M U C 
159 
M U C 
fometlmes alfo made of gums and fruits; as figs, quinces, 
ifinglafs, tragacanth, &c. 
Mucilage, like gum, ferves to combine refins and oils 
with water, for which purpofe, and alfo to give tenacity 
to pills, it is much employed in pharmacy. Its properties 
are the fame with thole of gum : it forms the ufual bafis 
of demulcent mixtures for allaying the tickling cough 
that occurs in catarrhs and phthifis; and, combined with 
opium and other narcotics, it is ufeful in diarrhoea, dyfen- 
tery, calculous affedfions, and ardor urinae. 
The chemical differences between mucilage and fugar, 
as Hated by Mr. Cruiklhank, are the following : Sugar is 
foluble both in water and alcohol, and cryftallizable from 
either folution ; but mucilage is infoluble in alcohol, and 
refufes to cryftallize from its watery folution : 480 grains 
of fugar yielded by diftillation 120 grains of charcoal, 270 
grains of liquid pyromucous acid, 41 ounce-meafures of 
carbonic acid gas, and 119 ounce-meafures of hydro-car¬ 
bonic gas: the fame quantity of gum-arabic yielded 96 
grains of charcoal, 210 grains of pyromucous acid, 93 
meafuresof carbonic acid, and 180 of hydro-carbonat. It 
alfo gave about 10 grains of lime, and the acid, when fa- 
turated with lime, gave out a little ammonia ; and hence 
it appears, that lime and azot are fubftances that belong 
to mucilage, and not to fugar. The habitudes of each 
fubftance with nitric acid differ alfo confiderably. When 
gum-arabic is heated with nitrous acid only till nitrous 
gas begins to be difengaged, a quantity of white infoluble 
matter precipitates, which is the mucous acid, and the re- 
fidue is malic acid, which a farther addition of the nitric 
converts into oxalic : but fugar is changed into oxalic, or 
malic and oxalic, acid, without the produ&ion of any mu¬ 
cous acid. The quantity of oxalic acid produced from a 
given weight of fugar with nitric acid alfo exceeds that 
yielded by the fame weight of mucilage with the fame pro¬ 
portion of acid. In the fpontaneous changes, alfo, fugar 
and mucilage differ effentially: fugar being the eflential 
material of the vinous fermention ; but mucilage is inca¬ 
pable of this procefs when pure,and appears to contribute 
little to the generation of .alcohol, when in combination 
with fermenting materials. 
MUCILAG'INOUS, adj. Slimy; vifcous; foft with 
fome degree of tenacity.—There is a twofold liquor pre¬ 
pared for the inunftion and lubrification of the heads or 
ends of the bones; an oily one, furniftied by the marrow ; 
and a mucilaginous, fupplied by certain glandules feated 
in the articulations. May on Creation. — Mucilaginous glands 
are of two forts: fome are fmall, and in a manner milliary 
glands; the other fort are conglomerated, or many glan¬ 
dules collected and planted one upon another. Quincy. 
MUCILAG'INOUSNESS, /. Sliminefs ; vifcofity. 
MUCILA'GO, f. in botany. See Mucor. 
MUCIUR', a town of Afiatic Turkey, in Caramania : 
twenty-four miles fouth-fouth-eaft of Kir-lhehr. 
MUCK, a fmall ifland near the eaft coaft of Ireland, in 
the North Channel. Lat. 54. 51. N. Ion. 5. 36. W. 
MUCK, or Muke, one of the fmaller Hebrides, con¬ 
taining about 1000 acres of land, chiefly arable. Lat. 56. 
48. N. Ion. 6. 12. W. 
MUCK, J'. [meox, Sax. modi, Su. Goth.] Dung for 
manure of grounds.-—It is ufual to help the ground with 
muck, and likewife recomfort with muck put to the roots ; 
but to water it with much-water, which is like to be more 
forcible, is not praCtifed. Bacon's Nat. Hifc. 
There are, who 
Rich foreign mold on their ill-natur’d land 
Induce laborious, and with fattening muck 
Befmear the roots. Phillips. 
Any thing low, mean, and filthy, Dr. Johnfon fays, citing 
only the example from Spenfer. The word may be rather 
intended Amply for a heap, from the Sax. mucg. Todd. 
Reward of worldly muck doth foully blend. 
