become much more uncommon than formerly in the great towns themselves, except in those places where the prejudices of the people have rejected vaccination; that the mortality of children has diminished, and that population has remarkably increased, in various places-if we consider all these circumstances, we shall not only appreciate the advantages which society is likely to reap from the precious discovery of Jenner, but the hope that the small-pox, that dreadful scourge of society, will disappear altogether, will be no longer chimerical; since this has been already realized in those places where the confidence of the people in the efficacy of vaccination has induced them generally to adopt it. The reports published by the central committee of Paris in 1803, 1804, 1806, 1808, 1811, and 1819; and several bulletins of its correspondence, which have been successively published, contain numerous and positive proofs of all that we have advanced; namely, of epidemics terminated or circumscribed, of their periodical returns prevented, by the number of vaccinations; and of the small-pox not only rendered rare, but of its being quite unknown in particular places, since the introduction of vaccination. The same phenomena are attested by the minister of the interior of the kingdom of Italy, especially in the epidemies observed at Brescia and Milan. The physicians of Geneva attest the annihilation of the small-pox in their town. The diminution of mortality, and the increased population, in consequence, have been ascertained at Rouen, at Creuznach, at Bezançon, in the departments of the Upper Rhine, of Dordogne, &c. and even in some quarters of Paris. These are irrefragable proofs of the advantages which may be expected from the discovery of Jenner. In the account which we have given to the Institute, of the results obtained from the introduction of the cow-pox into France, after twelve years experience, we have only collected facts of undoubted authenticity. We were of opinion that the more advantageous the consequences, drawn from any observations, the more numerous they ought to be. We have rejected all the cases where the advantages resulting might be ascribed to peculiar circumstances in the case. It was not our intention to conceal any of the motives, or any of the facts, on which the objections made against vaccination have been founded. We have compared both sides of each question together; and we have aimed less at drawing absolute and exclusive consequences than at obtaining the requisite degree of exactness to determine as much as possible the measure of probability, and to estimate in consequence the value of the dis covery, and the services which it may render to mankind. We think we have established, in a satisfactory manner, that the virus of cow-pox does not introduce into the body any matter calculated to produce disagreeable effects, and which ought to be thrown out by eruptions similar to those of the small-pox. That the eruptions, which at first frequently followed vaccination, were owing not to the nature of the virus itself, but to other circumstances, most of them well known and easily determinable, during the existence of which the cow-pox matter was applied. That the unfortunate results of vaccination sometimes observed ought to be ascribed to causes foreign to vaccination, which have made their appearance during its course, or which, having previously existed, acquired an intensity which ought to be ascribed not to the virus of cow-pox, but to the peculiar state of the subjects vacoinated. That the disorders which have been sometimes observed to follow vaccination, when they are not owing to diseases already existing, are evidently particular cases, owing to the condition of individuals, and which, bearing no proportion to the number of cases exempt from all such disagreeable results, can give no room for drawing a general and unfavourable conclusion. That these observations, even supposing them incontestable, are more than compensated by the numerous examples of chronic and obstinate maladies which have been completely and unexpectedly cured by vaccination: and that these examples, if we compare them with similar examples in favour of small-pox inoculation, if to this comparison we join the differences in the essential character of the two species of virus, and in their contagious effects, give to vaccination an incomparable advantage over small-pox inoculation, considered as a preventive of smallpox, and as a remedy for other diseases. Finally, that the preservative effect of the cowpox virus, when this virus is pure, and has produced genuine cow-pox, is at least as certain as that of the virus of small-pox itself; and that when considered relative