315 



CUPEL ; CUPELLATION. 



CURARINE. 



34(5 





mentioned above, prepared by Sir Henry C. Rawlinson, are in this 

 character. 



The inscriptions of Van in Armenia, copied by Schultz, and pub- 

 lished by the Asiatic Society of Paris, have not yet been read. A fair 

 commencement was made by Dr. Hincks in the ninth volume of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, 1848. Dr. Hincks gave some strong 

 reasons for considering the language to be of the Indo-Germanic 

 family; but we are not aware that he has followed up his investi- 

 gations. 



The incriptions of Susa appear to be in a Turanian language ; but 

 they have not yet been seriously investigated, and, in fact, they are 

 too few to afford much scope to a decipherer. Several of the words 

 appear to be identical with those of the inscriptions of the second 

 class ; but the alphabet is on the whole more complex than that of the 

 Assyrian class. 



The language of the predecessors of the Assyrians, who appear to 

 have been named Accadi, will form a more serious study ; the consider- 

 able number of slabs in their language now in the British Museum, 

 and the continued influence of that language upon, or at least admix- 

 ture with, the Assyrian of all the monuments, will by-and-bye excite 

 more attention than it has yet met with. A small grammatical tablet, 

 on which the Accad forms are compared with the Assyrian, was copied 

 by Mons. Oppert, who has also published in Paris a valuable historical 

 sketch of the history of cuneiform decipherment. 



A few remarks may be allowed on the reality of cuneiform decipher- 

 ment, as doubts have often been expressed in relation to this reality. 

 It has been vehemently disputed by some persons of note, though we 

 are not aware of the grounds of their objections. We have heard of 

 two arguments only, and they are mutually destructive ; the one is 

 that no decipherment is trustworthy that does not concur with some 

 independent testimony ; the other that independent testimony renders 

 the result suspicious, because a decipherer would, even unconsciously, 

 suit his readings to such testimony : as in the case of the genealogy of 

 Darius, where the Behistun monument agrees with Herodotus. With 

 regard to the Persian inscriptions, written in a limited alphabet, with 

 words clearly separated, a denial of the possibility of decipherment 

 would be tantamount to denying that any writing in unknown characters 

 could ever be deciphered; a feat easily accomplished by a clever 

 schoolboy in his own tongue, while the circumstance that a decipherer 

 works upon a language not his own could do no more than make the 

 task difficult, provided that the language to be read was one that the 

 decipherer knew something of. It would puzzle a man to contrive a 

 false alphabet which would make sense of a short English inscription 

 of a dozen words only, and the credulity must be very ample indeed 

 that could swallow such a contrivance in the case of an inscription of 

 five hundred lines. There would be more reason to doubt of the reality 

 of Assyrian decipherments, because of the complicated mode of writing 

 iued, if we had not at our disposal a pretty long bilingual (in fact 

 trilingual ) inscription, in which one of the languages is Assyrian, and 

 another read partially at least. This inscription contains a large 

 number of names, and thus it gave us many letters of our new 

 alphabet. A reasonable objection brought forward to the reading 

 of these monuments lies in the alleged existence of polyphones, or 

 characters having several powers. No doubt some difficulty arose 

 from this, but it has been overrated ; we have something like it 

 in our own .- and </, which letters have two sounds each. But, strictly 

 speaking, we believe there are few, if any, polyphones ; each letter has 

 one sound, though some have several significations. An analogy with 

 this may be see in our letter x, which has one sound but several values. 

 Most Englishmen seeing Xber, Xtmas, Charing X, Charles X., will at 

 once read December, Christmas, Charing Cross, and Charles the Tenth, 

 but they would hardly say that x had five phonetic powers. The 

 Assyrians had several such characters, but their use was limited, though 

 the reader must have been occasionally in doubt. But reading is 

 a difficult task in most Oriental nations, and the accomplishment could 

 hardly have been universal in Assyria, nor would written works be so 

 numerous as to demand much rapidity in reading. If many books 

 existed, we are inclined to believe that they were written on skins or 

 leaves, in some less cumbrous writing than that of the monuments 

 winch have survived the lapse of so many centuries ; and traces of 

 such writing appear here and there on the Assyrian bricks, not yet 

 read, but having some resemblance to Phenician. 



On the whole we do not hesitate to express our conviction that the 

 decipherers of Assyrian are on the right path, and that simple narrative 

 passages are now read with tolerable accuracy ; but it will require the 

 united efforts of many scholars, and the compilation of a dictionary, in 

 which the varying forms constituting the power and the difficulty of 

 Semitic languages shall be brought under their respective roots, and 

 their values thus specified, before the long lost monuments now so 

 happily discovered shall be completely understood. 

 I'KL; CUPELLATION. [ASSAYING.] 



CUPID. [EROS.] 



< ;I;T<M..\. [DOME.] 



