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and bitter of itfelf, then whatever acrimony or amaritude 
redounds in it, rauft be from the admixture of melancho¬ 
ly. Harvey. 
ACRIMONY, f. [acrimonia, Lat.] Sharpnefs, corro- 
fivenefs.'—There be plants that have a milk in them when 
they are cut; as, figs, old lettuce, fow-thiftles, and fpurge. 
The caufe may be an inception of putrefadtion: for thofe 
milks have all an acrimony , though one would think they 
thould be ldnitive. Bacon. —Sharpnefs of temper, feverity, 
bitternefs of thought or language.—John the Baptift fet 
himfelf, with much acrimony and indignation, to baffle 
this fenfelefs arrogant conceit of theirs, which made them 
huff at the dodfrine of repentance, as a thing below them, 
and not at all belonging to them. South. 
Acrimony, in medicine, is a term applied to any fub- 
ftancgs that produce particular fenfations from the adtion 
of that ftimulus which they pofiefs, and which we exprefs 
by the different terms, fharpnefs, eagemefs, tartnefs, acid, 
alkali, &c. and it is allb applicable to fome ftates of the 
humours in the human body, as acrimony of the bile, and 
other materials, which are, by the laws of the animal 
ceconomy, conltantly thrown out of the machine, in order 
that the humours may be kept in a found ftate; for, ex¬ 
cept when in a morbid ftate, they are free from all acri¬ 
mony. When in a morbid ftate, we have different fpecies 
of acrimony; fuch as acrimony of the gout, rheumatifm, 
fcrophula, cancer, &c. which are judged of, and denomi¬ 
nated, from the effedls they produce on the habit. Hence, 
we fay, complaints of this nature originate from an acri¬ 
monious humour, fui generis. 
ACR 1 SIUS, king of Argos, in fabulous hiftory, being 
told by the oracle that he fhould be killed by his grand¬ 
child, fhut up his only daughter Danae in a brazen tow¬ 
er : but Jupiter, coming down in a golden fhower, begot 
Perfeus upon her: after Perfeus had (lain the Gorgons, 
he carried Medufa’s head to Argos; which Acrifius fee¬ 
ing, was turned into a ftatue. 
ACRITAS, a promontory of MefTenia, running into 
the lea, and forming the beginning of the bay of Melfene. 
Now called Capo di Gallo, between Methone to the weft, 
and Coroneto the eaft, where the Sinus Coronaeus begins. 
ACRlTUDE,/! An acrid tafte; a biting heat on, the 
palate.—In green vitriol, with its aftringent and fvveetilh 
taftes, is joined fome acritude Grew. 
ACROAMATICAL, adj. [ax^oatpcai, Gr. I hear.] 
Of or pertaining to deep learning ; the oppofite of exo- 
terical. 
ACROAMATICI, a denomination given the difci- 
ples or followers of Ariftotle, &c. who were admitted in¬ 
to the fecretsof the inner or acroamatic philofophy. 
ACROATICS,/! [axgoxhy.cc, Gr.] Ariftotle*s ledlures 
to his difciples were of two kinds, exoteric and acroatic. 
The acroatic were thofe to which only his own difciples 
and intimate friends were admitted ; whereas the exote¬ 
ric were public, and open to all. But there are other 
differences. The acroatic were fet apart for the higher 
and more abftrufe fubjedls ; the exoteric were employed 
in rhetorical and civil [peculations. 
ACRO ATHOUM, or Acrothoum, anciently a town 
fituated on the top of mount Athos, where the inhabi¬ 
tants, according to Mela, were longer lived by half than 
in any other country: called by the modern Greeks 
Ayiov ofo;; by the Italians, La Cima di Monte Santo. 
ACROBATICA, or Acrobaticum, [from ax% a?, 
high, and Bdl'to, or | 3 aaw, I go.J An ancientengine, where¬ 
by people were railed aloft, that they might fee more 
conveniently about them. The a-crobatica among the 
Greeks amounted to the fame with what they call J'canfo- 
rium among the Latins. Authors are divided as to the 
office of this engine. Turnebus and Barbaras take it to 
have been of the military kind, railed by befiegers, high 
enough to overlook the walls, and difcover the ftate of 
things on the other fide. Baldus rather fuppofes it a kind 
c[ moveable fcaft'old, or cradle, contrived for raifing 
A C R 95 
painters, plafterefs, and other workmen, to the tops of 
houfes, trees, &c. Some fufpedt that it might have been 
ufed for both purpofes; which is the opinion of Vitruvius 
and Aquinas. 
