ALP 
made her forget her difguife, fo that her fex was difcover- 
ed. She was pardoned ; but from that time a law was 
made that the keepers fliould appear there naked. Hercu¬ 
les made ufe of this river to cleanfe the (tables of Augeas. 
AL'PHING, is a very con(iderable village and church- 
town, fituate about a mile from Exeter on the Plymouth 
road ; this place is of late years greatly augmented and 
improved in buildings; and a genteel refort, being in eve¬ 
ry refpedt efteemed a healthy and pleafant retreat. 
ALPHI'TOMANCY [of aApfloi/, Gr. bran or meal, 
and divination.] A fort of divination by barley 
meal. 
ALPHI'TON, a hafty-pudding. Thus the Greeks 
call it, but the Roman name is polenta ; it is made of bar¬ 
ley meal moiftened with water, wine, mum, or any other 
liquor. The foldiers had it in common ufe. 
ALPHON'SIN, in forgery, an inftrument for extract¬ 
ing bullets out of gun-lhot wounds. This inftrument de¬ 
rives its name from the inventor Alphonfus Fcrrier, a 
phyfician of Naples. It confifts of three branches, which 
are clofed by a ring. When clofed and introduced into 
the wound, the operator draws back the ring towards the 
handle, upon which the branches opening take hold of the 
ball; and then the ring ispurtied from the haft, by which 
means the branches grafp the ball fo firmly as to extract 
it from the wound. 
ALPHON'SINE TABLES, are aftronomical tables 
compiled by order of Alphonfus king of Caftile. In the 
compiling of thefe it is thought that prince himfelf aflifted. 
ALPHON'SUS the Tenth, king of Leon and Caftile, was 
furnamed The Wife, on account of his attachment to lite¬ 
rature ; and is now more celebrated for having been an 
aftronomer than a king. He was born in 1203 ; fucceed- 
ed hisfatherFerdinand the Third in 1252; and died in 1284, 
confequently at the age of 81.—The affairs of the reign of 
Alphonfus were very extraordinary and unfortunate. Fie 
-underftood aftronomy, philofophy, and hiftory, as if he had 
been only a man of letters. “ What can be more fur- 
prifing,” fays Mariana, “ than that a prince, educated in a 
camp, and handling arms from his childhood, fhould have 
fuch a knowledge of the ftars, of philofophy, and the 
tranfaftions of the world, as men of leifure can fcarcely 
acquire in their retirements ? There are extant fome books 
of Alphonfus on the motions of the ftars, and the hiftory 
of Spain, written with great (kill and incredible care.” In 
his aftronomical purfuits he difeovered that the tables of 
Ptolemy were full of errors; and thence he conceived the 
firft of any the refolution of correcting them. For this 
purpofe, about the year 1240, and during the life of his 
father, he affembled at Toledo the molt (kilful aftrono- 
mersof his time, Chriltians, Moors, or Jews, when a plan 
was formed for conftruCting new tables. This talk was 
accomplilhed about 1252, the firft year of his reign. They 
were printed in 1483, at Venice, by Radtolt, an edition 
extremely rare: there are others of the datesof 1492, 1521, 
* 545 . &c - 
We mult not omit a memorable faying of Alphonfus, 
which has been recorded for its boldnefs and pretended 
impiety; namely, “ that, if he had been of God’s privy 
council when he made the world, he could have advifed 
him better.” Mariana however fays only in general, that 
Alphonfus was fo bold as to blame the works of Provi¬ 
dence, and the conftruCtion of our bodies. The Jefuit’s 
words are curious : Emanuel, the uncle of Sanchez (the 
fon of Alphonfus), in his own name, and in the name of 
other nobles, deprived Alphonfus of his kingdom by a 
public fentence : which that prince merited, for daring 
feverely and boldly to cenfure the works of divine Provi¬ 
dence, and the conftruftion of the human body, as tradi¬ 
tion fays he did. Heaven molt juftly punifhed the folly of 
his tongue.” 
AL'PFIUS, f. from atpcaw, an old word for to 
change, becaufe it changes the colour of the Ikin.] A dif- 
order of the fame fpecies of that fort of white leprofy called 
-vitiligo, and which is divided into the alp/ms . melas , and 
- iVoL. I. No. 24. 
