FRA 
the poetic art. He alfo wrote Be Synipathia & Antipathid , 
and B: Contagiojis Morbis: in the laft lie has the merit of 
rejerting bleeding and purgatives in malignant fevers, 
and recommending the life of antifeptics. His own com- 
pofitioi'i of Biafcordium, called alfo ConfeEiio Fracajlorii, lias 
continued a celebrated medicine to the prefent times. In 
his work entitled llomoccntrica & de Canjis Criticorum Bierunj., 
&c. lie attempts to explain the theory of critical days. 
Aftronomy appears to have been one of his tnoft favourite 
Iludies; and he attempted to illufirate its principles by 
the fyftem of homocentric or concentric, circles, which he 
derived from Giambattifto della Torre. He was alfo an 
attentive obferver of the heavenly bodies, and appears to 
have made ufe of two lenfes placed in a particular man¬ 
ner, previoully to the invention of proper telefcopes. 
The poetical and philofophical works of Fracaftoro, have 
been many times publifhed both feparately and together. 
The belt edition of the whole is that of Padua, in 1739, 
2 vols. 4to. 
FRACHE,jf. in glafs-houfes, an iron pan into which 
the neiv-made veffels are put to be gradually removed 
from the fire. 
FRA'CID, adj. Overripe; rotten; hoary; putrified. 
Scott. Not much ufed . 
To FRACT, v. a. \_fraElus , Lat.] To break; to vio¬ 
late ; to infringe. Found perhaps only in the following 
paflage: 
His days and times are paft, 
And my reliance on his fraEled dates 
Has fmit my credit. Shakefpeare. 
FRAC'TION, f. [fradlion, Fr. fraElio, Lat.] See 
Arithmetic, vol. ii. p. i8z. The art of breaking; the 
ftate of being broken.—The furface of the earth hath 
been broke, and the parts of it difiocated; feveral parcels 
of nature retain ftill the evident marks of fraElion and ruin. 
Burnet. —A broken part of an integral.—Neither the mo¬ 
tion of the moon, whereby months are computed, nor the 
fun, whereby years are accounted, confifteth of whole 
numbers, but admits of fraElions and broken parts. Brown. 
—Pliny put a round number near the truth, rather than 
a fraElion. Arbuthnot. 
The fraElions of her faith, arts of her love, 
The fragments, feraps, the bits and greafy reliques, 
Of her o’er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomede. Shakefpeare. 
The law makes no fraElion of a day ; if any offence be 
committed, in cafe of murder, &c. the year and day fhall 
be computed from the beginning of the day on which the 
wound was given, and not from the precife minute or 
hour. Co.Litt. 255. An art of record will not admit any 
divifion of a day, but is faid to be done the firft inftant 
of the day. Mo. 137. In prefumption of law, when a 
thing is to be done upon one day, all that day is allowed 
to do it in, for the avoiding of fractions in time, which 
the law admits not of, but in cale of neceflity. Sti. 119. 
Infurance for H.’s life; H. .died on the laft day ; per 
Hplt, chief-juftice, the law makes no frartion in a day; 
yet, in this cafe, he dying after the commencement, and 
before the end, of the laft day, the infurer is liable, be- 
caufe the infurance is for a year, and the year is not com¬ 
plete till the day be over ; yet, if A. be born on the 
third day of September, and on the fecond day of Septem¬ 
ber, twenty-one years afterwards, he makes his will, this 
is a good will, for the law will make no frartion of a day, 
and by confequence he was of age. 2 Salk. 625. 
FRAC'TIONAL, adj. Belonging to a broken number; 
comprifing a broken number.—We make a cypher the 
medium between increafing and decreafing numbers, com¬ 
monly called abfolute or whole numbers, and negative 
or fraElional numbers. Cocker. 
FRAC'TURE,/". \_fraclura, Lat.] Breach; reparation 
of continuous parts.—That may do it without any great 
fraElure of the more ftable and fixed parts of nature, or 
the infringement of the laws thereof. Hale .—The repara¬ 
tion of the continuity of a bone in living bodie5.«»-/V<?c» 
Vol. VII. No. 456. 
F R A 637 
tures of the fcull aVe dangerous, not in confeqtience of the 
injury done to the cranium itfelf, but as the brain be¬ 
comes afferted. Sharp. 
But thou wilt fin and grief deftroy, 
That fo the broken bones may joy. 
