INFLAMMATION INFULA. 



IM I. ANIMATION OF THE INTESTINES. 

 ?* Enteritis. 



1NF1.I Mi "N, POINT OF, in the theory of curves; 

 Uiat point iu which tlie direction of the curve 

 changes from concavity to convexity, and vice versa. 

 It is particularly called punctual itiflexionis, at the 

 frst turning, and punctual regression!* when the 

 curve returns. These points are of much interest in 

 the theory of the function^. 



INFLUENZA (Italian, influence); a term used in 

 medicine to denote an epidemic catarrh which has, 

 at various times, spread more rapidly and extensively 

 than any other disorder. It has seldom occurred in 

 any country of Europe, without appearing succes- 

 sively in every oilier part of it. It has sometimes 

 apparently traversed the whole of the Eastern con- 

 tinent, and, in some instances, has been transferred 

 to America, and has spread over this continent like- 

 wise. The French call it la grippe. In all the 

 known instances of its occurrence, from the 14th 

 century, its phenomena have been pretty uniform, 

 and have differed little, except in severity, from 

 those of the common febrile catarrh. In 1802, such 

 an influenza attracted universal attention. In 

 February, it set out from the frontiers of China, 

 traversed all Russia, extended along the Baltic, to 

 Poland and Denmark; reached Germany and Hol- 

 land in April and May, and France and Spain in 

 June. It could even be followed to Gibraltar. No 

 sex, age, or state of health was exempted. It 

 showed itself chiefly as a severe cold, attended with 

 a catarrhal fever of a more or less inflammatory or 

 bilious character. Generally, it passed over within 

 a few days, yet, in some places, it gave a check to 

 business. Few persons died of it, except those who 

 were afflicted at the same time with other diseases, 

 but almost every one was attacked. G. F. Mort, a 

 German physician, attempted to prove that Europe 

 suffered jKriodically from the influenza. He main 

 tained that, during the greater part of the period 

 which had elapsed since 1712, this epidemic had 

 visited Europe, at intervals of about twenty years, 

 and still more frequently in the early part of the 

 period. Accordingly, he prophesied a new one for 

 1820, which, however, did not happen. 



INFORMER. To encourage the apprehending 

 of certain felons, divers English statutes of 1C92, 

 1694, 1699, 1707, 1720, 1741, and 1742, granted 

 rewards of from ten to fifty pounds sterling, to such 

 as should prosecute to conviction highwaymen, coun- 

 terfeiters, and thieves. These acts were passed at 

 the time of the troubles in Great Britain, occasioned 

 by the risings of the Jacobites, when, with the in- 

 crease of political criminals, the number of private 

 offenders was thought to be increasing also. By the 

 law of 1699, besides the forty pounds, an immunity 

 from all parish offices (overseer of the poor, church- 

 warden, &c.) was allowed to any person who should 

 prosecute to conviction a felon guilty of burglary, 

 horse-stealing, &c. The Tyburn tickets (as the cer- 

 tificates of exemption were called) could be sold, as 

 the first was of no use to a man who received a second, 

 and were actually sold in large cities, like Manchester, 

 at high prices (from 250 to 300 pounds sterling.) The 

 amount of the rewards (without including the Tyburn 

 tickets), in the forty counties of England, for 1798, 

 was 7700, and, in 1813, it had risen to 18,000. 

 The abuses which originated from this system were 

 horrible. The police officers maile a trade of it, by 

 seducing poor, ignorant persons, chiefly foreigners, 

 to crimes (principally the issuing of counterfeit 

 money), in order to gain the reward by prosecuting 

 them for the offence. A certain M 'Daniel confessed 

 (1756) that he had caused, by his testimony, seventy 

 men to be condemned to death, lie was brought to 



the bar with two others, but the people, fearing they 

 were to be acquitted, treated them with such violence, 

 that they were killed on the spot. In 1792, a similar 

 case happened, in which twenty men had become the 

 victims of an informer. A more recent case, in 1817, 

 excited greater indignation. Four police officers, who 

 had entered into a conspiracy against the life of poor 

 men, were condemned to death, but, on account of 

 some judicial formalities, were released by the twelve 

 judges (the united members of the three chief tribu- 

 nals in Westminster hall), and escaped without 

 punishment. They had induced several poor women 

 to pass counterfeit money, and seized them in the act. 

 In other cases, such men endeavoured to change a 

 small offence into a capital crime; for instance, if one 

 had stolen the work-bag of another, they swore that 

 it had been tied with a string or ribbon to the arm, 

 and torn from it by violence, by which theft was 

 transformed into robbery, and, instead of imprison- 

 ment, the punishment was death, and the informer 

 received the price of blood (50). A revolting case 

 of this kind happened (1817) when two soldiers, who 

 were wrestling with another, in sport, for a wager 

 of one shilling, were condemned for robbery by the 

 artifice of a police officer, and escaped with the 

 greatest difficulty from an undeserved punishment. 

 Small offences were kept secret by the police officers, 

 and the perpetrators watched, until, as they termed 

 it, they weighed forty pounds sterling. For prosecu- 

 tion to conviction of any person attempting to pass 

 counterfeit bank notes (which was, until lately, a 

 capital crime), the bank paid 30, and for the pro- 

 secution of a person issuing counterfeit coin, 7. 

 Several persons became the victims of this provision. 

 The police officers very well knew the counterfeiters, 

 and those who made it a trade to induce women and 

 children to change their false notes, and deliver them 

 into the hands of the police; but they spared the 

 true authors of the crime, as good customers, arid 

 denounced the poor wretches employed by them, 

 who were condemned by the jury upon the slightest 

 suspicion, and executed without mercy. Alderman 

 Wood asserted, in parliament, that, in the year 1818, 

 at a visitation of the prison, he had found thirteen 

 men, mostly Irishmen and Germans, who had re- 

 ceived counterfeit money from others, to buy bread, 

 had been seized in the act and condemned, without 

 any regard to their assertions that they were ignorant 

 of the character of the money. These rewards were 

 abolished in 1818, by an act of parliament (58 George 

 III., c. 70), but the abuse in respect to the bank 

 notes remained as before. 



INFULA was, with the Romans, the wide, while 

 woollen ornament of the head of priests, vestals, and 

 even of animals offered for sacrifice, the hiding of the 

 head being considered a mark of humiliation. At later 

 periods, the imperial governors wore the infula as a 

 sign of dignity, and, as such, it was adopted, in the 

 seventh century, by the bishops of the Catholic 

 church, who continue to wear it on solemn occasions, 

 and have it, instead of a crown or helmet, in their 

 coat of arms. It consists of two pieces, turning up- 

 ward, of a pointed form, one before and one behind 

 so that in the middle there is a hollow. They are of 

 pasteboard, or tin, and covered with white silk, the 

 one in front being ornamented with a cross. The 

 bishops of the church of England have an infula still 

 in their coat of arms, but never wear it on the head. 

 With them, however, it is generally called mitre, 

 from mitra, which, according to Von Hammer, 

 originally meant the globular part of the head-dress 

 of Persian kings, indicating, originally, the ball of 

 the sun, which the Persian kings wore on the crown, 

 and the Egyptian on the head. See Mtfhra. 



INTUSORIA. See f forms. 



