RHEUMATISM RHINE. 



861 



ten speeches, from fear of being reproached as 

 sophists. 



RHEUMATISM ; a disease attended with sharp 

 pains, which has so much resemblance to the gout, 

 that some physicians have considered it as not an 

 entirely distinct disease ; although they are by no 

 means to be confounded. (See Gout.) Rheumatism 

 is distinguished into acute and chronic. The former 

 is of short continuance, and either shifting to differ- 

 ent parts of the body or confined to a particular 

 part : in the latter case, it has a tendency to pass 

 into the chronic, unless properly attended to : it is 

 often attended with fever, or sometimes comes on 

 in the train of a fever. This combination of rheu- 

 matism with fever Is called rheumatic fever, which 

 is considered by physicians a distinct species. 

 Chronic rheumatism is attended with pains in the 

 hr.ul, shoulders, knees, and other large joints, 

 which, at times, are confined to one particular part, 

 and at others shift from one joint to another, with- 

 out occasioning any fever ; and in this manner the 

 complaint continues often for a considerable time, 

 and at length goes off. No danger is attendant on 

 chronic rheumatism; but a person having been once 

 attacked with it, is ever afterwards more or less 

 liable to returns of it. Neither is the acute rheu- 

 matism frequently accompanied with much danger. 

 The acute is proceeded by shivering, heat, thirst, 

 and frequent pulse ; after which the pain com- 

 mences, and soon fixes on the joints. The chronic 

 rheumatism is distinguished by pain in the joints, 

 without fever, and is divided into three species ; 

 lumbago, affecting the loins ; sciatica, affecting the 

 hip; and arthrodynia, or pains in the joints. The 

 acute rheumatism mostly terminates in one of these 

 species. Rheumatism may arise at all times of the 

 "ear, when there are frequent vicissitudes of the 

 weather from heat to cold, but the spring and 

 autumn are the seasons in which it is most preva- 

 lent ; and it attacks persons of all ages ; but very 

 young people are less subject to it than adults. Ob- 

 structed perspiration, occasioned either by wearing 

 wet clothes, lying in damp linen, or damp rooms, 

 or by being exposed to cool air when the body has 

 been much heated by exercise, is the cause which 

 usually produces rheumatism. Those who are much 

 afflicted with this complaint, are very apt to be 

 sensible of the approach of wet weather, by finding 

 wandering pains about them at that period. Rheu- 

 matism usually attacks only the external muscular 

 parts, but has sometimes been known to affect the 

 internal parts, especially the serous membranes, the 

 pleura, the peritonaeum, the dura mater. 



RHIGAS, CONSTANTINE, the Tyrtaeus of modern 

 Greece, the first mover of the war for Grecian inde- 

 pendence, was born about 1753, at Velestini, a small 

 city of Thessaly, and was early distinguished for 

 talent. As he was not rich enough to devote him- 

 self to literature, he engaged in commerce, went to 

 Bucharest, and remained there until 1790. He 

 made himself intimately acquainted with the litera- 

 ture of ancient Greece. Latin, French, Italian and 

 German were familiar to him : he wrote Greek and 

 French, and was a poet and a proficient in music. 

 He formed the bold plan of freeing Greece from the 

 Ottoman Porte by means of a great secret associa- 

 tion, and succeeded even in bringing powerful Turks 

 into his conspiracy ; among others, the celebrated 

 Passwan Oglou. He then went to Vienna, where 

 many rich merchants and some learned men of his 

 nation resided. From this place he held a secret 

 correspondence with the most important confede- 

 rates in Greece, and in other parts of Europe. At 

 the same time, he published a Greek journal, trans- 

 lated the Travels of the Younger Anacharsis, and 



wrote a treatise upon tartics. His patriotic songs, 

 in his native language, were calculated to inflame 

 the imagination of the Greek youth, and to embitter 

 them against the Mussulmans. lie likewise pre- 

 pared a map of all Greece, with the ancient and 

 modern names of places, in twelve sheets, which 

 was printed at the expense of his countrymen in 

 Vienna. He perished at the age of forty-five, hav 

 ing been arrested in Trieste. The signatures of all 

 the confederates were contained in a document 

 which lie. always carried about with him. This he 

 destroyed in the night, and swallowed the names of 

 his countrymen. With several other prisoners he 

 was conducted to Vienna. Rhigas and three others 

 of those arrested were sent back in chains to Bel- 

 grade, in May, 1798, and, according to some ac- 

 counts, beheaded, and cast into the Danube. Ac- 

 cording to other accounts, Rhigas was sawed asun- 

 der between two boards. 



RHINE (in German, Rhein ; in Dutch. Rhyn, 

 or Ryn) ; in magnitude the fourth river of Europe, 

 and one of the noblest rivers in the world. There 

 are rivers whose course is longer, and whose volume 

 of water is greater, but none which unites almost 

 every thing that can render an earthly object magni- 

 ficent and charming, in the same degree as the 

 Rhine. As it flows down from the distant ridges 

 of the Alps, through fertile regions into the open 

 sea, so it comes down from remote antiquity, asso- 

 ciated in every age with momentous events in the 

 history of the neighbouring nations. A river which 

 presents so many historical recollections of Roman 

 conquests and defeats, of the chivalric exploits of 

 the feudal period, of the wars and negotiations of 

 modern times, of the coronations of emperors whose 

 bones repose by its side ; on whose borders stand 

 the two grandest monuments of the noble architec- 

 ture of the middle ages ; whose banks present every 

 variety of wild and picturesque rocks, thick forests, 

 fertile plains, vineyards sometimes gently sloping, 

 sometimes perched among lofty crags, where indus- 

 try has won a domain among the fortresses of nature; 

 whose banks are ornamented with populous cities, 

 flourishing towns and villages, castles and ruins, 

 with which a thousand legends are connected, 

 beautiful and romantic roads, and salutary mineral 

 springs ; a river whose waters offer choice fish, as 

 its banks offer the choicest wines ; which, in its 

 course of 900 miles, affords 630 miles of uninter- 

 rupted navigation, from Basle to the sea, and en- 

 ables the inhabitants of its banks to exchange the 

 rich and various products of its shores ; whose cities, 

 famous for commerce, science, and works of strength, 

 which furnish protection to Germany, are also 

 famous as the seats of Roman colonies, and of ec- 

 clesiastical councils, and are associated with many 

 of the most important events recorded in history ; 

 such a river it is not surprising that the Germans 

 regard with a kind of reverence, and frequently call 

 in poetry father Rhine, or king Rhine. (See 

 Byron's verses on the Rhine, in Childe Harold, canto 

 iii, stanzas 5561.) 



Since the French revolution, the Rhine has been 

 frequently called in France the natural boundary 

 between France and Germany ; with equal reason 

 the Elbe might be called so, and perhaps would 

 have been called so, had the French empire con- 

 tinued, as it had extended already to that river at 

 one point.* The Rhine rises in the Swiss canton of 



Hiyers are, generally speakinp, poor means of political 

 separation, because they are, in fact, means of connexion 

 nitlier than of separation. Mountains and languages furnish 

 far mure effectual lines of demarcation. The only reu>mi 

 why rivers have often been taken as frontiers, is, brOBOM 

 they are lines drawn by nature, which can be easily desig- 

 nated in treaties. 



