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tinuing there fome time, carrying itfelf along by means of the pedtoral fins. The laft quality belongs only to the flying fifli, and a very few others. Jrtedi Ichthyology, p. I.
?\scisfoJJ$lis 9 in ichthyology, a name given by Jonfton to a kind of the cobitis, found buried in the fand, and dug out by the'people of many parts of Germany for food. It is called by many authors the muflela fojjilh, and by fome the faciha. It is properly a fpecies of cobitis, and is called by Artedi the hluijh cobitis, with five longitudinal black lines on each fide of the body. Artedi, Jonfton, de Pifc.
Piscis fanSli petri, in ichthyology, a name given by Jovius and fome other authors to the faber or John Doree. It is properly a fpecies of zeus. See Zeus.
PISCIVOROUS animals, are fuch as feed on fifh. See the ar- ticle Bird.
PISMIRE, in zoology, See Formica.
PISONIA, in botany, the name given by Plumier, in honour of Pifo, to a genus of plants, called by VziWznt pentagonotheca. The characters are thefe : it produces feparate male and fe- male flowers ; in the male flower the cup is ereel, very fmall, and divided into five fegments : the flower is of a funnel-fhape, the tube is fhort, and the mouth very wide : it is lightly di- vided into five fegments, and lies open : the ftamina are five pointed filaments, longer than the flower : the apices arefimple. In the female flower, the cup is the fame as in the male; but it ftands on a germen : the flower is the fame as in the male : from the germen there arifes a fingle, ere£t, cylindric ftyle, which is longer than the flower, crowned with five oblong ftigmata : the fruit is an oval capfule, compofed of five valves, and having an obfeurely pentangular appearance, but having only one cavity within : the feed is fingle, fmooth, and of an oval or oblong figure. Untiai Gen. PL p. 474. Pltmder, Gen- 11. Houfton, 13. Vaillant, A£t. Germ.
PISSASPHALTUM, in natural hiftory, the name of a genus of foflils, the characters of which are thefe ; They are fluid mineral bodies, of a fomewhat thick confidence, dufky, and opake ; of a flrong fmell, and readily inflammable, but leav- ing a refiduum of greyifh afhes after burning. There are three known fpecies of this genus : 1. A thinner blackifh kind, called oleum terns. 2. A thicker black one, called piffeUum Indicum, or Barbadoes tar. And, 3. A black and vifcous one, called fimply pijfafphaltum in the fhops. See the articles Oil of the earth, and Pisseljeum. Pijfafphaltum is as tough and vifcous as bird-lime, and of the fame confiftence when old. It very much refembles the com- mon black pitch, when foftened a little by heat; and has been generally thought to have fomething of the fmell of that fub- ftance: but this feems to have arifen from its being too fre- quently adulterated by mixing pitch with it, and the true ge- nuine fubftance has no other fmell than the rank one of all the bitumens, which fomewhat refemble that of oil of amber. It is produced in feveral parts of the world, and there are large quantities of it in Germany, in Perfia, and in France. It yields a limpid oil by diftillation, which very much refembles the native petroleum, and is too often fold with us under this name, being annually imported in large quantities from thofe parts of Germany where it is manufactured, and having itfelf no particular name in (he fhops of our druggifts. Hill's Hift. FofT. p. 422.
Pijfafphaltum was much recommended by the antients for ex- ternal ufe, as an emollient, maturant and digeftive : with this intention it was ufed in cataplafms, for ripening all forts of tumors, and againft the fciatica and other pains of the limbs. They alfo had recourfe to it for ftrengthening the limbs, after the reduction of dislocations. It is little ufed at prefent, the 1 petroleum being thought very proper to fupply its place.
PISSEL/EUM indicum, in the materia medica, a fubftance com- monly known by the name of Barbadoes tar. It is a heavy, thick, and dufky-looking mineral fluid, of the colour and con- fiftence of common treacle, and of a very opake hue; it is of a difagreeable fmell, faintly approaching to that of oil of am- ber, and is very inflammable. It is found trickling down the fides of the mountains at the back of £sveral of our plantations in America, and is in great efteem there for coughs and dif- orders of the lungs. We meet with very little in England that is genuine, feveral different fophiftications of it being in common ufe, even upon the fpot. Hilt's Hift. Foil p. 421.
PISSEROS, the name of an ointment greatly recommended by Hippocrates in many cafes, as in burns, frefh wounds, £3°c. It was made of oil of rofes, bees-wax, and pitch, proportioned fo as to give the whole a foft confiftence. It was of the na- ture of our modern black bafilicon, found a good ointment in many cafes. PISSINUM. Pliny fays it was cuftomary for the antients to hold fleeces of wool over the fteam of boiling tar, and fqueeze the moifture from them, which watery fubftance was called piffinum.
Ray will have this to be the fame with the ptffelaum of the antients; but Hardouin, in his notes on Pliny, thinks the pfjelaum to have been produced from the cones of cedars. What ufe they made of thefe liquors antiently is not known ; but it may be prefurned they were ufed in medicine, tho' at prefent it does not appear they are ufed at all.