And low abate the higb t herofok ipirit 
That joys for crowns, * Fairy Queen, 
Your gathering fires fo long heap much together. 
That their kind fons, to rid them of their care, 
Willi them in heaven. Beaum. and Fletcher's Span. Citrate. 
A huge mats of treafure—the fatal much 
We quarrell’d for. Beaumont and Fletcher's Sea-Voyage. 
To MUCK, v. a. To manure with muck ; to dung : 
Thy garden-plot, lately wel trenched and mucfit 
Would now be twifallowed. Tujfev. . 
To run a- Muck, fignifies, I know not from what deri¬ 
vation, to run madly, and attack all that we meet. Dr. 
Johnfon. —TavCrnier fays, Certain Java lords, on a parti¬ 
cular occalion, called the Englilh traitors; and, drawing 
their poifoned daggers, cried, A-mocca upon the Englilh ! 
killing a great number of them, before they had time to> 
put themfelves in a pofture of defence. Again he tells us, 
that a Bantamois, newly come from Mecca, was upon the 
defign of moqua; that is, in their language, when the 
rafcality of the Mahometans return from Mecca, they pre- 
fently take their axe in their hand, which is a kind of po 
niard, the blade whereof is half poifoned, with which they 
run through the ftreets, and kill all thole which are not 
of the Mahometan law, till they be killed themfelves. 
Tav. Voy. vol. ii. 199, 202. Gent. Mag. vo). xxxviii. p. 283, 
—The inhabitants of the iflands to the eaftward of Bengal, 
fuch as Sumatra, Borneo, Banco, and the coaft of Malay, 
are very famous for cock-fighting, in which they carry gam¬ 
ing to a much greater excefs than the cuftoms of Europe 
can admit. They flake firft their property ; and, when by 
repeated Ioffes all their money and effects are gone, they 
flake their wives and children. If fortune ftill frowns, fo 
that nothing is left, the lofing gamefter begins to chew or 
eat what is called hang, which I imagine to be the fame as 
opium; when it begins to operate, he disfigures himfelf 
and furnilhes himfelf with fuch weapons as he can get, 
the more deadly, the fitter for his purpofe ; and, the effeft 
of the opium increafing, he at length becomes mad. This 
madnefs is of the furious kind; and, when it feizes him, he 
rufhes forth, and kills whatever comes in his way, whether 
man or beaft, friend or foe ; and commits every outrage 
which may be expedfed from a man in fuch circumftances. 
This is what the Indians call a-muck. Gent. Mag. vol. xl-. 
p. 564. — A-mocca, or a-much, (for fo the word fhould be 
written,) is ufed in the Malay language, adverbially, as 
one word, and fignifies, if we may fo write, killingly: “ He 
runs a-muck ; i. e. he runs with a favage intent to kill 
whomlbever he meets.” Malone's Dryden.— The phrenzy 
generally known by the term muck, or amok, among the 
flaves at Batavia, Samarang, and Sarabaya, in the iiland 
of Java, is only another form of that fit of defperation 
which bears the fame name among the military, and under 
the influence of which they rufli upon the enemy, or at* 
tack a battery in the manner of a forlorn hope. The ac¬ 
counts of the wars of the Javans, as well as of the Malayus, 
abound with inftances of warriors running amok; of com¬ 
batants, giving up all idea of preferring their own lives, 
ruffling on the enemy, committing indi(criminate (laugh¬ 
ter, and never furrendering themfelves alive. Baffles's Hijl. 
of Java, 1817. 
Frontlefs and fatire-proof he fcow’rs. the ftreets, 
.And runs an Indian muck at ail he meets. Dryden . 
Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too difereet 
To run a-muck and tilt at all I meet. Pope's Horace. 
MUCK'-HEAP, f. A dunghill.—A very midden or 
muck-heap of all the groffeft errors and herefies of the 
Roman church. Favour's Antiq. Triumphant over Novelty. 
1619. 
MUCK'- HILL, f. A dunghill.—Old Euclio, as he went 
from home, feeing a crow ferat upon the muck hill, returned 
in ail hafte, taking it for an ill lign his money was digged 
up. Burton's Avat. of Mel. 
Hitherto amonglt you l have liv’d, 
Like an unfavoury .muck-hill to inyfelf. B.Jonfon. 
MUCK'', 