CUPPING in of two kinds : one by which some blood is taken away, 

 generally simply termed cupping ; the other when no blood is abstracted, 

 whirl, l-i riTO.r.lingly termed dry cupping. The preliminary steps of 

 the operation are the same in both cases : the jiart to which it is 

 intended to apply the cupping-glasses is washed with warm water, or a 



Warm cloth is merely applied to it, in order to attract blood to the 

 part. A small bell-shaped glass, a portion of the air of which has been 

 expelled by holding it for an instant over the flame of a spirit-lamp, is 

 immediately applied to the spot which has been prepared. The usual 

 amount of pressure on the part being diminished, the blood flows to 

 the part, and produces distension of the vessels and elevation of the 

 surface, as well as a purple or livid colour. If it be intended to take 

 away blood, the cupping-glass is speedily removed, aud an instrument 

 called a scarificator, containing a number of lancets, sometimes as many 

 as twenty, is applied, and made to act so as to inflict a corresponding 

 number of incisions on the skin and subjacent vessels. " The instru- 

 ment is so constructed, that the depth to which the lancets penetrate 

 may be made greater or less at the option of the practitioner." It is 

 not in general advisable that the depth should be very great, as more 

 blood flows, and the vessels will continue to bleed longer, if only 

 partially divided, than if completely cut through. The cupping-glass, 

 exhausted as before, is to be immediately replaced, and if skilfully 

 applied, and the air has not been too much rarefied, by which too great 

 pressure is made by the edges of the glass, a considerable quantity of 

 blood will flow into it. When nearly full, or if the blood begin to 

 coagulate, the glass is to be carefully removed, the wounded part 

 quickly washed with a sponge with warm water, and the glass having 

 been emptied and washed, is to be again applied, if a sufficient' quantity 

 of blood should not have been obtained by the first application. Two 

 or more glasses may be applied to different spots at the same time, so 

 that the quantity of blood desired, or necessary to obtain the object in 

 view, may be more quickly abstracted. 



' Where dry cupping only is intended, the glasses may be permitted 

 to remain on the skin for a few moments, and replaced five or six times, 

 with a little variation of their position, in order to prevent the skiu 

 from being hurt by their pressure." 



Cupping by which blood is abstracted is used either where general 

 bleeding is unnecessary, or as supplementary to it, for the removal of 

 congestions or local affections. It is analogous to the use of leeches, 

 over which, however, when the situation of the part admits of the 

 application of the glasses, it has in general many advantages. The 

 blood is more rapidly abstracted, a point of great importance in inflam- 

 matory diseases ; there is less risk of subsequent bleeding from the 

 wounds ; and the part of the body subjected to the operation is exposed 

 to the ah- for a much shorter time. Cupping is also preferable in cases 

 where the application of leeches is apt to be followed by severe erysipelas 

 of the skiu. 



" In inflammations and congestions about the head, clipping on the 

 back of the neck and between the shoulders is a most useful mode of 

 abstracting blood ; and this operation is also particularly applicable for 

 the removal of blood from the parietes of the chest and abdomen in 

 diseases of the different viscera. Its use, however, is only admissible 

 when it can be employed without exciting pain, and irritating the 

 diseased organ." Many cases of impending apoplexy may be warded off 

 by the timely application of cupping-glasses to the neck, aided by a 

 quickly-acting cathartic. Where the abstraction of blood is inexpedient 

 or uunnecessary, dry cupping is often resorted to with benefit. In 

 adynamic states of fever, especially where the lungs are complicated in 

 the diseased action, if "farther depletion cannot be ventured upon, 

 dry cupping on the back or chest will sometimes be serviceable." 

 (Copland's ' Dictionary of Medicine,' p. 930.) Dry cupping often affords 

 great and immediate relief in many pains of the side, not inflammatory, 

 but hysterical, which occur in females. The' pains of the back which 

 likewise occur in females at particular times may be much mitigated 

 by dry cupping. The pains in the chest in consumptive patients are 

 often quickly relieved by dry cupping, 



Another and most important application of cupping is the prevention 

 by its means of the absorption of poisonous fluids from wounds. For 

 this purpose, anything by which a partial vacuum over the wounded 

 part can be produced will answer, such as a wine-glass, tumbler, or tea- 

 cup with a smooth margin, from which the air has been partially 

 expelled by holding it for a moment over a lighted candle. This mode 

 was in use among the ancients, lias been revived among the modems, 

 and is practised by the South Americans in cases of the bites of 

 venomous serpents, by means of a funnel-shaped calabash. The Greeks 

 called a cupping instrument aucva (slkua), from ite bearing some resem- 

 blance to the form of a melon or gourd. 



(Empson's Narratives of South America,}). 66; Wai-drop on Blood- 

 letting ; Cooper's Surgical Dictionary.) 



CUPRAMMONIUM. [COPPEB.] 



CUPRIC ACID. [COPPKR.] 



CUPROCYANOGEN. [CYANOOKN.] 



CUPROHYDROCYANIC ACID. [CYANOGEN.] 



CURACY; CURATE. [CLERGY.] 



CURARA. [CURABLE.] 



CURARINE. An alkaloid of unknown composition found in en- 

 rara, the poisonous extract of the plant called maracure, used by the 

 South American Indians for poisoning their arrows. Curarine is 

 obtained from curara by a tedious process which need not be here 

 detailed. It presents the appearance of a yellow horny deliquescent 

 mass, having a very bitter taste. It appears to form neutral salts with 

 acids, but all those known are uncrystallisable. The most remarkable 

 property of the curara, from which it is extracted, is that it may be 