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PIS5ITES, a name given by the antients to a wine impregnated with the virtues of liquid pitch or tar. To prepare it, the tar was ordered to be wafhed in fea water or brine, and afterwards in frefh water many times; and after a tedious preparation of this kind, two ounces of it were ordered to be put to eight gallons of muft, which is to be fuffcred to work together, and then the clear liquor to be bottled off.
This was accounted a warm wine, very affiftant to concoction and of an abfterfive faculty, and a good pectoral : on thefe accounts it was given in diforders of the breaft, and in ob- ftru&ions of the liver, fpleen, and uterus, if not attended with a fever ; and was a common medicine in coughs and aftbmas, of all kinds.
PISSOCEROS, a name given by the old naturalifts to a fub- ftance found very frequently in the hives of bees, and con- fifting of a mixture of propolis and wax. The antients were well acquainted with the ufe of this fubftance, which was ufed for flopping up the cracks and chinks in the hives : they men- tion, indeed, three forts of matter ufed by the bees for this purpofe; the metys, the pijfoceros, and the propolis: but later authors call them all by the general term propolis, the fifo- ceros and metys being only the fame fubftance, mixed with wax in different proportions. This propolis is a refinous fub- ftance, of a foft and vifcous confiftence, collected from the beds of the poplar and other trees. Reaumur's Hift. Inf. Vol. 10. p. 84. Seethe article Propolis.
PISSOSIS, a word ufed by the old writers on medicine for the depraved appetite of young women about the firft eruption of the menfes, and of fome women with child.
PISTACH1A triflia, in botany, a name improperly given by fome authors to the trifoliate American bladder-nut. See the article Staphylodendkon.
I Pijlachias are efteemed reftorative, and peculiarly recom- mended to prevent obftrudions of the liver ; they are alfo found of fervice in nephritic complaints, and are faid to be great provocatives to venery : the faculty, however, feldom prefcribe them.
PISTANA, in botany, a name by which fome authors have called the fagittaria aquatica, or water arrow-head. Ger. Emac. Ind. 2.
PJSTAT'IO, among pharmaceutic writers, a word ufed to exprefs that preparation of fimples which confifts in covering them with, or including them in, a parte, and fending them to a baker's oven till tender throughout. Squills are fometimes prepared thus.
PISTIA, in botany, the name given by Linnaeus to a genus of plants, called kodda-pail by Plumier; and in the hortus Mala- baricus. The characters are thefe : There is no cup; the flower confifts of one unequal petal, which is cucullated and turbinated, with a fingle, oblique, and long lip, bent and folded at the fide ; there are no ftamina, but fix double anthe- rae grow to the piftil under the ftigma; the germen of the piftil is of an oval oblong figure ; the ftyle is fhorter than the flower; the ftigma is peltated, and obtufely divided into fix fegments ; the fruit is a capfule of an oval figure, attenuated at the bafe, and contains fix cells ; the feeds are truncated. This genus feems nearly allied to the birth-worts. Linnai Gen. PI. 438. Plumier, 39.
PISTIL, among botanifts, the female organ of generation in flowers. It is compofed of three parts, the germen, the ftyle, and the ftigma : the germen fupplies the place of the uterus in plants; its fhape is various, but it is always fituated at tho bottom of the fiftil, and contains the embryo feeds: the ftyle is a part of various figures alfo, but is always placed on- the germen ; in fome it is extremely fhort, in others it feems en- tirely wanting : the ftigma is alfo of various figures ; its place, however, is certain, as it always ftands on the top of the ftyle, and if there is no ftyle, on the top of the germen. See the article Generation of plants.
PISTIS, in the materia medica of the antients, a name given to the gum bdellium, particularly to that kind of it which was brought from Arabia, and was of a fine yellowifh white, and in fmall round drops, or lumps of a roundifh fhape, and firm confiftence.
PISTOLOCHIA, in botany, a name ufed by fome authors for the plant of which the Virginian fnake-root of the fhops is the root. Park. Theat. 420.
PISUM, the;>«7, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe: The flower is of the papilio- naceous kind, and from its cup there arifes a piftil, which finally becomes an oblong pod, containing roundifh feeds : to this it is to be added, that the ftalks are weak and hollow, and the leaves fo furround them, that they feem perfoliate ; the reft of the leaves are placed two and two upon a middle rib, which ends in a tendril.
The fpecies of peafe, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe: 1. The large fquare pea, with brown fruit, z. The large fquare pea, with grey fruit. 3. The large fquare pea, with yellowifh fruit. 4. The upright fea, with cluftcred or umbellated pods. 5. The common garden pea, with a white flower and white fruit. 6. The common large garden pea, with purple flowers. 7. The common large garden /■«?, with variegated flowers and variegated fruit. 8, The great podded with the fruit marked with a black
garden pea, 9. The great pea.