to society in general, vaccination has an advantage which small-pox inoculation cannot possess; namely, the advantage of stopping, diminishing, and destroying epidemic small-pox; of diminishing the mortality of children, and of increasing the population; and that the results already obtained give hopes of seeing the small-pox, one of the most dismal diseases under which mankind has groaned, removed entirely from the face of the earth. VACCINIUM. Whortleberry. Moorberry. Cranberry. In botany, a genus of the class octandria, order monogynia. Corol onepetalled, stamens inserted on the receptacle; berry inferior, four-celled, many-seeded. Twen ty-seven species, chiefly natives of North America; several of Europe, a few of Japan: four common to our country, as follow. 1. V. myrtillus. Myrtleberry. Bilberry. Bleaberry. Peduncles one-flowered; leaves ovate, serrate, deciduous; stem angular. Found on heaths; the berry blueish-black; but there is a variety with white berries. The berries are astringent: they are eaten in milk in the highlands of Scotland, and often made into tarts and jellies. Grouse feed upon them when ripe; and they are sometimes employed as a violet dye. 2. V. uliginosum. Great bilberry-bush. Peduncles one-flowered; leaves obovate, very entire, glabrous; branches round. Found on heaths, and on the summits of the Highland mountains: the berries larger, but less esteemed than the last. 3. V. vitis idæa. Red whortleberry. Racenies terminal, nodding; leaves obovate, revolute, denticulate, dotted underneath. Found on heaths; the berries, which are also dark purple, are subacid and cooling. In Sweden they are often made into rob or jelly. This, in the old botanical books, is an arbutus, it is so ranked by Caspar Bauhine, and is probably one of the arbuta matura puniceo colore referred to by Lucretius, lib. v. 939, as constituting a part of the food of man in his savage state, and hence rendered wild wood-whortle by his translator. The passage is as follows: "Glandiferas intercurabant corpora quercus Plerumque; et quæ nunc byberus tempores cernis, Arbuta puniceo fieri matura colore, Plurima tum tellus, etiam majora, ferebat. But acorn-meals chief culled they from the shade Of forest-oaks; and in their wintry months, The wild wood-whortle with its purple fruit Fed them, then larger and more amply poured. GOOD. 4. V. oxycoccos. Cranberry. Moorberry. Leaves ovate, very entire, revolute, acute; stems creeping, filiform, glabrous. Found in moors and peat-bogs; berries red, and nearly of the size of those belonging to the hawthorn. In Cumberland, and some other parts, they are cultivated largely and very profitably by the poor, who bring them in great abundance to market, whence the country becomes supplied with the fruit that provides us with cranberry tarts. It was formerly used in medicine under its specific name. See the article Oxycoccos, and BOTANY, Pl. CLXXXIII. VACHA, a town of Germany, in the landgravate of Hesse-Cassel, 40 miles S.E. of Cassel, Lon. 10. 12 E. Lat. 50. 55 N. VACHE, an island of the West Indies, off the S. coast of St. Domingo, opposite St. Louis. It was formerly a rendezvous of the bucaniers, who began a settlement here in 1673. VACILLANCY. s. (vacillans, Lat.) A state of wavering; fluctuation; inconstancy (More). VACILLATION. s. (vacillatio, Latin.) The act or state of reeling or staggering (Durham). VACUATION. s. (from vacuus, Lat.) The act of emptying. VACUIST. s. (from vacuum.) A philosopher that holds a vacuum (Boyle). VACUITY. s. (from vacuitas, Latin.) 1. Emptiness; state of being unfilled (Arb.). 2. Space unfilled; space unoccupied (Rogers). 3. Inanity; want of reality (Glanville). VACUNA, a goddess at Rome, who presided over repose and leisure, as the word indicates (vacare). Her festivals were observed in the month of December. (Quid). VACUOUS. a. (vacuus, Latin; vacue, Fr.) Empty; unfilled (Milton). VACUUM, in philosophy, denotes a space empty or devoid of all matter or body. It has been a matter of much dispute among philosophers whether there be in nature a perfect vacuum, or space void of all matter; but if bodies consist of material solid atoms, it is evident that there must be vacuities, or motion would be impossible. We can even produce something very near a vacuum in the receiver of an air-pump and in the Tor ricellian tube (see PNEUMATICS, passim); and it is very doubtful whether the particles of the densest bodies known be in perfect contact. See OPTICS. To VADE. v. n. (vado, Latin.) To vanish; to pass away (Wotton). VADE MECUM, or VENI MECUM, a Latin phrase, used in English to express a thing that is very handy and familiar, and which one usually carries about with them; chiefly applied to some favourite book. VADO, a seaport of Italy, in the territory of Genoa, with a fort; taken by the French in 1795. It is three miles W. of Savona, and 24 S.W. of Genoa. Lon. 8. 