Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/636

This page needs to be proofread.

612 WHITTINGHAM WHTITINGHAM, William Rplllnson, an Ameri- can bishop, born in New York, Dec. 2, 1805. He graduated at the General theological semi- nary in 1825, was ordained March 11, 1827, and became rector of 8t. Luke's church, New York, in 1831. In 1835 he became professor of ecclesiastical history in the General theo- logical seminary, and in 1840 bishop of Mary- land. He has edited the " Family Visitor " and " Children's Magazine," monthly, and the " Churchman," weekly ; also, the " Parish Library 'of Standard Works for Use in the Protestant Episcopal Church," with introduc- tions and notes (13 vols. 12mo, 1828 et seq.)-^ Jahn's'" Introduction to the Old Testament,"" in conjunction with Dr. Turner (1827); Pal- mer's " Treatise on the Church of Christ " (2 vols. 8vo, 1841); "Commonitory of Vincent of L6rins," new translation, with notes, &c. (1847) ; and " Ratramn on the Lord's Supper," with a revised translation (1848). VllinvoKTH, Sir Joseph, an English mech- anician, born in Stockport in 1803. He found- ed the manufacturing firm of Joseph Whit- worth and co. in Manchester, and made many inventions and improvements, first becoming generally known by his planing and tool ma- chines exhibited in 1851. He was a commis- sioner to the international exhibition at New York in 1853. In 1834 he began to manufac- ture riHos with a hexagonal bore and elongated grooved projectile, and has since applied the same principle to breech-loading cannon. (See ARTILLERY, and CANNON.) He was made a baronet in 1809, and in the same year founded the " Whitworth scholarships" for the encour- agement of mechanical and engineering science. They are 30 in number, of 100 a year each, tenable for two or three years. lie has pub- lished " Miscellaneous Papers on Mechanical Subjects" (1858), and "Papers on Practical Subjects : Guns and Steel " (1873). U rtiMH'l M; COUGH, an affection characterized by paroxysms of convulsive cough, accompanied by short and sudden acts of noisy expiration, followed by a long and whooping inspiration ; it is the chincough of the English, the pertuwU of Sydenham, and the coqueluche of the French. It generally occurs but once in the life of an individual, and most frequently during infancy or childhood. It does not appear to have been distinguished from catarrlml affections until about the 18th century, and it is almost exclu- sively confined to temperate and cold regions. It begins with the symptoms of ordinary ca- tarrh, which continue five or ten days, after which the convulsive character of the cough becomes manifest, at intervals of from half an hour to four hours ; the paroxysm is attended with the signs of threatened suffocation, livid- ity and swelling of the face and neck, fulness of the eyes, quick pulse, and extreme agita- tion ; at the end of a few minutes the coughing oeases on the vomiting of food or tough mucus ; in severe cases there may be discharges of blood from the nose and mouth, and even fits of faintness. When the whoop is estab- lished, the catarrhal symptoms diminish or disappear, the fever is very slight, and the child may be lively, with good appetite, and apparently well in the intervals of the parox- ysms ; after three or four weeks, in the most favorable cases, the cough becomes looser and milder, with longer intervals, and finally ceases in two or three months, though recovery may be much delayed by unpleasant weather or ex- posure to cold. Simple whooping cough runs its limited time, not amenable to medical treat- ment, and is rarely if ever fatal ; but its compli- cations of pulmonary and cerebral disease may destroy life, or leave various marks of irrita- tion and inflammation in the lungs and brain, while the simple disease leaves no trace which throws light upon its nature. It may occur at all seasons, sometimes epidemically, and is un- questionably often communicated by infection. The whoop and the paroxysmal character of the cough prevent this disease from being con- founded with any other. In simple cases the prognosis is favorable, but its complications in teething, unhealthy, or recently weaned chil- dren are dangerous and frequently fatal. In un- complicated whooping cough the treatment consists, in the first stage, of that proper for ordinary catarrh, with gentle laxatives and emetics, low diet, simple expectorants, and confinement in a well ventilated, moderately warm room ; careful watch must be kept for pulmonary inflammation, which must be met at once by appropriate remedies. When the second or paroxysmal stage has been fairly es- tablished, with diminution of fever, return of appetite, and an approach to health during the intervals, a change of air from the city to the country, and vice rr#a, with antispasmodics and expectorants, will complete the cure. WHORTLEBERRY, Hartleberry, or Hnckleberry, the name of plants and their fruit of the gen- era GayluMocia and Taccinium, constituting a suborder of the ericaceae or heath family. The form huckleberry is now generally used by American botanists and in trade. Formerly all the whortleberries were included in r/n-i-i- nium; but as several differ essentially in the structure of the fruit, they were separated under Qaylutsacia. Both genera are shrubs with scaly buds; the calyx adherent to the ovary, upon the top of which is the monopet- alous tubular, bell-shaped, or variously formed corolla, including the eight to ten stamens; the fruit a usually edible berry, crowned with the short calyx teeth. In Gaylussacia the leaves of most species have resinous dots ; the anthers open by a chink at the blunt or taper- ing top, and are awnless ; the fruit is a com- pound drupe rather than a proper berry, and contains ten small, seed-like, one-seeded stones. In taccinium, the leaves are without resinous dots; the cells of the anthers taper upward into a tube, which has a hole at the top for the escape of the pollen, and sometimes each cell bears an awn-like appendage on the back ;