ACROCERAUNIA, or Montes Ceraunii, moun¬ 
tains running out into the fea (fo called from their being 
often thunder-ftruck), feparating the Ionian Sea from the 
Adriatic; where Illyria ends and Epirus begins; now 
called Monti della Chimera. 
ACROCHORDON, [from a*p<K r extreme, and %op&?, 
a firing.} This is one initance, which, as Galen obferves, 
Ihews the oddity of the analogies by which the ancients 
gave name to things. This name they gave to a fort of 
warts, from their being fituated on the Tkin. Wifeman 
calls them penlile warts. Galen in his Def. Med. fays it 
is a round excrefcence on the Ikin, with a Header bale ; 
fo that the excrefcence feems to hang by a firing. Some¬ 
times they fuddenly difappear, at others they inflame or 
fuppurate. Celfus obferves, that if they are cut out, 
they leave no root, fo do not grow again. 
ACROCHORISMUS,[from extreme, and xopstw, 
to dance.] An exercife of dancing, with violent motions 
of the legs and arms. Schulzius fays, they joined head 
to head, and hand to hand, and ftrove to pulh one ano¬ 
ther out of their places. 
ACROCORINTHUS, a high and fteep hill, hanging 
over the city of Corinth, which was takeowithin the walls, 
as an acropolis, or citadel. On its top flood a temple of 
Venus ; and lower down iftiied the fountain Pyrene. 
ACROMION, / in anatomy, the upper part of thefca- 
pula or fhoulder-blade. See Anatomy. 
ACROMONOGRAMMAT 1 CUM,/. in poetry, a kind 
of poem, wherein every fubfequent verfe begins with the 
letter wherewith the immediately preceding one termi¬ 
nated. 
ACRON, a celebrated phyfician of Agrigentum, who 
firft thought of lighting large fires, and purifying the air 
with perfumes, to put a Hop to the peftilence that ravaged 
Athens, and w hich was attended with fuccefs. He lived 
about 473 years before the Cnriftian tera. 
Acron, a territory on the gold-coaft of Guinea, in 
Africa, bordering on the Fantyneon country. The Dutch 
have a fort here called Fort Patience ; and under it is a 
village, inhabited only by filhermen. The other inhabi¬ 
tants are addicted to hulbandry, and fell their corn to other 
countries. There is plenty of game, which is very com¬ 
modious for the Dutch factory. The people are very ig¬ 
norant, and go naked like the reft of the negroes. This 
is called Little Acron; for Great Acron is farther inland, 
and is a kind of republic. 
ACRONIUS Lacus (Mela); a fmall lake formed by 
the Rhine, foon after its rife out of the Alps, and after 
palling the greater lake at Conftance, called Venctus , and 
now the Bodengee, or lake of Conftance. 
ACRONYCAL, adj. [from fummvs, and w^ y 
vox; importing the beginning of night.] In aftronomy, is 
faid of a ftar or planet, when it is oppofite to the fun. It 
is from the Greek <zHpovv%o?, the point or extremity of 
night, becaufe the ftar rofe at fun-fet, or the beginning 
of night, and fet at fun-rife, or the end of night; and fo 
it fhone all the night. 
The acronycal is one of the three Greek poetic rifings 
and fettings of the ftars; and Hands diftinguifhed from 
cofmical and heliacal. And by means of which, for 
want of accurate inftruments, and other obfervations, they 
might regulate the length of their year. 
ACRONYCALLY, adv. [from acronycal.^ At the a- 
cronycal time.—He is tempeftuous in the furnmer, when 
he rifes heliacally, and rainy in the winter, when he rifes 
acronycally. Dry den. 
ACROPATHOS, [from aix-po?, extreme, and 7ra0oc, a 
difeafe.] It literally lignifies a difeafe at the height, or, a 
difeafe which affedts any fuperior part of the body, Hip¬ 
pocrates applies it to the internal orifice of the uterus; 
when. 
