EUP 
E U P 
green leaves grow ing opposite, and from the 
sides and ends of the branches. The flowers 
are quinquefkl and whitish, and come out in 
small bunches, succeeded by roundish, rough, 
and protuberant capsules, which rarely per- 
fect their seeds in this country. Both these 
species are hardy, and will succeed in any 
soil or situation. The berries of the first 
sort vomit and purge very violently, and are 
fatal to sheep. If powdered and sprinkled 
in the air, they destroy lice. If the wood is 
cut when the plant is in blossom, it is tough 
and not easily broken; and in that state it 
is used by watchmakers for cleaning watches, 
ami for making skewers and tooth-pickers. 
Cows, goats, and sheep, eat this plant; horses 
refuse it. 
EUPAREA, a genus of the class and 
order pen andria monogynia. The calyx is 
five-leaved : corolla, five or twelve petalled: 
berry superior, one-celled : seeds many. 
There is one species, an herbaceous plant 
of New Holland. 
EUPATORIUM, hemp-agrimony ; a 
genus of the polygamia as pialis order, in the 
syngenesia class of plants ; and in the natural 
method ranking under the 40th order, com- 
posite. The receptacle is naked; the p.ip- 
phs feathery ; the calyx imbricated and ob- 
long ; the style .semi-bifid and long. T here 
are 49 species, many of them herbaceous 
flowery perennials, producing annual stalks j 
from two to three or five feet high, termi- 
nated by clusters of compound flowers of a 
red, purple, or white colour. They are 
easily propagated by seeds, or parting the 
roots in autumn or spring. One species, 
viz. the cannabinum, or water hemp-agri- 
mony, is a native of Britain. It is found wild 
by the sides of rivers and ditches, and has 
pale red blossoms. It has an acrid smell, and 
a very bitter taste, with a considerable share 
of pungency. The leaves are much recom- 
mended for strengthening the tone ot the vis- 
cera, and as an aperient ; and said to have 
excellent effects in the dropsy, jaundice, and 
scorbutic disorders. Boerhaave informs us, 
that this is the common medicine of the turf- 
diggers in Holland, against scurvies, foul 
ulcers, and swellings in the feet, to which 
they are subject. The root of this plant is 
said to operate as a strong cathartic : but it 
is hardly used in Britain, and has no place 
in our pharmacopoeias. 
EUPHEMISM, in rhetoric, a figure which 
expresses things in themselves disagreeable 
and shocking, in terms implying the con- 
trary quality : thus, the Pontus, or Black 
Sea, h aving the epithet afivo r , i.e. inhospi- 
table, given it, from the- savage cruelty of 
those who inhabited the neighbouring coun- 
tries, this name, by euphemism, was changed 
into that of Euxinus. 
Thus Ovid, Trist. lib. iii. el. 13. 
Dum me terrarum pars pene novissima 
Ponti, 
Euxinus falso nomine dictus, habet. 
And again, in Trist. lib. v. el. 10. 
Quem tenet Euxini mendax cognomine 
litus. 
In which significations, nobody will deny 
its being a species of irony : but every eu- 
phemism is not irony, for we sometimes use 
improper and soft terms in the same sense 
with the proper and harsh. 
EUPHONY,, in grammar, an easiness, 
smoothness, and elegance in pronunciation. 
It is properly a figure, whereby we suppress 
a letter that is too harsh, and convert it into 
a smoother, contrary to the ordinary rules; 
of this there are abundance of examples in 
all languages. 
EUPHORBIA, spurge, a genus of the 
trigynia order, in the dodecandria class of 
plants ; and in the natural method ranking 
under the 3Sth order, tricoccae. The co- 
rolla is tetrapetalous or pentapetalous, placed 
on the calyx ; the calyx is monophyllous and 
ventricose ; the capsule tricoccous. There 
are 93 species, six of which are natives of 
Great Britain. They are mostly shrubby 
and herbaceous succulents, frequently armed 
with thorns, having stalks from ten or twelve 
inches to as many feet in height, with quadri- 
petalous flowers of a whitish or yellow co- 
lour. They are easily propagated by cut- 
tings ; but the foreign kinds must be always 
kept in pots in a stove. If kept dry, they 
may be preserved for several months out of 
the ground, and then planted, when they' 
will as readily take root as though they had 
been fresh. The juice of all the speeies is 
so acrid, that it corrodes and ulcerates the 
body wherever it is applied ; so that phy- 
sicians have seldom ventured to prescribe it 
internally. Warts, or corns, anointed with 
the juice, presently disappear. A drop of 
it put into the hollow of an aching tooth, gives 
relief, like other corrosives, by destroying 
tlie nerve. Some people mb it behind the 
ears, that it may blister. One of the fo- 
reign species, named esula, is such a violent 
corrosive, that if applied to any part of the 
body, it produces a violent inflammation, 
which is soon succeeded by a swelling that 
degenerates into a gangrene, and .proves 
mortal. There is a species at the Cape, 
which supplies the Hottentots with an in- 
gredient for poisoning their arrows. Their 
method of making this pernicious mixture, 
is by first taking the juice extracted from the 
euphorbia, and a kind of caterpillar peculiar 
to another plant which lias much the appear- 
ance of a species of rhus. They mix the 
animal and vegetable matter; and after dry- 
ing it, they point their arrows with this com- 
position, which is supposed to be the most 
effectual poison of the whole country. The 
euphorbia itself is also used for this purpose, 
by throwing the branches into fountains' of 
w ater frequented by wild beasts, which after 
drinking tiie water thus poisoned, seldom get 
one thousand yards from the brink of the 
fountain before they fall down and expire. 
