D I S 
I S 
53 1 
part is to stand, and divide the difference be- 
tween them into two equal parts, one of 
which will be the length of the dispart; which 
i's set on the gun with wax or pitch, or fasten- 
ed there with a piece of twine or marlin. By 
means of an instrument it may be done with 
all possible nicety. 
DISPAUPEll : when any person, on ac- 
count of poverty, attested by his own oath 
of not being worth 5 /. his debts being paid, is 
admitted to sue in forma pauperis, if after- 
wards, before the suit is ended, he has any 
lands, or personal estate fallen to him; or that 
the court where the suit depends, thinks fit 
for that or any other reason, to take away 
that privilege from him ; then he is said to be 
dispaupered, and can no longer sue in forma 
pauperis. 
DISPENSARY, or Dispensatory, de- 
notes a book containing the method of pre- 
paring the various kinds of medicines used in 
pharmacy. The apothecaries in and about 
London are obliged to make up their com- 
pound medicines according to the formulas 
prescribed in the college dispensary, and are 
enjoined to keep always ready in their shops 
all the medicines there enumerated. 
It is also a kind of charitable institution of 
late years very prevalent in England, parti- 
cularly in the metropolis, where they are dis- 
tinguished by different titles, as the general 
dispensary, the royal universal dispensary, 
&c. They are supported by voluntary sub- 
scriptions ; have each one or more physicians 
usd surgeons, whose business it is to attend 
at stated times, in order to prescribe for the 
poor; and, if necessary, to visit them at their 
own habitations. It is in this latter respect, 
that the patients of a dispensary differ from 
those called out-patients at an hospital. The 
poor are supplied gratis with their medicines; 
and many of these institutions also afford 
gratuitous assistance to lying-in women. For- 
merly there were three dispensaries establish- 
ed in London for selling medicines to the 
poor at prime cost, under the direction of the 
■college of physicians. 
DISPENSATION, in law, the granting a 
licence of doing some certain action that 
otherwise is not permitted. The greatest 
dealer in dispensations is the pope, who 
claims the office jure divino, and extends it to 
every tiling. The more moderate of the Ro- 
manists themselves deny that he can give a 
dispensation for any thing contrary to the 
divine law, or the law of nature; and confine 
him to what is contrary to positive laws, or 
to things relating to fasts, marriages, holding 
several benefices, &c. and they limit him even 
-in these things. 
The archbishop of Canterbury has a power, 
by statute, of dispensing in any cause where- 
in dispensations were formerly granted by 
the see of Rome, and as well to the king as 
his subjects ; and daring the vacancy of the 
archbishop’s see, the guardian of the spiritu- 
alities may grant dispensations. Every bishop 
-of common right has the power of instituting 
to benefices, and of dispensing in common 
cases, Ac. A dispensation of the king makes 
a thing prohibited lawful to be done by the 
person that has it, though a thing evil in it- 
self wilt not admit of a dispensation. And 
where the subject has an immediate interest 
in, an act of parliament, the king cannot dis- 
pense with it; but may, if the suit be the 
D IS 
king’s own, only for the breach of a penal law 
that is net to the damage of a third person. 
There is a dispensation by non obstante, 
which is where a statute tends to restrain 
some prerogative incident to the person of 
the king, as the right of pardoning, or com- 
manding the service of the subjects for the 
benefit of the public, &c. each of which pre- 
rogatives is inseparable from the king, and 
therefore, by a clause non obstante, such a 
statute may be dispensed with. 
DISPERSION. See Surgery. 
DISPLAY ED, in heraldry, is understood 
of the position of an eagle, or any other bird, 
when it is erect, with its wings expanded or 
spread forth. 
DISPONDEE, in the Greek and Latin 
poetry , a double spondee or foot, consisting of 
four long syllables. 
DISPOSITION, in rhetoric, the placing 
of words in such an order as contributes most 
to the beauty, and sometimes even to the 
strength of a discourse. 
DISSECTION. See Anatomy. Lc 
Gendre observes, that the dissection of a hu- 
man body, even dead, was held a sacrilege 
till the time of Francis I. and the same author 
assures us he has seen a consultation held by 
the divines of Salamanca, at the request of 
Charles V. to settle the question whether or 
not it was lawful in point of conscience to 
dissect a human body, in order to learn the 
structure thereof. 
It is easily perceived that surgery and phy- 
sic must improve in a country, according to 
the opportunities of enquiring into the struc- 
ture of the animal economy ; for which rea- 
son we could wish that students in anatomy 
were furnished with subjects for dissection in 
this country, in as great abundance, and with 
as little inconvenience, as in France. 