ALP 369 
leuce, called alfo albara ; in the alphas the Ikin is white and 
roughilli, not all over, but in fpots, fometimes the patches 
are broad; it has the fame origin as the lepra, and bears 
the fame analogy to the leuce as the fcabies to the lepra: 
the firft is fuperficial, chiefly affecting the Ikin: the fe- 
cond finks deeper into the flelh : but thefe are all difor- 
ders that only differ in their degrees of inveteracy. See 
Medicine, Lepra. 
AL'PINE, [a/pino, It. of alpinus , Lat.] Pertaining to 
the mountains called the Alps. 
ALPi'NI (Profpero), a famous phyfician and botanift, 
born in the Venetian territory, in 1553. He travelled in 
Egypt to acquire a knowledge of exotic plants, and was 
the firft who explained the fructification and generation of 
plants by the fexual fyftem. Upon his return to Venice, 
in 1586, Andrea Doria, prince of Mc-lfi, appointed him his 
phyfician : and he diftinguilhed himfelf lb much in this 
capacity, that he was efteemed the firft phyfician of Ins 
age. The republic of Venice, in 1593, appointed him to 
the profeflbrlhip of botany at Padua; and he had a falary 
ol 730 florins. He difeharged this office with great repu¬ 
tation ; but his health became very precarious, and he died 
the 5th of February 1617, in the 64th year of his age ; and 
was buried, wffthout any funeral pomp, in the church of 
St. Anthony.—Alpini wrote the following works in Latin s 
The phyfic of the Egyptians, in four books, printed at 
Venice, 1591. A treatife concerning the plants of 
Egypt, 1592. A dialogue concerning balfams, 1592. 
Seven books concerning the method of forming a judg¬ 
ment of the life or death of patients, 1691. Thirteen 
books concerning methodical phyfic, Padua, 1 611; Ley¬ 
den, 1719. A deputation held in the fchool at Padua, 
concerning the Raphonticum, Padua, 1612, and 1629. 
Of exotic plants, in two books, Venice, 1699. He left fe- 
veral other works, which have never been printed ; parti¬ 
cularly, The fifth book concerning the phyfic of the 
Egyptians, and five books concerning the natural hiftory 
of things obferved in Egypt, adorned with a variety of 
draughts of plants, ftones, and animals. 
ALPIN'IA,yi [fo called after Profper Alpinus, a fa¬ 
mous phyfician and botanift, who travelled into Egypt be¬ 
tween 15S0 and 1584, and praiSlifed medicine at Cairo.] 
In botany, a genus of monandria monogynia clafs, in the 
natural order of feitamineae. The generic characters are— 
Calyx: perianth one-leaved, tubulofe, three-toothed: 
leaflets equal, erect, acute. Corolla: monopetalous, tu¬ 
bulofe: tube cylindraceous, ftiort : border three-parted; 
parts nearly equal, oblong. Neftary connate with the 
tube of the corolla, two-parted : the lower part, forming 
the lower lip, is larger and longer than the parts of the 
corolla, broadiih, fpreading, often divided. Stamina : 
filament proper, none; but along the upper divifion of the 
nectary, forming the upper lip, which is flattifh, and the 
length of the corolla, grows a large anther, either deep¬ 
ly bifid, or entire. Piftillum: germ inferior, oblong. 
Style filiform, often infertedinto the filfure of the anther. 
Stigma incralfate, obtufe. Pericarpium: capfule oval, 
three-celied, three-valved, crowned with the permanent 
calyx. Seeds: fome, ovate, angular, covered with afort 
of berried aril. EJJ'cntial Chap abler .— Calyx, three-tooth¬ 
ed, equal, tubulofe. Corolla, three-parted, equal. 
Nectary, two-lipped ; the lower lip fpreading. 
Species. 1. Alpinia racemofa : raceme terminating fpik- 
ed, flowers alternate, lip of the neftary trifid, leaves ob¬ 
long acuminate. 2. Alpinia occidentalis : raceme radical 
compound ereft, nectary emarginate, capfules three-cel¬ 
led, leaves lanceolate-ovate very fmooth. They are both 
natives of the Weft-Indies. 
Propagation and Culture. Beinga native of hot climates, 
it mult be preferved in a ftove, and the pot plunged into a 
tub of water. The leases decay every winter, and are 
puffied out from the roots every lpring, like the maranta. 
It may be increafedby parting the roots, when the leaves 
decay. 
Alpinia sticata. See Costus. 
5 B AL'PISTEj 
