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the reign of king John it was nearly deftroyed by fire, and 

 a place called the Brands is fuppofed to mark its ancient 

 fcite. The prefent town confifts of feveral ftreets, and 

 ilands on nearly fixty acres of ground ; the buildings in 

 general are good, and fome, belonging to families of pro- 

 perty, are modern and elegant. The government of the 

 town is veiled in a mayor and twelve aldermen. In the year 

 1252, Maurice, lord Berkeley, an anceftor of the prefent 

 earl of Berkeley, who now holds the manor, obtained a grant 

 of a weekly market on Fridays, and an annual fair, both of 

 which are ftill held. The church is a fpacious, handfome 

 fabric, and contains numerous monuments and fepulchral 

 memorials. Here is a free-fchool, eredted in 1 385, by Ca. 

 therine, --ehct of Thomas, lord Berkeley : alfo an alms-houfe 

 for fix poor men and fix women, built and endowed in 1632, 

 by Hugh Perry, alderman of London, at the charge of 

 1000/. : a hke fum was given by fir Jonathan Dawes, (heriff 

 of London, for the relief of the poor. In the population 

 return of the year 181 1, the houfes in this town were enu- 

 merated as 217, the inhabitants as 1527; the latter are 

 chiefly employed in the clothing manufacture, which is 

 carried on to a confiderable extent in the town and its 

 vicinity : one faftory only, called New Mill, employs under 

 its roof about 200 men, women, and children. Spanifh 

 wool alone is manufaftured at this place, and is employed 

 for the weaving of broad-cloth and kerfeymere. — Rudge's 

 Hiftory of Gloucefterfhire, 2 vols. 8vo. 1803. Beauties of 

 England and Wales, vol. v. Gloucefterfhire, by J. Britton 

 and E. W. Brayley, 1804. 



WOTYECHOW, a town of Poland, in the palatinate 

 of Lubhn; 12 miles W.S.W. of Lublin. 



WOTZLERSDORF, a town of Auftria; 10 miles 

 W. of Zifterfdorf. 

 WOUDRICHEM. See Worcum. 

 WOVEN Stockings. See Stocking. 

 WOUGHS, in Mines, are the walls or fides fometimes 

 of hard ftones, and fometimes foft ; when foft, the miners 

 fay they are rotten : thefe are the bounds of an entry. Be- 

 twixt them all forts of earth, ftones, and ore lie ; or, as 

 philofophers fay, grow. 



WOULD, or Weld, among Dyers. See Weld, and 

 Dyer's IVeed. 



Would, in /igriculture, a term applied in fome cafes to 

 fignify an open uninclofed traft of country. 



Would Land, that which remains in the ftate and con- 

 dition of would. There is much of this fort of land in 

 many counties and diftrifts of this country which might be 

 ftill greatly improved and converted to far better purpofes 

 than at prefent, by fimply inclofing them and turning them 

 into a ftate of proper and fuitable cultivation. This has 

 been ah-eady done with large trafts in Yorkftiire and Glou- 

 cefterfhire to very great benefit, and the fame may be the 

 cafe with many others in different places. See Waste 

 Land. ' 



WouLDS, a term applied by fome writers on hufhaiidry 

 to crops of the woad kind. See Woad. 



WOULDING. See Woolding. 



WOULMARA, in Geography, a town of Bengal; 28 

 miles S. of Midnapour. 



WOUNDS, in Surgery, conftitute the moft ancient and 

 important branch of it, accidental injuries of this kind having 

 m all probability preceded the exiftence of many of the dif- 

 eafes to which mankind are now liable. The turbulent and 

 enterprifing fpirit of the earlieft generations foon produced 

 wars, and the eff'ufion of human blood ; and even the natural 

 habits of every people, in a ftate of inferior civilization, 

 would conduce to the receipt of wounds, fince the chace, 



9 



by which food was fo commonly procured, would itfelf 

 caufe many accidental hurts. Surgeons ufually define a 

 wound to be a folution of continuity, or a divifion of the 

 foft parts, more or lefs recently produced, commonly at- 

 tended with a greater or lefler degree of hemorrhage, and 

 almoft always occafioned by an external mechanical caufe. 



