25 



TAKAXACIN. 



TARGTJMS. 



dom of Naples during the 16th century, and to have been nearly 

 similar in its characters to the disease which was originally called 

 St. Vitua's dance [CHOREA], and to that which has occasionally pre- 

 vailed in parts of Scotland, and has been called the " leaping ague." 



The patient*, nearly all of whom were women, soon after being 

 bitten (as it was supposed) used to fall into a profound stupor, from 

 which nothing roused them but the sound of such music as pleased 

 them, on hearing which they had an irresistible desire to dance. So 

 long as the music continued, and was in tune and sufficiently lively, 

 they would go on jumping and dancing till they fell exhausted ; and, 

 all the time, some used to shriek, some to laugh and sing, and some to 

 weep. When, after a short rest, they had recovered from their fatigue, 

 they would again begin to dance with as much vigour as before, unless 

 the music were played slowly or confusedly, when they would stop 

 and grow anxious and melancholy, or even, if the music were not soon 

 made agreeable to them, would fall into a dangerous state of stupor. 

 The disease used to last about four days, and seemed to be cured by 

 the profuse perspirations brought on by the active exercise ; but it 

 often returned at the same time in the following year, or even for a 

 succession of years, and on every occasion required the same treat- 

 ment. 



Since it has been found that the bite of the Tarantula can produce 

 no such strange effects as these, many have suspected that the disease 

 ascribed to it never really existed, but was feigned for the purpose of 

 exciting pity or for the pleasure of dancing. There is good reason to 

 believe that in most instances it was counterfeited : but there can be 

 no doubt that such a disease bad occurred and had given occasion to 

 the practice of the fraud. Besides its similarity to diseases whose 

 reality is generally admitted, such as the St. Vitus's dance and the 

 leaping-ague, cases have occasionally been met with in recent times 

 which closely resemble it, and in which there could be no just suspk-ii m 

 of fraud. Such a case is described by Mr. K. Wood, in the seventh 

 volume of the ' Medico-Chirurgical Transactions ; ' another is rec<>nl<-d 

 liy Mr. Crichton, in the thirty-first volume of the ' Edinburgh Medical 

 and Surgical Journal ; ' and in the ' Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine," 

 art. ' Chorea,' several cases of analogous affections are related. AU 

 these however occurred singly. That the Tarantismus and the St. 

 Vitus's dance should have assumed the characters of epidemics may be 

 ascribed to their propagating themselves, as all convulsive affections 

 are apt to do among nervous and superstitious persons, by the pro- 

 pensity to imitation, the effects of which are still frequently seen in 

 the production of hysteria, chorea, and similar diseases. 



TARAXACIX. Taxaracin. A bitter non-azotised crystalline 

 principle contained in the milky juice of the common dandelion. 

 (Leontodon Taraxacum.) 



TAKE. We hardly know whether all the words tare, tret, duff, 

 tattle, yross, net, are still used in commerce ; they all hold their places 

 in works of arithmetic. Tare is said to be the allowance for the weight 

 of the box or bag in which goods are packed ; tret, an allowance of 

 4 Ib. in 104 Ib. for waste ; doff, an allowance of 2 Ib. in 3 cwt., that the 

 weight may hold good when sold by retail ; the ijrim weight, that of 

 the goods and package all together ; the mlile weight, that which re- 

 mains when tare only is allowed ; the net weight, that which remains 

 when all allowances are made. We shall merely state what we know 

 of these words. 



Tare (written tarn in some of our older arithmetical works) is made 

 from the Italian iarare, to abate. In that language tara is a technical 

 term implying abatement of any kind, not for weight of package only. 

 We Iwlieve duff to have been the English word which originally stood 

 for the allowance for package : in our older arithmeticians, tare and 

 rli.ji',- L'I n-T.illy go together, and the latter seems to be for the package, 

 the former for other abatement*. CLoff or eloiigli is defined in an old 

 dictionary a* that wherein anything is pnt for carriage sake. Hum- 

 phrey Baker (15C2) speaks only of tare and cloffe; Masterson (1592), 

 i, cloffe, and tret, but the first two terms are used together. We 

 ' find cloff used in the sense given to it by our modern books of 

 arithmetic until about the end of the 17th century. 



Ti\t seems to be from the Italian tritare, to crumble. Stevinus, in 

 his Latin treatise on book-keeping, uses intertrimtntum in the sense of 

 deduction from the quantity charged for. Grots weight needs no ex- 

 planation ; tlie Italian form netto was formerly used for net weight. 

 It being well known that these terms generally come to us from the 

 Italian, we must suppose suttle to be from tottile, which is used in the 

 sense of fine and valuable, and is applied to the finer part, as separated 

 from the coarser. One of our old writers (Masterson, ' Arithmetike,' 

 1 ;>'.<-> uses suttle weight in a manner which makes us imagine we see 

 the origin of the It untlrcd weight being a hundred and twelve pounds. 

 Without any explanation, as if it were matter of notoriety, he con- 

 trasts mltlf. and arertl iipni* weight, the former having lOOlbs. to the 

 hundredweight, the latter 112 Ibs. In the rougher sort of goods, at 

 the same period, the tare was (as appears by the tables they give) very 

 often 12 Ibs. in 112 Ibs. : perhaps then the hundredweight of 112 Ibs. 

 was only an allowance for the weight of the box, barrel, or other 

 package. 



