P I T 
P I T 
543 
Pitchy anti dark the night fometimes appears, 
Friend to our woe, and parent of our fears; 
Our joy and wonder fometimes fhe excites 
With ftars unnumbered. Prior. 
PITE'A, or Pith'ea, a fea-port town of Sweden, in 
Weft Bothnia, fituated on a fmall ifland, at the mouth of 
a river of the fame name. It is joined to the continent 
by a wooden bridge, at the end of which is a gate. The 
ftreets run in parallel lines; but the church (lands a 
confiderabie diftance from the town, fo that the bridge 
muft be crofted to go to it. This town has a commo¬ 
dious harbour, and a good fchool. Pitea was firft built in 
the year 162,1, by Guftavus Adolphus, about three miles 
higher up in the country; but the town being totally 
deftroyed by fire in the year 1666, it was rebuilt on its 
prefent fituation. Old Pitea is now a large village, con¬ 
fiding of a great number of houfes, fcattered irregularly 
on a fine common. Lat. 65. 23. N. Ion. 21. 22. E. 
PIT'EOUS, adj. Sorrowful; mournful; exciting pity. 
—They heard that -piteous drained voice. Spenfer. 
The moft arch deed of piteous maffacre 
That ever yet this land was guilty of. S/iakefpeare. 
Compaftionate; tender: 
If the feries of thy joys 
Permit one thought lefs cheerful to arife. 
Piteous transfer it to the mournful Twain. Prior. 
Wretched; paltry; pitiful.— Piteous amends ! Milton. 
PIT'EOUSLY, adv. In a piteous manner; in a manner 
exciting pity.—A moft glorious fabrick moft piteoujly in¬ 
habited ; nothing but cats and crocodiles within, inftead 
of gods. 1 Hammond. 
I muft talk of murthers, rapes, and inaffacres. 
Ruthful to hear, yet piteoujly perform’d. Titus Andr. 
PIT'EOUSNESS, f. Sorrowfulnefs ; tendernefs. 
PITESZ'TI, a town of Walachia: fifty miles north-weft 
ofBuchareft. Lat. 44. 57. N. Ion. 24. 49. E. 
PIT'FALL, J. A pit dug and covered, into which a 
paflenger falls unexpectedly.—Thefe hidden pitfalls were 
fet thick at the entrance of the bridge, fo that throngs of 
people fell into them. Addifon. 
Poor bird ! thou’d’ft never fear the net or lime, 
The pitfall nor the gin. Shakefpeare's Macbeth. 
To PIT'FALL, v. n. To lead into a pitfall.—Not full of 
cranks and contradictions, and pitfalling difpenfes. Mil- 
ton’s D06I. and Difc. of Divorce. 
PITH, f. [pi'Sa, Sax.] The marrow of the plant; the 
foft part in tire midft of the wood.'—If a cion, fit to be 
fet in the ground, hath the pith finely taken forth, and 
not altogether, but fome of it left, it will bear a fruit 
with little or no core. Bacon's Nat. Hift. 
Her folid bones convert to folid wood. 
To pith her marrow, and to fap her blood. Dryden. 
Marrow.—The vertebres are all perforated in the middle, 
with a large hole for the fpinal marrow or pith to pafs 
along. Bay. 
As doth the pith, which, left our bodies flack, 
Strings fall the little bones of neck and back ; 
So by the foul doth death firing heaven and earth. Donne. 
Strength ; force.— Pith in Scotland is ftill retained as 
denoting ftrength, either corporeal or intelledlual; as. 
That defies all your pith. Johnfon. —Since thefe arms of 
mine had feven years’ pith. Shakefpeare. 
Leave your England, 
Guarded with grandfires, babies, and old women, 
Orpafs’d, or not arriv’d to, pith and puiffance. Shakefpeare. 
