 

 under heads in such manner that by looking under one head tin' 

 general disposition of the whole points out where to look for the 

 matters of information connected with that head : the object being an 

 immediate power of reference to any one fact or result without the 

 necessity of looking at others. In any astronomical table, the matter by 

 which we enter the table to look for other matter is called 1 1 1 

 that which is found by means of the argument has no distinct name ; 

 we might call it the tabular result. It would be useful to gen 

 these terms. Thus in a table of contents, the number of tin i 



* Throughout this article all works which wo describe from actual inflection 

 liiivi- the dates unincloscd : all works which wo take from others li 

 dates ( ) in parentheses. 