And tune together in a well-fet fong, 
Full of his praifes, 
Who dead men t aifes, 
FraElures well cur’d, make us more ftrong. Herbert. 
To FRAC'TURE, v. a. To break a bone.—The leg was 
dreffed, and the fraElured bones united together. Wifman. 
FRAC'TIOUS, adj. Quarrelfome, peevifh. 
FR AC'TIOUSLY, adv. Peeviftily ; with a difpofition 
to quarrel. 
FRAC'TIOUSNESS, f. Peevifiinefs; difpofition to 
quarrel. 
FR^E'NUM,/. Iframo, Lat. to curb.] A bridle. A 
name of the annular ligaments on the ancles and wrifts, 
becaufe they bridle the tendons of the mufcles which pals 
through them. Alfo the chord which joins the prepuce 
to the glans penis ; and the chord under the tongue. 
FRA'GA, a town of Spain, in Aragon, on the frontiers 
of Catalonia, fituated on a lharp rock near the Cinca ; near 
which Alphonfo I. king of Aragon loft a battle and his 
life, in 1134. It contains two pari Hr churches, and two 
convents: thirty miles fouth of Baibaftro, and fifty-three 
eaft-fouth-eaft of Saragofia, Lat. 41. 27. N. Ion. 17. 2. E-. 
Peak of Teneriffe. 
FRAGA'RI A, f. [of Pliny; fo named from the fra- 
grancy of the fruit.] The Strawberry ; in botany, a 
genus of the clafs icofandria, order polygynia, natural 
order of fenticofae, (roface;e, JuJf.) The generic charac¬ 
ters are—Calyx : perianthium one-leafed, flat, ten-cleft; 
divifions alternately exterior and narrower. Corolla: 
petals five, roundifh, fpreading, inferted into the calyx. 
Stamina: filaments twenty, fubulate, fhorter than the 
corolla, inferted into the calyx ; antherae lunular. Pif- 
tillum : germs numerous, very fmall, collefted into a 
head ; ftyles Ample, inferted at the fide of the germ ; ftig- 
mas Ample. Pericarpium: none ; common receptacle of 
the feeds (vulgarly called a berry) ovate, pulpy, foft, large* 
coloured, truncate at the bafe, and deciduous. Seeds : nu¬ 
merous, very fmall, acuminate, fcattered over the lurface 
of the receptacle: (a little comprelfed, fmooth, glitter¬ 
ing, Gcr.rlncr. )— EJfmtial CkaraEler. Calyx ten-cleft; petals 
five ; receptacle of the feeds ovate, and like a berry. 
Species. 1. Fragaria vefca, or efculent ftrawberry: 
creeping by runners. This fpecies is fufficiently diftin- 
guifhed by the long (lender runners, which it throws out 
from the root, and by means of which it increafes abun¬ 
dantly, by its ternate leaves, and its remarkable flelhy 
receptacle commonly called a berry, but having the outer 
furface ftudded with the feeds. From the firft and laft of 
thefe characters, it obtained the Englifh name of f raw- 
berry ; for it is a plant whofe running Items are Itrewed 
(anciently frazued) over the ground, and whofe fruit is 
ufually regarded as a berry. The manner in which the 
ftem of the ftrawberry runs along the ground is fliewn in 
the Botany Plate II. fig. 10. vol. iii. p. 239. In German, 
it is trdbcere\ in Danifh, jordbar-, (thefe convey the fame 
idea with the Englilh name;) in Swedifti, J'multron ; in 
Smoland, jordbar; (earth-berry;) in Dalekarlia, jolebar ; 
in Gothland, rodbar ; in French, le frafer , la fraife\ in 
Italian, fragaria, fragola, fravola ; in Spanifii, frefera , 
frefa ; in Portuguefe, morangueiro, fragaria, morango ; in 
Ruflian, Jemljaniza. It is obferved by Monf. Duhamel, 
that in our European ftrawberries there are generally four 
ftamens to each petal, but in thofe of America five or fix: 
fo that, when the flowers of the latter have the regular 
number of petals, they have from twenty-five to thirty 
ftamens; but when they have feven petals, the number 
of ftamens is from thirty-five to forty-two. In the Eu¬ 
ropean ftrawberries, when any fupernumerary petals are 
.placed in a row before the regular ones > each diminiflies 
7 & the 
