512 



GOTTORP GOUT. 



King George II, founded here, iii 1734, the university 

 of Georgia Augusta, which was opened in 1735, and 

 dedicated Sept. 17, 1737. It is at present, also, the 

 national university of Brunswick and Nassau ; that is 

 to say, every native of these latter countries must 

 study, for a certain time, at Gottingen, if he wishes 

 an employment in the gift of either government. 

 The library of the university, the richest collection 

 of modern literature in Germany, and perhaps in 

 Europe, contains 300,000 volumes, and 5000 manu- 

 scripts. In 1751, the royal society of sciences was 

 established, and remodelled in 1770. It comprises 

 mathematical, physical, and historical classes; has 

 members ordinary and extraordinary, resident and 

 foreign, and holds a session monthly. The different 

 classes propose, alternately, a prize of fifty ducats for 

 the best treatises oji certain subjects. In 1773, a mu- 

 seum was established, which, together with a cabinet 

 of medals, contains a collection of specimens in na- 

 tural history, nnd a considerable collection of models 

 of various sorts, besides paintings, engravings, &c. 

 Since 1784, each of the four faculties has proposed, 

 annually, a prize question, for the students at Gottin- 

 cen. The prize consists of a gold medal, of the value 

 of twenty-five ducats. There are also a seminary for 

 preachers, a divinity college and a pastoral institute, 

 a clinical institute, a surgical and a lying-in hospital, 

 an anatomical theatre, a botanical garden, a horti- 

 cultural garden, a chemical laboratory, a collection 

 of philosophical instruments, an observatory, a philo- 

 logical seminary, &c. In 1829, there were 1,264 

 students at Gottingen, and eighty-nine teachers pro- 

 posed courses of lectures. In the summer of 1825, 

 it counted 1,545 students. Several of the first Ger- 

 man periodicals are published at Gottingen. The 

 universities of Berlin and Gottingen are the most 

 distinguished in Germany. Blumenbach, Eichhorn, 

 Gauss, &c., are among the professors. 



GOTTORP. See Holstein. 



GOTTSCHED, JOHN CHRISTOPHER, born in 1700, 

 at Juditenkirch, near Konigsberg, in Prussia, receiv- 

 ed from his father, who was a preacher there, his 

 first instructions in the languages and the sciences, 

 and entered the university of Konigsberg as early as 

 1714. His inclination soon turned from theology, to 

 which he had been destined, to philosophy, the belles- 

 lettres, and the languages. In 1724, he went to 

 Leipsic, and delivered lectures on the belles-lettres, in 

 which he attacked the then prevalent corruption of 

 taste produced by the bombast of Lohenstein and 

 his followers, and recommended the imitation of the 

 ancients, and their professed followers, the French. 

 In 1728, he published the first sketch of his Rhetoric, 

 which he afterwards much enlarged, and, in 1729, for 

 the first time his Kritische Dichtkunst (Critical Art 

 of Poetry.) Both these works, unlike the books of 

 instruction then in general use in Germany, condemn 

 the disfigurement of the language by the use of 

 foreign words, and oppose the taste for bombast in 

 poetry, which then prevailed. In 1730, he was made 

 professor of philosophy and poetry, published his 

 Contributions towards a critical History of the Ger- 

 man Language, Poetry, and Eloquence, and began 

 his profitless exertions in behalf of the national drama. 

 In 1734, he became professor of logic and metaphy- 

 sics, and subsequently published his Ersten Grunde 

 der Weltweisheit (First Principles of Philosophy). 