TAKES are a most important green crop in the improved systems 

 of agricTilture, especially on heavy soils, where they thrive best. When 

 sown in autumn, with a small sprinkling of wheat or rye, they cover 

 the ground in spring, and supply abundance of fodder in summer. A 



good crop of tares is fully equal in value to one of red clover : it comes 

 off the ground in sufficient time to give the land a summer tillage, 

 which is so useful in destroying weeds, and to allow turnips to be 

 sown in the same season. 



There are many species and varieties of tares ; but that which is 

 found the best adapted for agricultural purposes is the common tare 

 (Vicia sativa), of which there are two principal varieties, very slightly 

 differing in appearance, one of which is hardy, and will stand the 

 severest winters : the other is more tender, and is therefore only sown 

 in spring ; but it has the advantage of vegetating more rapidly, so that 

 spring tares sown in March will be fit to cut within a fortnight or three 

 weeks after those which were sown in autumn. By sowing them at 

 regular intervals from September to May, a succession of green tares 

 in perfection, that is, in bloom, or when the pods are forming, may be 

 cut for several months, from May to October. A prudent farmer 

 arranges his crops so that he shall have artificial green food for his 

 horses and cattle at least six months in the year, by having tares fit to 

 cut between the first and second cut of clover. When there are more 

 tares than is absolutely required for this purpose, and the weather 

 permits, they make excellent hay ; or, if the weather is not favourable, 

 they are cut and given to sheep, which are folded onthe portion 

 already cut. It is an advantage to have portable racks for this pur- 

 pose, that the fodder may not be trod under foot and wasted ; or the 

 tares may be placed between hurdles, tied two and two, which form 

 extemporaneous racks. It is prudent to raise sufficient seed for another 

 year ; but a crop of seed-tares raised for sale is seldom profitable, as 

 they greatly exhaust the soil : and the price varies so much in different 

 seasons, that it becomes too much of a speculation for a farmer. The 

 difference of spring and winter tares is probably more owing to habit 

 than to any real botanical distinction between them. When spring 

 tares are sown in autumn instead of winter tares, they may occasionally 

 stand the frost, if not very severe ; but, in general, they rot on the 

 ground and never recover ; whereas the real hardy winter tares, whose 

 vegetation is slower, seem insensible to the severest frosts. 



In the early part of summer green rye and tares, mixed, are sold at 

 a great price in large towns for horses which have worked hard and 

 been highly fed in winter. They act as a gentle laxative, and cool the 

 blood : near London, where every produce is forced with an abundance 

 of manure, tares are often fit to cut early in May, and the land is 

 immediately ploughed and planted with potatoes, or sown with mangel 

 wurzel or Swedish turnips, which come off in September or October, 

 in time for wheat-sowing. Thus two very profitable crops are raised 

 during the time that the land, according to the old system, would have 

 been fallow ; and at the same time it is left as clean, by careful hoeing, 

 as the best fallow would have made it. 



Tares should be sown on land which is well pulverised. If after 

 wheat, the stubble should be ploughed in with a deep furrow after a 

 powerful scarifier has gone over the land several times to loosen it : 

 five or six cart-loads of good farm-yard dung should be ploughed in. 

 The tares should be drilled or dibbled, and the surface well harrowed. 

 The intervals should be hoed early in spring : this will accelerate the 

 growth, and insure a complete covering of the ground. As soon as the 

 tares show the flower, they may be cut daily till the pods are fully 

 formed ; after this, any which remain uncut should be made into hay 

 or given to sheep ; for if the seeds are allowed to swell, the ground 

 will be much exhausted. Another piece should be ready to cut by 

 this time, and thus there may be a succession of tares and broad clover 

 from May to November. Tares may be sown as late as August, on a 

 barley or rye stubble, for shep-feed early in winter, or to be ploughed 

 in to rot in the ground, where beans or peas are intended to be sown 

 early in spring ; this is perhaps the cheapest mode of manuring the 

 land, the only expense being the seed ; for the tillage is necessary at 

 all events. 



TARGUMS, or CHALDEE PARAPHRASES OF THE OLD 

 TESTAMENT. During the Babylonish captivity, the language of the 

 Jews was affected by the Chaldee dialect spoken at Babylon, to such an 

 extent, that upon their return they could not understand the pure 

 Hebrew of their sacred books ; and therefore, when Ezra and the 

 Levites read the law to the people, they found themselves obliged to 

 add an explanation of it, undoubtedly in Chaldee. (Nehem. viii. 8.) 

 [HKIIUEW LANGUAGE ; ARAMAEAN LANGUAGE.] In course of time 

 such explanations were committed to writing, and from their being 

 not simple versions, but explanatory paraphrases, they were called by 

 the Chaldee word Targum, which signifies " an explanation." 



Thefe are ten Targums extant : 



1. The Targum of Onkelot, on the Pentateuch, is the most ancient. 

 Onkelos is supposed to have lived at Babylon. The Babylonish 

 Talmud makes him a contemporary of Gamaliel, at the very beginning 

 of the Christian era. No critics place him lower than the 2nd century. 

 His language approaches nearer than that of the other Targums to the 

 pure Chaldee of the books of Daniel and Ezra. He follows the 

 Hebrew text so closely, that his work is less a paraphrase than a 

 version, and he is free from the fables which prevailed among the 

 later Jews. 



2. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzzicl, on the Prophets, is by many 

 ascribed to an author contemporary with Onkelos, or even a little 

 older, namely, Jonathan the son of Uzziel, a disciple of the elder 

 Hillel. The mention of his name in the Talmuds proves him to have 



