SCURVY GRASS SEA-BATHING. 



175 



gradually, with heaviness, weariness, and unwil- 

 lingness to move about, together with dejection of 

 spirits, considerable loss of strength and debility. 

 As it advances in its progress, the countenance be- 

 comes sallow and bloated: respiration is hurried 

 on the least motion ; the teeth become loose ; the 

 gums are spongy ; the breath is very offensive ; livid 

 spots appear on different parts of the body ; old 

 wounds, which have long been healed up, break out 

 afresh: severe wandering pains are felt, particularly 

 by night; the skin is dry; the urine small in 

 quantity; and the pulse is small, frequent, and, to- 

 wunls the last, intermitting ; but the intellect, for 

 the most part, clear and distinct. By an aggrava- 

 tion of the symptoms, the disease, in its last stage, 

 exhibits a most wretched appearance. Scurvy, as 

 usually met with on shore, or where the person has 

 not been exposed to the influence of the remote 

 causes before enumerated, is unattended by any 

 violent symptoms. Slight blotches, with scaly 

 eruptions on different parts of the body, and a 

 sponginess of the gums, are the chief ones observed. 

 In the cure, as well as the prevention of scurvy, 

 more is to be done by regimen than by medicines, 

 obviating, as far as possible, the several remote 

 causes of the disease; but particularly providing 

 the patient with a more wholesome diet and a large 

 proportion of fresh vegetables; and it has been 

 found that those articles are especially useful, which 

 contain a native acid, as oranges, lemons, &c. 

 Where these cannot be procured, various substitutes 

 have been proposed, of which the best appear to be 

 the inspissated juices of the same fruits, or the 

 crystallized citric acid. Vinegar, sour crout, and 

 farinaceous substances, made to undergo the acetous 

 fermentation, have likewise been used with much 

 advantage ; also brisk fermenting liquors, as spruce- 

 beer, cider, and the like. Mustard, horse-radish, 

 garlic, and other substances of a stimulating char- 

 acter, promoting the secretions, are useful to a cer- 

 tain extent. 



SCURVY GRASS (cochlearia) ; a genus of 

 cruciferous plants, mostly inhabiting the extreme 

 northern parts of the globe. It consists of her- 

 baceous plants, having alternate, and, usually, en- 

 tire leaves, and their flowers disposed in terminal 

 racemes, and ordinarily white. The horse-radish 

 is one of them, but is much larger, and has a differ- 

 ent aspect from the others, but resembles them in 

 the sensible properties of the leaves and stems. 

 The common scurvy-grass (C. officinalis} grows 

 wild on the sea-shore of Greenland, Iceland, and 

 the north of Europe : the leaves are small, angular, 

 sinuate and sessile, and are sometimes eatenin salads : 

 the taste is acrid and slightly bitter : they are anti- 

 scorbutic, and stimulating to the digestive organs. 

 About twenty species of cochlearia are known. 



SCUTARI, OR ISKIUDAR; a town of Asiatic 

 Turkey, in Natolia, on the Bosphorus, opposite to 

 Constantinople, called by the ancients Chrysopolis; 

 population, about 33,000. It is considered a suburb 

 of Constantinople, and serves as an emporium and 

 rendezvous to the caravans of Asia. The Turks 

 at Constantinople are interred at Scutari, and the 

 burying grounds here are the handsomest in the 

 empire. See Constantinople. 



SCUTARI, OR ISKANDERIE, in Albania, the 

 capital of a pachalic, is situated at the end of a lake 

 to which it gives its name. It was anciently the 

 residence of the kings of Illyricutn. Population, 

 15,000. 



SCUTTLING; the act of cutting large holes 



through the bottom, sides or decks of a ship, for 

 various occasions, particularly when she is stranded 

 or overset, and continues to float on the surface, in 

 order to take out the whole or part of the cargo, 

 provisions, stores, &c To scuttle a ship; to sink her 

 by making holes through her bottom. 



SCYLLA; a daughter of Nisus, king of Megara. 

 who became enamoured of Minos, when that monarch 

 besieged her father's capital. She delivered Megara 

 into his hands, on his promising to marry her : but 

 Minos afterwards treated her with such contempt 

 that she threw herself from a tower into the sea; 

 or, according to some accounts, she was changed 

 into a lark by the gods, and her father into a hawk. 

 A daughter of Typhon or Phorcis, was loved by 

 Glaucus. Scylla scorned his addresses, and the 

 god applied to Circe. But she became enamoured of 

 him herself, and, instead of giving him assistance, 

 attempted to make him forget Scylla, but in vain. 

 To punish her rival, Circe poured the juice of some 

 poisonous herbs into the waters of the fountain 

 where Scylla bathed ; and no sooner had the nymph 

 touched the place, than she found every part of her 

 body below the waist changed into frightful mon- 

 sters like dogs, which never ceased barking. This 

 metamorphosis so terrified her, that she threw her- 

 self into that part of the sea which separates the 

 coast of Italy and Sicily, where she was changed 

 into rocks, which continue to bear her name, and 

 which were deemed very dangerous to navigators, 

 as was also the whirlpool of Charybdis, on the coast 

 of Sicily. 



SCYTHIANS. This name was very vaguely 

 used by ancient writers. It was sometimes applied 

 to a particular people, and at others was extended 

 to all the nomadic tribes which wandered over the 

 regions to the north of the Black and the Caspian 

 seas, and to the east of the latter. Scythia is used 

 in the same indefinite manner, sometimes for the 

 country of the Scythians, and sometimes for those 

 now called Mongolia and Tartary. The Scythians 

 may be distinguished into Asiatic and European. 

 Among the former, the ancients included a great 

 number of northern nations, with whose origin they 

 were unacquainted, and who were probably of dif- 

 ferent races. The Scythians were for some time a 

 ruling people in Asia. They are considered as the 

 progenitors of the Turks, Tartars and Manchoos : 

 the ancients considered the Persians, Parthians and 

 Bactrians as their descendants. The European 

 Scythians, in the time of Herodotus, inhabited the 

 country from the Ister (Danube) to the sources of 

 the Dniester and the Dnieper, in the neighbourhood 

 of the Don, and along the northern shores of the 

 Black sea. Of this region, that portion extending 

 from the Danube to the city of Carcinitis, was cal- 

 led Old Scythia ; and the peninsula (Taurida) to 

 the Borysthenes was called Little Scythia, which 

 name, in Strabo's time, included the country as far 

 as the Danube, formerly occupied by the Thracians, 

 and therefore comprised Old Scythia. 

 SEA. See Ocean. 



SEA-BATHING has been found very salutary 

 in several complaints, as diseases of the glands of 

 all kinds, and of the skin in scrofula and a scrofu- 

 lous predisposition, exhausting sweats, and ten- 

 dency to catarrhs, chronic nervous diseases, parti- 

 cularly hysteric attacks, epilepsy, St Vitus's dance; 

 also sometimes in chronic rheumatism. But it 

 must not be used in the case of plethora, inclination 

 to congestions and discharges of blood, diseases of 

 the heart, tendency to pulmonary consumption, ob- 