 He died in 1766. Gottsched is an example of the 

 degree to which a writer may sink by partiality and 

 pedantry, even when his intentions are laudable and 

 his merit considerable. These qualities have pro- 

 cured for him the reputation of a teacher of bad taste 

 and false philosophy. The good effected by Gott- 

 oched is as apparent as his absurdity. His zeal for the 

 good of the German language was of great use, and 1 



he at least perceived its genius, although he did not 

 possess sufficient talents to exhibit its power in his 

 own productions. This is his chief merit. He was 

 by no means suited for a reformer of the German 

 drama. He wished to extirpate the opera and comic 

 opera, and to refine comedy by expelling from the 

 stage the Merry Andrew, the amusing favourite of 

 the multitude. He. was even cruel enough, in con- 

 junction with the stage-manager Neuber, to bury th.it 

 honourable personage publicly, and with festive 

 solemnities, in 1737. The pieces which he himself 

 prepared for the stage were stiff and prosing. 



GOUDA, or TERGOU W ; a city of the Nether- 

 lands, in New Holland, on a branch of the Rhine, 

 called Issel, where it receives the river Gouw, which 

 gives it its name; nine miles north-east of Rotterdam, 

 twenty-two south of Amsterdam ; Ion. 4 43' E. ; 

 lat. 50 N. ; population, 11,379. It has extensive 

 manufactures of tobacco pipes, also of porcelain, with 

 a commodious port and a brisk trade, having boats 

 passing regularly to Amsterdam, Hague, Rotterdam, 

 Utrecht, &c. The great church is one of the hand- 

 somest and largest in the country, and is particularly 

 celebrated for its painted glass windows, supposed to 

 be the finest of the kind in Europe, and preserved 

 with great care. 



GOUGE; an instrument or tool used by divers 

 artificers, being a sort of round hollow chisel for cut- 

 ting holes, &c., either in wood or stone. 



GOURD (lagenaria vulgaris), called also calabash^ 

 is a climbing plant, allied to the cucumber, melon, 

 squash, &c.,and belonging to the same natural family, 

 cucurbitacece. The leaves are rounded, softly pubes- 

 cent, and slightly viscous ; the flowers, white, widely 

 spreading, and somewhat stellated ; the seeds, gray, 

 with a tumid margin notched at the summit ; the 

 fruit, large, varying much in shape in different varie- 

 ties, and has a hard and almost ligneous shell, of 

 which, drinking cups, bottles, and other household 

 utensils are made. The gourd was known to the 

 ancients, having been cultivated from time immemo- 

 rial in the warmer parts of Asia and Africa, and also 

 by the aborigines of America, previous to its disco- 

 very by the Europeans. The pulp is edible, and the 

 lower classes in Egypt and Arabia boil it in vinegar, 

 or make it into a sort of pudding by filling the shell 

 with rice and meat. 



GOUT, or ARTHRITIS, a disease of adults, is 

 sometimes regular, attended with the secretion of the 

 superfluous earthy matter, which is no longer neces- 

 sary for the formation of the bones ; sometimes irre- 

 gular, when the vital powers are weakened, and the 

 superfluous bony matter, instead of being carried off 

 by the organs of secretion, is deposited ueneath the 

 skin, or accumulates internally, thus producing chalk- 

 stones and various internal concretions. There are 

 two principal causes of the gout bad diet and sup- 

 pression of perspiration. Frequent use of wine, in 

 particular of acid wines, as well as the daily use of 

 very nourishing, fat, and high-seasoned food, contri- 

 butes chiefly to the production of the disease, both 

 from the excess of nutritive and earthy matter, and 

 from its exciting effects on the blood ; since so great 

 a quantity of nutritive matter is not required by the 

 fully developed body, and is not assimilated by the 

 weakened organs of digestion. The disease, in these 

 cases of undiminished vital powers, is called podagra, 

 and returns at regular periods. (See Podagra.) In 

 spring, in autumn, and with many much oftener, 

 violent pains are felt in or near the joint of the great 

 toe ; the part becomes inflamed, red, and swollen. 

 A fever is usually connected with it, if the local 

 inflammation reacts upon the whole system of the 

 blood. Among the poorer classes, who earn their 

 bread by the sweat of their brows, and satisfy their 



