jury. The organs of hearing, as well as those of sight, being extremely tender, require the most cautious treatment, and ought not on any account to be tampered with, nor submitted to the experiments of ignorant pretenders. Hence, instead of having recourse to nostrums, we recommend those persons, who sre afflicted with deafness, to keep the head warm.—From whatever cause the disorder may originate, this will always be found the safest and most proper practice;—more real benefit has often been derived from it, in the most obstinate cases, than from any medicines whatever.
DEAL, a well-known wood, bring the production of the fir-tree, and of great utility for building, and other purposes.
An excellent method of seasoning planks of deal and fir is, to immerse them into salt-water, as soon as they are sawed, for three or four days; care being taken to turn them frequently during that time. They should then be exposed to the sun and air, which will in a considerable degree harden them, though it will not prevent them from shrinking.—See Timber.
By the stat. of 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 2; and 6 Geo. I. c. 15, no deal-boards or fir-timber may be imported from the Netherlands; but fir-timber, fir-planks, and deal-boards, the growth of Germany, are importable from any place in that country, by British subjects only, in British-built ships, legally navigated. By 39 Geo. III. c. 3, deal-boards, fir, and timber, may be imported in British-built ships, owned and navigated according to law, from Hamburgh, Bremen, Altona, and Gluckstadt, until the 1st of August, 1802.—See Fir-tree.
DEATH, a term more easily understood than defined. Although it may generally be said, that death consists in the separation of the soul from the body, yet this explanation is so far imperfect, as we possess but a distant idea of the connexion subsisting between the mind and the animal frame: nor does the definition here stated express any more than the effect, but leaves us completely ignorant of the cause of that great event, or the physical process by which dissolution is accomplished.
In order to prepare the reader for more clearly understanding the symptoms of actual dissolution, we shall briefly relate the gradual decay preceding this catastrophe.
The human body is, from its birth, liable to continual changes, in consequence of the different vital, animal, and other functions, it performs: till it attains a certain age, let us suppose that of thirty-five years, in a state of perfect health, these changes tend to improve its solidity, strength, and sprightliness, without detracting from its organic vigour. After that period, which we may venture to call the meridian of life, it gradually declines. The smallest fibres become rigid; the minute capillary vessels corrugate, admit no fluids to pass through them, and at length change into fibres; the larger blood-vessels grow hard and narrow; in short, all the outlets of the body become contracted, and in a manner close: whence the dry, shrivelled, and inflexible state of old age. Thus, the interior organs every day become more inert in performing their functions; the
