124 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



DIRT SCRAPER. This is an instrument designed for the 

 removal of dirt in the making and repairing of roads. It is also 

 used in levelling the ground, particularly about newly erected houses; 

 both in carrying what is not wanted on hills to adjacent hollows, and 

 also in making excavations for cellars and wide ditches. A yoke of 

 oxen or a span of horses with a man will thus remove as much dirt 

 in one day, as he could remove with a spade and barrow in a week. 

 The best scrapers are made of iron, save the handles, and would be 

 found convenient on every farm. 



DIRT SCRAPER. 



DISEASE. In medicine, that condition of the animal economy, 

 in which one or more of the functions is altogether impeded, or is per- 

 formed with difficulty or with pain. Various definitions of disease 

 have been given by different physicians. Some have laconically 

 defined it the absence of health, forgetting that this involves another 

 definition, that of health. Some have described it as existing in par- 

 ticular conditions of the fluids, or of the solids. But it is unnecessary 

 to inquire into the variety of definitions of disease, since the word is 

 well understood by all, and is used under the same acceptation by the 

 peasant and the philosopher. 



DISSOLUTION. In a general sense, the separation of the parts 

 of a body which, in the natural structure, are united ; or the reduc- 

 tion of concrete bodies into their smallest parts without regard to 

 solidity or fluidity. Thus we speak of the dissolution of salts in 

 water, of metals in nitro-muriatic acid, and of ice or butter by heat ; 

 in which cases, the dissolution is effected by a menstrum or particular 

 agent. We speak also of the dissolution of flesh or animal bodies, 

 when the parts separate by putrefaction. Dissolution is then, the act 

 of liquifying or changing from a solid to fluid state by heat ; a melt- 

 ing ; a thawing ; as the dissolution of snow and ice, which converts 

 them into water. The reduction of a body into its smallest parts, or 

 into very minute parts, by a dissolvent or menstrum, as of a metal 



