ANTISPASMODICS. 
in part operate by this in preventing the de- 
struction of animal matter; but this is obviously 
different from their real antiseptic power, which 
the experiments of Pringle prove they possess. 
Those of them which contain tannin may operate 
from this principle, entering into combination 
with the gelatin and albumen of animal matter ; 
and perhaps, in the greater number of cases, their 
action is to be ascribed to combinations of this 
kind being established. 
Of late years, it has been discovered that the 
aluminous salts are eminently possessed of the 
property of preserving animal matters: their bases 
combining with geline to form a special com- 
pound, the acid being set free. M. Gannal found 
that a kilogramme (about 2 lbs. 8 oz. Troy weight) 
of sulphate of alumina, dissolved in two quarts 
of water, was sufficient, in winter, to preserve by 
injection a human body fresh for three months. 
The salts of alumina might dvubtless be used 
with great advantage as external applications, 
in all cases requiring the topical employment of 
antiseptics. Chlorine, chlorinated lime, and cre- 
asote are all powerful antiseptics and disinfect- 
ants. Charcoal, mixed with crumbs of bread or 
linseed meal, and applied in the form of a poul- 
tice, forms a valuable application to fetid ulcers. 
See articles Cuitorine, Distnrecrants, Purrerac- 
TION, 
ANTISPASMODICS. Medicines which coun- 
teract spasms in animals, and have a tendency 
to alleviate or cure spasmodic habits or affections. 
Opium is the most powerful antispasmodic, and 
is exceedingly serviceable in cases of locked jaw. 
Oil of turpentine is almost a specific for spasm in 
the bowels of the horse; and various essential oils 
exert. a general antispasmodic tendency. But 
‘camphor, assafoetida, and various other substan- 
ces which operate as antispasmodics in the hu- 
man subject, have a very doubtful effect on the 
horse, or may be considered as very nearly inert, 
ANYCHIA. Asmall genus of herbaceous plants 
of the Amaranth tribe. The forked species, Any- 
chia dichotoma, grows to the height of 6 inches, 
and is a biennial weed of North America. 
APARGIA. A genus of perennial, herbaceous, 
weedy plants, of the composite family. The spe-’ 
cies are fourteen in number, all natives of Europe, 
growing to the height of six or twelve inches, 
carrying yellow or orange flowers, and possessing 
a close resemblance to dandelion. ‘Two of the 
species, the autumnal and the rough, grow wild 
in Britain, the former on meadows and ordinary 
pastures, and the latter on pastures with a chalky 
soil; and one, the dandelion-leaved, grows wild 
on the lofty mountains of Scotland. 
APATITE. Native or mineral phosphate of 
lime, of similar composition to bone earth. It is 
distributed in minute proportions through every’ 
fertile soil; and occurs in a crystalline form in 
many kinds of rocks. It constitutes small crys- 
tals in granitic portions of plutonic and volcanic 
rocks, as in the mines of Johann, Georgenstadt, 
order homoptera. 
APHIS. 
207 
and Schneeberg, in Germany, and in the loose 
granitic gravel in the vicinity of Berlin; it oc- 
curs in small crystals in the syenite of Meissen, 
and in large crystals in the syenite of Friedrich- 
swern in South Norway; it is found in hypers- 
thene at Hlfdalen in Sweden, at Lobau in Saxony, 
at Tuhlowitz in Bohemia, and at Meiches in the 
Vogelsberge,—and in the last of these districts, 
which is celebrated for large and valuable pro- 
duce in wheat, the proportion of it is compara- 
tively large; it is found in the trap rocks of 
Wickenstein, Hamberg, Cabo de Gata, Laacher 
ee, and other places; it occurs in various meta- 
morphic rocks, particularly talcose and chloritic 
schists; it occurs in large yellow crystals in the 
micaceous schists of Snarum in Norway; it is 
found in the calcareous deposits of Pargas in Fin- 
land and of the Lake Baikal, and in deposits of 
magnetic iron ore in various places in Sweden 
and Norway; and it occurs in the limestone 
strata of Amberg and other places, and in the 
chalk formations of Cape la Héve at Havre, and 
Capes Blancnez and Grisnez at Calais. See Lime 
and PHOSPHATES. 
APERIENTS. Medicines which are gently 
purgative, or which tend to keep the bowels of 
animals gently open. The principal ones used 
in veterinary practice are aloes, castor oil, epsom 
salts, and glaubers’ salts. 
APHANANTHE. A little Brazilian weed, of 
the Amaranth tribe, and very closely allied to 
the annual cockscomb of, the greenhouses. It 
constitutes a genus, comprising only one species, 
APHERNOUSLI. The Siberian pine-—Pinus 
cembra. See Pinn. 
APHIS,—popularly Plant-louse. An exceed- 
ingly extensive, generally diffused, and wonder- | 
fully numerous tribe of minute insects, of the 
Dr. Leach treats them as a 
tribe or family, under the name of aphides, and 
divides them into the two genera of aphis or | 
plant-louse, and eriosoma or blight-bug,—the | 
latter genus comprising about one-fifth of the 
number of species comprised in the former; but 
they are treated as strictly one genus by Linnzeus, 
and by all naturalists from his time to that of 
Dr. Leach,—they are capable of subdivision into 
at least four groups, by marks nearly as distinct 
as those of the group eriosoma,—they possess as 
little diversity throughout their entire numbers 
as each of several genera which have never been 
divided,—they are all known to the farmer and 
the gardener under the common name of plant- 
louse, blighter, or blight-bug,—and they there- 
fore require, for every purpose of distinctness and 
utility, to be treated as strictly one group. The 
name aphis means in Greek a bug,.and is derived 
from a word which signifies to suck a plant ; and 
the name aphides may be regarded as its plural. 
The name plant-louse seems to have been sug- 
gested by a fancy, that the aphis infests plants 
in a similar manner to that in which the louse 
infests man; and the name blighter or blight- 