DISSEISIN, in law, is a wrongful putting 
out of him that is seized of the freehold, 
which may be effected either in corporeal 
inheritances, or incorporeal. Disseisin of 
things corporeal, as of houses and lands, must 
be by entry and actual dispossession of the 
freehold. Disseisin # of incorporeal heredita- 
ments, cannot be an actual dispossession, for 
the subject itself is neither capable of actual 
bodily possession nor dispossession, but is only 
at the election and choice of the party injur- 
ed, if, for the sake of more easily trying the 
right, he is pleased to suppose himself dis-- 
seised. And so also even in corporeal here- 
ditaments, a man may frequently suppose 
himself to be disseised, when be is not so in 
fact, for the sake of entitling himself to the 
more easy and commodious remedy of an 
assise of novel disseisin, instead of being 
driven to the more tedious process of a writ 
of entry. 3 Black. 169. 
DISSENTERS. Before the Revolution 
many statutes were in force against dissent- 
ers, but by 1 W. stat. 1. c. 18, commonly 
called the toleration act, it is enacted, that 
none of the acts made against persons dis 
senting from the church ot England, (except 
the test acts 2j C. II. c. 2. and 30 C. 11. st. 
2, c. 1 .) shall extend to any teacher or preach- 
er dissenting from the church of England, who 
shall at the general sessions of the peace, to 
be held for the county or place where such 
person shall live, take the. oaths of allegiance 
and supremacy, and subscribe the declaration 
against popery, of which the court shall keep 
aregister ; and no officer shall takt more than 
3 Xg 
6d. for registering the same, and f>d. for a 
certificate thereof signed by such officer. 
Provided that the place of meeting be certi- 
fied to the bishop of the diocese, or to the 
archdeacon of the archdeaconry, or to the 
justices of the peace at the general or quarter 
sessions ; and the register or clerk of the 
peace shall register on record the same, and 
give certificate thereof to any one who shall- 
demand the same, for which no greater fee 
than 6 d . shall be taken; and provided that 
during the time of meeting, the doors shall 
not be locked, barred, or bolted. See Con- 
venticle. Dissenters chosen to any paro- 
chial or ward offices, and scrupling to take 
the oaths, may execute the office by deputy, 
who shall comply with the law in this behalf. 
1 W. c. 18. But it seems they are not sub- 
ject to fine, on refusing to serve corporation 
offices; for they may object to the validity of 
their election, on the ground of their own 
nonconformity. 3 Bro. P. C. 465. 
DISSIDENTS, a denomination applied 
in Poland to persons of jlie Lutheran, Calvir 
nistic, and Greek profession. 
DISSIPATION, circle of, in optics, is 
used for that circular space upon the retina, 
which is taken up by one of the extreme 
pencils or rays issuing from an object. To 
understand this, it is to be observed, that when 
the distance of an object from the eye is too 
small or too great for perfect or distinct vi- 
sion, the rays of each pencil, issuing from the 
object, cannot be united at a point on the re- 
tina, but beyond it, or before they arrive at 
the retina; consequently, the rays of each 
pencil will occupy a circular space upon the 
retina, and this circle is called the circle of 
dissipation, because the rays of a pencil, in- 
stead of being collected into a central point, 
are dissipated all over this circle. See Op- 
tics. 
DISSOLVENT, in general, whatever dis- 
solves or reduces a solid body into such mi- 
nute parts as to be sustained in a fluid. 
DISSOLUTION, in music, is when a 
sound in the enharmonic genus is lowered 
three dieses ; for thereby that genus is dissolv- 
ed, and the music, or that interval at least, is* 
chromatic. 
DISTAFF, an instrument about which 
flax is tied in order to be spun. 
DISTANCE, in general, an interval be- 
tween two things, either with regard to time 
or place. See Geometry and Mensura* 
tion. 
Distance, in navigation, the number of 
minutes or leagues a ship has sailed from any 
given place or point. See Navigation. 
Distance, in astronomy. The distance 
of the sun, planets, and comets, is only found 
from their parallax, as it cannot be found 
either by eclipses or their different phases; 
for from the theory of the motions of the 
earth and planets we know, at any time, the 
proportion of the distances of the sun and 
planets from us ; and the horizontal paral- 
laxes are in a reciprocal proportion to these 
distances. See Astronomy. 
Distance, curtate , the distance of the 
planet’s place, reduced to the ecliptic, from 
the sun. 
Distance of ike eye, in perspective, is a 
line drawn from the eye to the principalpoint. 
See Perspective. 
Distance of the bastions , in fortification,, 
is the side of the exterior polygon. 
