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The antients all efteemed quickjllver a poifon, and it mull be allowed to have difma! effect; the unhappy people employed in preparing it feldom live more than three or four years, and then die miferably : and fuch as take it internally, or by way of unguents, without greal care, often fuffer for their im- prudence.
Under proper regulation, however, it is a mod powerful and noble medicine, opening obftnictions, and attenuating vifcid humors in the very remoteft parts of the body. The preparations of quickfiber now in ufe are, i. ^Ethiops mineral. 2. Factitious cinnabar. 3. Commve fublimate. 4. Mercurius dulcis. 5- Mercurius calcinatus, commonly called precipitate per fe. 6. White precipitate. 7. Red precipitate, or red corrofive mercury. o\ Coralline mercury. 9. Tur- bith mineral. See Mercury, &c.
Water in which quickfilver has lain for fome time, tho' infipid, is faid by Van Helmont to deflroy worms ; and Mr. Boyle feems to recommend it as an innocent and effectual cofmetic. Works abr. Vol. III. p. 345.
QUID juris clamat, in law, a writ that lies where I grant the re- version of my tenant for life by fine in the king's court, and the tenant will not attorn ; then the grantee fhall have this writ to compel him. Terms of Lav/.
QUIJUBATUI, in zoology, the name of an American fpecies of peroquctte.
It is of the fize of a lark, and in general of a yellow colour. Its eyes are black, and its beak grey. The edges of its wings are of a dufky green, and its tail long and yellow. It is a very beautiful bird, and very eafily tamed. Afarggravis Hift. Brafil.
QUIL, in zoology, the name of a fmall animal of the ferret kind, frequent in the Weft Indies, and famous for its combat with Serpents. See the article Qu i rpele.
QUILAQUIL, in natural hiftory, the name given by the people of the Phillipineiflands to a very beautiful fpecies of parrots, which is commonly found wild in the woods there. It is all over of a fine green colour, and is (mailer than the common par- rots, and has a broad black bill and black legs. It is a very ■wild bird, and will not learn any thing.
QUILLOKO, in botany, a name given by fome to a fpecies of ketmia, called alfo quingombo. See Quingombo.
QUiNA folia, among botanifls. See Leaf.
QL'INCE, cydohia, in botany, i$c. SeeCvDosiA.
The fruit of the quince is aftringent and ftomachic, but its chief ufe in the fhops is in the fyrupus cydoniarvm, or fyrup oi quinces, prepared from its juice with fugar, which is a very pleafant fyrup.
QUINGOMBO, in botany, the name given by the people of Congo to a fpecies of ketmia, diftinguifhed by Mr. Tourne- fort by the name of the ketmia Brafdienfis folio ficus fruclu py- ranvdato flcato, the fig-leaved Brahlian ketmia, with a pyra- midal fulcated fruit, bee Ketmia.
QUiNNET, in mining, the name of a tool ufed in the cleav- ing rocks by means of gunpowder. This is a fort of wedge fitted to the flat fide of what is called the gun; that is, acylin- dric piece of iron, only flatted in one part, to receive this, and drilled through. When a proper hole has been made in the rock by the borer, the powder is put in, and then the orifice being flopped by the gun, and that wedged in by this quinmt, the powder being fired by a train communicating •with the hole drilled through the gun, exerts all its force on the rock, and fplits it in feveral directions at one explofion. Philof Tranf. N°. 167, See Mining.
QUINQUANGULAR-^/, among botanifls. See Leaf.
QUNQUEFGLIUM, dnquefiil, in botany. See Cinquefoil.
QLINQJJENNES, in fome old hiftorians, a name given to a certain people of India, among whom the women began to bear children at five years old, and feldom lived to more than eight years. Pliny gives us this account, and Solinus, who repeat; it from him, increafes the miracle by telling us, that they were a nation of women who had no men among them.
QUINQUEPRIMI, among the Romans, the five principal men in the fenate of every municipal town. Pitifc in voc.
QUINQUEREM1S, in the naval architecture of the antients, a name given to a galley which had five rows of oars. They divided their veffels in general into monocrota and polycrota ; the former had only one tire of rowers, the latter had feveral tires of them, from two or three, up to twenty, thirty, or even forty ; for fuch a veflel we have an account of in the time of Philopater, which required no lefs than four thoufand men to row it.