8 E. Lat. 44. 15 N. VADSTEIN, a town of Sweden, in East Gothland, where the kings of Sweden had formerly a palace, now in ruins. It is seated on the E. side of the lake Wetter, near the river Motala, 32 miles W. of Nordkioping. Lon. 15. 55 E. Lat. 58. 12 N. VAGABOND. a. (vagabond, French.) 1. Wandering without any settled habitation; wanting a home (Ayliffe). 2. Wandering; vagrant (Shakspeare). VA'GABOND. s. (from the adjective.) 1. A vagrant; a wanderer: commonly in a sense of reproach (Raleigh). 2. One that wanders illegally, without a settled habitation (Watts), VAGARY. s. (from vagus, Latin.) A wild freak; a capricious frolic (Locke). VAGINA, in botany, a sheath or membrane investing a stem. but VAGINA, in anatomy, Vagina uteri. The canal which leads from the pudendum or external orifice to the uterus. It is somewhat of a conical form, with the narrowest part downwards, and is described as being five or six inches in length, and about two in dia ineter. But it would be more proper to say, that it is capable of being extended to those dimensions; for in its common state the os uteri is seldom found to be more thanthree inches from the external orifice, and the vagina is contracted as well as shortened. The vagina is composed of two coats, the first or innermost of which is villous, interspersed with many excretory ducts, and contracted into plicæ, or small transverse folds, particularly at the fore and back part, by child-bearing these are lessened or obliterated. The second coat is composed of a firm membrane, in which muscular fibres are not distinctly observable, but which are endowed, to a certain degree, with contractile powers like a muscle. This is surrounded by cellular membrane, which connects it to the neighbouring parts. A portion of the upper and posterior part of the vagina is also covered by the peritonæum. The entrance of the vagina is constricted by muscular fibres, originating from the rami of the pubis, which run on each side of the pudenduin, surrounding the posterior part, and exccuting an equivalent office, though they cannot be said to form a true sphincter. The upper part of the vagina is connected to the circumference of the os uteri, but not in a straight line, so as to render the cavity of the uterus a continuation of that of the vagina. For the latter stretches beyond the former, and, being joined to the cervix, is reflected over the os uteri, which, by this mode of union, is suspended with protuberant lips in the vagina, and permitted to change its position in various ways and directions. When therefore these parts are distended and unfolded at the time of labour, they are continued into each other, and there is no part which can properly be considered as the precise beginning of the uterus or termination of the vagina, The diseases of the vagina are, first, such an abbreviation and contraction as render it unfit for the uses for which it was designed: secondly, a cohesion of the sides in consequence of preceding ulceration: thirdly, cicatrices after an ulceration of the parts: fourthly, excrescences: fifthly, fluor albus. This abbreviation and contraction of the vagina, which usually accompany each other, are produced by original defective formation, and they are seldom discovered before the time of marriage, the consummation of which they sometimes prevent. The curative intentions are to relax the parts by the use of emollient applications, and to dilate them to their proper size by sponge or other tents, or, which are more effectual, by bougies gradually enlarged. Another kind of constriction of the external parts sometimes occurs, and which seems to be a mere spasm. By the violence or long continuance of a labour, by the morbid state of the constitution, or by the negligent and improper use of instruments, an inflammation of the external parts or vagina is sometimes produced in such a degree as to endanger a mortification. By careful management this consequence is usually prevented, but in some cases, when the constitution of the patient was prone to disease, the external parts have sloughed away, and in others equal injury has been done to the vagina. But the effect of the inflammation is usually confined to the internal or villous coat, which is sometimes cast off wholly or partially. An ulcerated surface being thus left, when the disposition to heal has taken place, cicatrices have been formed of different kinds, according to the depth and extent of the ulceration; and there being no counteraction to the contractile state of the parts, the dimensions of the vagina become much