There are fome chirurgical writers who make objeftions 

 to defining a wound to be a recent and bleeding divifion of 

 the foft parts, and M. Richerand is one of this number. 

 He difapproves of thefe terms, becaufe a wound, when long 

 in healing, and accompanied with fuppuration, cannot admit 

 of fuch a definition. And he obferves, that writers who 

 have defined a wound in this way, have been obliged to call 

 every fuppurating wound, if only of three days' ftanding, 

 an ulcer, which he conceives to be altogether abfurd. The 

 epithet Heeding, he contends, is not applicable in a general 

 definition of wounds, fince gun-ftiot wounds are not ordi- 

 narily followed by an eff"uCon of blood from the divided 

 parts. Nofographie Chir. tom. i. p. 2. edit. 4. 



It muft be acknowledged, that there is confiderable 

 difficulty in fixing the precife period when a wound (hould 

 ceafe to be fo denominated, and take the appellation of an 

 ulcer. The wound, after feveral important furgical opera- 

 tions, is fometimes a month or two before it is entirely 

 healed ; yet, generally fpeaking, as long as there is a pro- 

 fpeft of a cure within a reafonable length of time, and the 

 cicatrization does proceed, though flow ly, furgeons moftly 

 ftill call the fuppurating breach of continuity a wound, and 

 not an ulcer. When, however, a wound is very long kept 

 from healing by injudicious applications, conftitutional 

 caufes, attacks of hofpital gangrene, debility, &c. the cafe, 

 we think, is moft commonly regarded rather as a fore, or 

 ulcer, than as a wound. An ulcer, ftrifily fo called, does 

 indeed feem to imply a breach of continuity arifing from the 

 procefs termed uherafi-^n, or ulcerative abforption, in which a 

 chafm, or lofs of fubftance, is aftually produced in the part 

 by the aftion of the abforbent veflels. (See Ulceration, 

 and Ulcer.) This procefs is alfo concerned in the pro- 

 duftion of every fore which is the confequence of a burn ; 

 for though parts may be at once killed, and converted into 

 efchars by the fire itfelf, yet the feparation of fuch deadened 

 parts, or floughs, fo as to leave an ulcer behind, is the re- 

 fult of a procefs, in which the abforbents of the adjoining 

 living furface remove the particles of matter, which form 

 the conneftion between thofe parts which are killed and 

 thofe which are alive. 



In the perufal of Richerand's fentiments, who has be- 

 trayed fo much deHcacy and fo many fcruples about the 

 admiflion of definitions, and who is at the fame time the' 

 author of a modern fyftem of phyfiology, we confefs that 

 we were rather furprifed to find him infifting upon burns, 

 and the apertures by which abfcefles fpontaneoufly burft, 

 being wounds, and not ulcers. In faft, he fcems to regard 

 the formation of a breach of continuity, in thefe cafes, as 

 entirely the refult of phyfical and mechanical caufes, and 

 not as the confequence of a vital procefs, in which the aftion 

 of the abforbent veflels has a very confiderable ftiare. 



V\'\\.\\ refpeft to the propriety of the epithet bleeding, in 

 the definition of a wound, there cannot be any real objeftion 

 to it in a general fenfe ; for although a wound does not 

 bleed when in a fuppurating ftate, yet it has almoft always 

 done fo on the firil occurrence of the injury. Even the 

 generality of gun-(hot wounds, though it may not be their' 

 ufual nature to bleed much, commonly pour out fome > 

 blood. 



We have ftated, that wounds are produced by external' 

 mechanical caufes. There are, however, exceptio.is tc this 



remark ; 