Meibom has taken ofF from the imaginary improbability of there ever having been fuch a veffel, by reducing the enormous height fuppofed neceflary for fuch a number of rows of oars and men to work them, by finding a better way of placing the men than others had thought of The quinq ■cranes of the antients had four hundred and twenty men in each, three hundred of which were rowers, and the reft foldiers. The Roman fleet at Mefttna, confifted of three hundred and thirty of thefe ftiips ; and the Carthaginian, at Lilybceum of three hundred and fifty of the fame fize. Each veflel was an hundred and fifty foot long. Thus an hundred and thirty thoufand men were contained in the one, and an hundred and fifty thoufand Suppl. Vol. II.
in the other, with the apparatus and provifions neceflary for fuch expeditions as they were intended for. This gives fo^rand an idea of the antient naval armaments, that fome have quef- tioned the truth of the hillory ; but we find it related by Po- lybius, an hiflorian too authentic to be questioned, and who exprefies his wonder at it while he relates it. Meibom de Tnrem.
QUINQUEPARTITE-/«»/, among botanifls. See Leaf.
QUINQUERTIONES, among the Romans, an appellation gi- ven to thofe who had gained the viclory \n the quinquertium or pentathlon.
QUINQUERTIUM, among the Romans, was the fame with the Grecian pentathlon, comprehending the five exercifes of running, leaping, throwing, darting, and wreilling. Seethe article Pen'i ATHLON, Cycl.
QUINQUINA (Cycl.)— The moft accurate account we have ever received of the tree which produces the quinquina, or Pe- ruvian bark, is from Mr. de la Condamine, who in travelling through fome parts of America, chofe the route of Loxa, where the fineft bark is gathered, and where the greateft: num- ber of the trees are found ; and taking inftruclions from Mr. de Juffieu, as to what enquiries were moil neceflary to be made, informed himfelf very much at large about it. The fineft bark, and the greateft quantity, he informs us, was gathered on Cajanuma, fituated two leagues and an half to the fouth of Loxa; and this is the very place where the firft bark that was Cent into Europe was gathered. He found means to remain a night on his journey on this mountain, and in his return took a branch from one of the trees which had both flowers and ripe fruit on it, as is the cafe with this tree throughout the whole year, ami this branch was the ground of his figures, as the obfervations he made in the journey were of his accurate account of the tree.
The natives reckon three fpecies of bark, the reddilh, the yellowifh, and the white. The laft of thefe has very little virtue, and the other two are nearly equal in goodnefs, tho* the world gives it in favour of the red. Thefe two are the barks of trees which have no difference in their leaves, fruits, or flowers ; and which even the people who are continually employed in the fervice cannot diftinguiih at fight, but pierce the bark with a knife, to fee the difference, the yellowifh being thus found to be tenderer and paler coloured than the other. The trees which produce thefe two forts grow indifcriminately one by another, and the bark is gathered indifferently from both ; and in drying the diftindrion between them becomes yet lefs vifible, fince both acquire a browniih colour. The tree which produces the white quinquina has rounder and tougher leaves, the flower alfo is whiter, and the fruit larger, and its outer covering whitifli. This tree ufually grows near the top of the mountain, and is not found among the other kinds ; they ufually being found about the midway of the height, and principally in hollows, or in the more clofe or fheltered places. Some have fufpeeled, that this difference of the trees which produce white, and the other barks, was only owing to the more cold and expofed fituation it had on the top of the mountain ; and thus much is well known as to the bark in general, that the warmer the place is where it grows, the greater are its virtues.
The quinquina tree never grows in the plains; it is a conflant inhabitant of the mountains, and is eafily known from the trees it grows among by its erecl: growth, and its height when of any coouderable age, as it always carries its head above the reft. Thefe trees are never found in clumps or cluflers toge- ther, but always feparate and Angle among other kinds. They grow to a very confiderable fize, when fuffercd to remain long enough; fome are as thick as a man's body, but the more ufual are about nine inches in diameter.
It is very rare, however, to find any large ones at this time on the mountain where the bark is gathered, the great demand for it having made them bark all the trees, and thefe having all perimed by it; for the old trees never recover the barking, tho' the young ones frequently do.
They \x^ no other inftrument for barking the trees than a common knife, which the workman thrufls through the bark at as great a height as he can reach, and then bearing hard upon it, brings it down to the bottom, cutting all the way. If there be any difference, as fome have pretended, between the bark that was at firft imported, and that which we now receive, it muft be wholly owing to the different ages of the trees it was then and is now procured from ; that having been the bark of old trees, and there being now none but young ones: this gentleman having fcarce fecu any there that were thicker than a man's arm, or above twelve or fifteen feet high ; and thofe which they cut young always throw out new fhoots from the bottom.
In the times when the bark was firft brought into ufe, the world preferred the thicker! pieces, now they fet the greateft value on the thinneft ; but the latter preference is moft reafon- able; fince it is net founded on fancy, but on the experi- ments made by the Englifb and other nations of the different virtues, and the refult of chemical analyfes. There was once an opinion, that there were certain feafons to be obferved for the gathering the bark, and that it ought always to be done in the decreafe of the moon; butexpe- 3 Mm— 3 Zz rieace