reduced, or, if the ulceration should not be healed, and the contractibility of the parts continue to operate, the ulcerated surfaces being brought together may cohere, and the canal of the vagina be perfectly closed. Cicatrices in the vagina verv seldom become an impediment to the connexion between the sexes; when they do, the same kind of as sistance is required as was recommended in the natural contraction or abbreviation of the part; they always give way to the pressure of the head of the child in the time of labour, though in many cases with great difficulty. Sometimes the appearances may mislead the judgment: Dr. Denman was called to a woman in labour, who was thought to have become pregnant; the hymen remained unbroken; but, on making very particular inquiry, he discovered that this was her second labour, and that the part which from its form and situation was supposed to be the hymen, with a small aperture, was a cicatrice, or unnatural contraction of the entrance into the vagina, consequent to an ulceration of the part after her former labour. Fungous excrescences arising from any part of the vagina or uterus have been distinguished, though not very properly, by the general term polypus. See POLYPUS. VAGINA OF THE NERVES. The outer covering of the nerves. By some it is said to be a production of the pia mater only, and by others of the dura mater, because it agrees with it in tenacity, colour, and texture. VAGINA OF THE TENDONS. A loose membranous sheath formed of cellular membrane, investing the tendons, and containing an unctuous juice, which is secreted by the vessels of its internal surface. Ganglions are nothing more than an accumulation of this juice. VAGINALES. The name of the twentyseventh order in Linnéus's Fragments of a Natural Method in his Philosophia Botanica. Bill VAGINALIS. Sheath bill. In zoology, a genus of the class aves, order grallæ. strong, thick, conic-convex, compressed; the upper mandible covered above with a moveable horny sheath; nostrils small, placed before the sheath; tongue above round, beneath flattened, pointed at the tip; face naked, papillous; wings with an obtuse excrescence under the flexure; legs strong, four-toed, naked a little above the knees; toes rough beneath; claws grooved : one species only, V. alba, white sheath bill, which inhabits New Zealand and the South Sea Islands; from fifteen to eighteen inches long: feeds on shell-fishes and carcasses. VAGINANT LEAF, in botany. A sheathing leaf. See SHEATHING. VAGINATE STEM, in botany. A sheathed stem. See SHEATHED. VAGINOPE'NNOUS. a. (vagina and penna, Latin.) Sheath-winged; having the wings covered with hard cases. VA'GOUS. a. (vagus, Lat. vague, French.) Wandering; unsettled: not in use (Ayliffe). VA'GRANCY. s. (from vagrant.) A state of wandering; unsettled condition. VA'GRANT. a. Wandering; unsettled; vagabond; unfixed in place (Prior). VAGRANTS, in law, are divided into three classes: 1st. Idle and disorderly persons. These, as described by the vagrant act, consist of those who threaten to run away and leave their wives and children to the parish. All persons returning to a parish whence they have been legally removed, without bringing a certificate from the parish to which they belong. All who, not having wherewith to maintain themselves, refuse to work. All who beg alms from door to door, or in the streets and highways. Likewise those who, not using proper means to get employment, or possessing ability to work, refuse to do it; or spend money in alehouses, or in any improper manner; and by not employing a proper proportion of their earnings towards the maintenance of their families, suffer them to become chargeable to the parish. The punishment for these offences is a commitment to the house of correction, and hard labour, for any definite time not exceed ing a month; the time must be set forth in the warrant of commitment, which must also shew the authority of the person committing. The commitment must be in execution, that is to say, for punishment; and being so, the justice must make a record of the conviction, and transmit the same to the sessions, Any person may apprehend and carry such persons efore a magistrate; and if they resist or escape, the shall be punished as rogues and vagabonds: the reward for such apprehension is five shillings, to be paid by the overseer of the parish. 