Energy ; cogency ; fulnefs of fentiment; clofenefs and 
vigour of thought and flyle : 
Theoftler, barber, miller, and thefmith, 
Heare of the fawes of fuch as wifdome ken, 
And learn fome wit, although they want the pith 
That clerkes pretend. Mir. for Mag. 
Weight; moment; principal part.—That’s my pith of 
bufinefs ’twixt you and your poor brother. Shakefpeare’s 
Meaf. for Meaf. 
Enterprifes of great pith and moment, 
With this regard their currents turn awry, 
And lofe the name of adlion. Shakefpeare's Hamlet. 
The quinteffence ; the chief part: 
The owner of a foul difeafe, 
To keep it from divulging, lets it feed 
Ev’n on th epith of life. Shakefpeare's Hamlet. 
PITH'ECON POR'TUS, in ancient geography, a port 
of Africa, in Libya, near Carthage. 
PITHECUSftLT, iflands of the Tyrrhenian fea, near 
the coalls of Campania. 
PITHE'US. See Pittheus. 
PITH'ILY, adv. With ftrength ; with cogency; with 
force.—Lucilius hath briefly and pithily pointed out that 
bafe kind of life. Hakewill on Providence. 
PITH'INESS, J\ Energy; ftrength.—No lefs deferveth 
his witnefs in deviling, his pithinefs in uttering, his com¬ 
plaint of love, fo lovely. E. K. on Spenfer. 
PITH'ING, f. The name of an operation performed 
for killing animals fuddenly and without pain, with a 
narrow double-edged poniard palled in between thefkull 
and firft vertebra of the neck: in this way the medulla 
oblongata is divided, and the animal inftantaneoufly 
deprived of fenfibility. This operation was performed by 
Mr. Cline, junior, aflifted by Mr. Brodie and Mr. Clift, on 
a camel that had been the fubjedl of Mr. Home’s experi¬ 
ments. See Phil. Tranf. vol. xcvi. p. 359. 
The common mode of killing cattle in this kingdom 
is, by finking them on the forehead with a pole-axe, and 
then cutting their throats to bleed them. But this me¬ 
thod is cruel, and not free from danger. The animal is 
not always brought down by the firft blow, and the repe¬ 
tition is difficult and uncertain, and, if the animal be not 
very well fecured, accidents may happen. Lord Somer¬ 
ville, therefore, endeavoured to introduce the method of 
pithing, or laying (as it was called from the gentlenefs of 
it) cattle, by dividing the fpinal marrow above the origin 
of thephrenic nerves, as is commonly praftifed in Barbary, 
Spain, Portugal, Jamaica, and in fome parts of England ; 
and Mr. Jackfon (Reflections on the Commerce of the 
Mediterranean) fays, that “the bed method of killing a 
bullock, is by thrufting a fharp-pointed knife into the 
fpinal marrow, when the bullock will immediately fall 
without any ftruggle.” 
It is defirable, on feveral accounts, that this fudden 
mode of killing neat cattle, and other forts of animals, 
by ftriking into and dividing this vital part, fhould 
become the common one in all (laughter-houfes, and 
other places; and, efpecially, as removing the apparent 
cruelty, and leflening the fufferings of them, more than 
in the other or the ordinary practice. This method, 
which has long been univerfal, in a great meafure, on 
the continent, as well as in fome of our Weft-Indian 
Iflands, has, within thefe few years, been tried in this 
country, in fome inftances with complete fuccefs ; and 
the flefh of the beads fo killed has been found equally 
good, if not better, than that of thofe flaughtered in the 
ufual manner; and, as the operation is capable of being 
performed quietly, and without any fort of alarm to the 
animals,all accidents and bruifes are avoided, which not 
uncommonly take place in forcing them into a proper 
fituation and pofition for receiving the flroke or blow, 
when they are to be knocked down, and killed in that 
way. 
It has been flated by the writer of the Correfled Report 
of the Agriculture of Shropfhire, that a butcher at Wif- 
bech, 