This plant grows from about fifteen to twenty 
feet in height, sending out many branches 
full of strong spines. The natives cut off as 
many of the branches as they think neces- 
sary for the destruction of the animals they 
intend to poison. They generally conduct 
the water a few yards from the spring into- 
a pit made for the purpose; after which they 
put in the euphorbia, and cover the spring, 
so that the creatures have no choice. No 
animal escapes which drinks of such watery 
though the llesh is not injured by the poison. 
The euphorbias may be easily distinguished 
from the cactuses and other plants, which* 
the v resemble, by pricking them with a pin, 
when a milky juice will alw ays exude from 
the puncture. See Plate Nat. Hist. fig. 
189- 
EU PIT O RB I U M, in pharmacy, a gum 
resin brought us always in loose, smooth. 
E W R 603 
and glossy gold-coloured drops or granules. 
See Pharmacy. 
EUPHRASIA, eyebright (from a vulgar 
notion that it was good in disorders of the 
eyes) ; a genus of the angiospermia order, 
in the didynamia class of plants; and in the 
natural method ranking under the 40lh order, 
personate. T he calyx is quadrifid and cy- 
lindrical ; the capsule bilocular, ovato-ob- 
long; the shorter two anthene, with the base 
of the one lobe, terminated by a small spine. 
1 here are nine species ; two of which an- 
nuals, viz. the officinalis and odontites, are 
natives of Britain. Tire first of these, which 
has blue flowers, is a weak astringent, and 
was formerly much celebrated in disorders ’ 
of the eyes; but the present practice has not 
only disregarded its internal, but also its ex- 
ternal, use. This plant will not grow r but 
when surrounded by others taller than itse-lf. 
Cows, horses, goats, and sheep, eat it; swine 
refuse it. 
EURYA, a genus of the class and order 
dodecandria monogynia. The calyx is live- 
leaved, calyclcd ; corolla, five-petailed ; 
stamina, three ; capsule, five-celled. There 
is one species, a shrubby plant of Japan. 
EURYANDRA, a genus of the polyan- 
dria trigynia class and order. The calyx is 
live-leaved: corolla, three-pctalled ; fila- - 
meets much dilated at top, with two disjoint- 
ed anthers ; follicles, three. There is one 
species, a climbing plant of New Caledonia. 
EURYTT1MY, in architecture, painting, 
and sculpture, is a certain majesty, elegance, 
and easiness, appearing in the composition 
of divers members, or parts of a body, paint- 
ing, or sculpture, and resulting from the fine 
proportion of it. Vitruvius ranks the euryth- 
mia among the essential parts of architec- 
ture; he describes it as consisting in tire 
beauty of the construction, or assemblage of 
the several parts of the work, which renders 
its aspect, or its whole appearance, grateful ; 
e. g. when the height corresponds to the 
breadth, and the breadth to the length. 
EUSEBIANS, a name given to a sect of 
Allans, on account of the favour and coun- 
tenance which Eusebius, bishop of Cresarea, 
shewed and procured for them at their first 
rise. 
EUSTATHfANS, the same with the ca- 
tholics of Antioch, in the fourth century ; so 
called from their refusing to acknowledge any 
other bishop beside St. Eustathius, who was 
deposed by the Allans. 
EU STY LE, in architecture, a sort of 
building in which the pillars are placed at the 
most convenient distance from one another, 
the intercohimniations being just two diame- 
ters and- a quarter of the column, except 
those' in the middle of the face, before, and 
behind, w hich' are three diameters distant. • 
EUTYCHIANS, in church history, Chris- 
tians in the fifth century, who embraced the 
errors of the monk Eutyches, maintaining 
that tiie re w as only one nature in Jesus Christ. 
The divine nature, according to them, had 
so entirely swallowed up the human, that the 
latter could not he distinguished ; insomuch, 
that Jesus Christ was merely God, and hart . 
nothing of humanity but the appearance. . 
EWRY, in the British customs, an officer • 
in the king’s household, who has the care of 
the table-linen, of laying the cloth, and 
serving up water, in silver ewers, after din- 
ner.. 