2. Rogues and vagabonds. No infant under the age of seven years can be called a rogue and vagabond, but shall be removed to its place of settlement, like other paupers. The following is a list of those who are deemed rogues and vagabonds. All persons gathering alms under pretended losses; persons going about as collectors for prisons or hospitals; fencers; bearwards; common players not legally authorised; minstrels; jugglers; real or pretended gypsies; fortune-tellers; any persons using any subtle craft to impose upon any of his majesty's subjects, or playing at unlawful games, or any who have run away and left their wives and children a charge to the parish; all petty chapmen and pedlars not authorised by law; all persons not giving a good account of themselves; all beggars pretending to be soldiers or seamen, or pretending to go to work in harvest; or illegal dealers in lottery tickets and shares. And all other persons wandering abroad and begging, shall be deemed rogues and vagabonds: the reward for apprehending such persons is 10s., to be paid by the high constable, on an order from the justice. There is a penalty of 10s. on a constable who refuses or neglects to apprehend them, 3. Incorrigible rogues, are all end-gatherers, offending against the stat. 13 Geo.; which is collecting, buying, receiving, or carrying, any ends of yarn, wefts, thrums, short yarn, or other refuse of cloth or woollen goods, All persons apprehended as rogues and vagabonds, and escaping, or refusing to go before a justice, or refusing to be conducted by the pass, or giving a false account of themselves on examination, after warning. All rogues or vagabonds escaping from the house of correction before the expiration of the time of their commitment; and all who have been punished as rogues and vagabonds, and repeat the offence. There is by 17 Geo. II. c. 25, a privy search appointed; and the justices or two of them four times a year at least meet, and command the constables of every ward or parish, properly assisted, to make general search in one night, and cause all vagrants that shall be found on such search to be brought before a justice; and two justices, in case such person is charged as a vagrant, or on suspicion of felony, may examine him; and if he cannot shew some lawful way of getting his livelihood, or procure bail for his reappearance, may commit him for a certain time not exceeding six days; and if, after advertising his person, and any thing about him suspected to be stolen, no accusation is brought, he shall be discharged, or dealt with according to law. All rogues and vagabonds are examined upon oath as to their parish, and the written examination signed by them and the justice, and transmitted to the sessions. : The punishment is public whipping or confinement to the house of correction till the next sessions, or any less time; and if at the sessions the court adjudge such person a rogue and vagabond, or an incorrigible rogue, they may order such rogue or vagabond to the house of correction and hard labour for six months, or such incorrigible rogue for not less than six months or more than two years, and during his confinement to be whipped as they shall think fit. And if such rogue or vagabond is a male above 12 years old, the court may, after his confinement, send him to be employed in his majesty's service and if such incorrigible rogue shall make his escape, or offend a second time, he shall be transported for seven years. After such whipping or confinement, the justice may, by a pass under his hand (of which a duplicate shall be filed at the next sessions), cause him to be conveyed to the place of his last legal residence, and if that cannot be found, to the place of his birth; and if they are under 14 years of age, and have parents living, then to the place of their abode; and the parish to which the vagrant shall be conveyed shall employ him in some workhouse till he gets some employment; and if he refuses to work, he shall be sent to the house of correction and hard labour. The general tenor of the laws respesting vagrants is extremely severe, and very justly so; and it is the duty of every justice of the peace to keep his district free from this class, as they are great burthens to the parish, and very difficult to be removed. For the best account of the vagrant act, vide Burn's Justice, vol. 4, article Vagrant, VAGUE. a. (vague, French; vagus, Lat.) 1. Wandering; vagrant; vagabond (Hayw.). 2. Unsettled; undetermined (Locke). VAHLIA, in botany, a genus of the class pentandria, order digynia. Calyx five-leaved; corol five-petalled; capsule inferior, one-celled, many-seeded. One species, a herb of the Cape. VAIL. s. (vaile, French.) 1. A curtain; a cover thrown over any thing to be concealed (Wisdom). 2. A part of female dress, by which the face is concealed. See VEIL. 3. Money given to servants. See VALE. To VAIL. v. a. To cover. See VEIL. To VAIL. v. a. (avaler le bonet, French.) 1. To let fall; to suffer to descend (Carew). 2. To let fall in token of respect (Knolles), 3. To fall; to let sink in fear, or for any other interest (Shakspeare). |