DISMAX SWAMP. 293 DISPENSATION. ■where the surface is covered with tangled weeds and heavy timber, willi a thick uudorgrowth. A canal crosses the swauip, opening navigation between Elizabeth City, X. C., and Norfolk, Va., thus [lerniitting vessels to pass between Albe- marle Sound and Chesapeake Bay. Due to the canal's drainage, much of the swamp's area has been reclaimed. DISMANTLED (from dis-, without + maii-
- /(■). The state of a ship when unrigged, and
after her guns, stores, etc., have been taken out. When men-of-war were built of wood they were, if not recommissioned, after completing a cruise, dismantled: in that condition, with hatches and other openings closed, they were secured along- side a navy-yard wharf, and this was called being laid up in ordinary. Modem ships are not dismantled, except for repairs. They de- teriorate very much faster than wooden ships, and it is vastly more e.xjwnsive to dismantle and reequip them. DISTttAS, S.ixT. The name which Catholic tradition has attached to the one of the two male- factors crucified on either hand of .Jesus who repented. He is represented with a cross beside him. The impenitent malefactor is called Ges- mas. Both names are highly improbable. DISON. dezox'. A town of Belgium, in the Province of Li6ge. situated about two miles north- west of Verviers. on a railway line (Map: Bel- gium, D 4). It has extensive woolen and cotton mills, and had a population in 1900 of I:i,54(). DISOWNED, The. A novel by Bulwer- Lytton I 1S2;M . DISPART' (from Lat. dispartire, dispertire, to divide, from dis-, apart + partire. to divide, from pars, parti. The difference between the semi-diameters of the parts of the gun on which the sights are placed (if on the gun itself). The term is practically obsolete, as sights are now placed on the mount and not on the gun; but it was formerly of great importance. DISPEN'SARY (Fr. dispensnire, from ML. dispoifinriiii. from dispensa, larder, from Lat. disppnuari:. to disburse, from dis-, apart + peii- sarc. frequentative of pendere. to weigh). An institution in which medical or surgical treat- ment is given free of charge to patients who are able to walk in and then return home, no beds being provided as in a hospital. In 1687. at a meeting of physicians in London. England, it was resolved to supply the poor with medicines at certain fi.xed prices. Previous to this, aid and nie<lica! treatment were given to the poor at the houses of wealthy people or at monasteries. In 16!M> the pre-^ident. censors, and fifty members of the Medical College of London agreed to main- tain a dispensary that .should give medical aid to all who asked it. and a building was erect- ed fur the purpose, with rooms for seeing pa- tients and dispensing medicines. Physicians were also appointed, who visited the sick poor in their homes. This building, the Royal General Dis- pensarj-. Bartholomew Close, London, was opened in 1770. The olde-t dispensary in the United States, the N'ew York Dispensary, was founded in 1700. In all cities and large towns in this country di^pfn-aries exist, supported by private charitable or^'anizations. or maintained as 'out- door poor' departments of county, city, or private hospitals. In some cases medicines are furnished gratuitously; but in most dispensaries in cities a charge of ten cents is made for each medicine prescribed. Dispensary Abuse. In all the large cities a great number of well-to-do people seek free medi- cal aid. The blame for this condition appears to lie at the doors of the trustees and superin- tendents of the clinics and dispensaries, and sometimes at the doors of the physicians who practice in them. The college clinic is estab- lished for the purpose of securing material with which to illustrate the didactic lectures de- livered by the professors, and with which to teach medical students the appearances and con- ditions of disease. To give free medical aid to the poor is a secondary consideration. The applicant for free treatment at a college clinic or at a dispensary where the attending phvsieian is allowed to teach private paying pupils with the illustrative aid of the patients, is quite as often admitted in silence as he is questioned about his ability to pay a fair fee to a physician practicing near his home. If the question is asked, the patient is not always truthful, and it is a matter of common occurrence for patients to wear old clothing and give fictitious names and false addresses, in order to avoid paying a physician the fees they are quite able to afford. In accordance with a law passed April 18. 1899, a new regime was initiated in Xew York City on October 1 of that year. Since that date, each dispensary must be licensed by the State I$oard of Charities, and each applicant for a license must take oath that the dispensary is for the public benefit; no school of medicine is obliga- tory, but the board is empowered to examine every dispensary and revoke licenses of those not conforming to the law. A dispensary is de- fined to be any person, corporation, institution, association, or agent whose purpose it is. either independently or in connection with any other, to furnish at any place or places, to persons non- resident therein, either giatuitously or for a com- pensation determined without reference to the cost or value of the thing furnished, medical or surgical treatment, medicine or apparatus; provided that the moneys used by and for the purposes of the said dispensary shall be derived wholly or in part from trust finds. public moneys, or sources other than the individuals constituting said dispensary. .Applicants for aid must sign a declaration of financial inability. Violation of the law is punishable by fine. The college clinics, however, seem to escape the con- trol intended by the framers of this statute, be- cause their purpose is to teach medicine to students. DISPENSATION (Lat. dispcnsatio, from dispensare. to disburse). A term in ecclesiasti- cal law to denote a relaxing of the law in some particular case; more specifically a license granted by the Pope or some bishop relieving or exempting an individual in certain circum- stances from the action of some law or regulation of the Church. In the Roman Catholic Church, since at least Innwont III., the principle has been established that only the Pope can dispense from the operation of a universal law: but in certain cases he may <lepute * power to bishops and others. The dispensations known to the Roman canon law are divided into Papal and Episcopal, into dispensations of right and of
