Page:EB1911 - Volume 03.djvu/301

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284
BALMÈS—BALNEOTHERAPEUTICS

secured for him a pardon. He was one of the first to join Charles Edward in 1745; he marched with the Jacobites to Derby, fought at Falkirk and was captured at Culloden. Tried for treason in Westminster Hall he was found guilty, and was beheaded on the 11th of August 1746, behaving both at his trial and at his execution with great constancy and courage. On his death without issue his titles became extinct.

BALMÈS, JAIME LUCIANO (1810–1848), Spanish ecclesiastic, eminent as a political writer and a philosopher, was born at Vich in Catalonia, on the 28th of August 1810, and died there on the 9th of July 1848. Having attacked the regent Espartero and been exiled he founded and edited on his return the El Pensamiento de la Nacion, a Catholic and Conservative weekly; but his fame rests principally on El Protestantismo comparado con el Catolicismo en sus relaciones con la Civilisacion Europea (3 vols., 1842–1844, 6th edition, 1879; Eng. trans. London, 1849), an able defence of Catholicism on the ground that it represents the spirit of obedience or order, as opposed to Protestantism, the spirit of revolt or anarchy. From the historical standpoint it is of little value. The best of his philosophical works, which are clear expositions of the scholastic system of thought, are the Filosofia Fondamental (4 vols., 1846, Eng. trans. by H. F. Brownson, 2 vols. New York, 1856), and the Curso de Filosofia Elemental (4 vols., 1847), which he translated into Latin for use in seminaries.

See A. de Blanche-Raffin, Jacques Balmès, sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1849); E. Bullón Fernández, Jaime Balmès y sus oberas (Madrid, 1903).

BALMORAL CASTLE (Gaelic, “the majestic dwelling”), a private residence of the British sovereign, in the parish of Crathie and Braemar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on the right bank of the Dee (here spanned by a fine suspension bridge), 9 m. W. of Ballater and at a height of 900 ft. above the sea. The property formerly belonged to the Farquharsons of Inverey, from whom it was acquired by Sir Robert Gordon, whose trustees disposed of the lease in 1848 to the prince consort, by whom the whole estate was purchased in 1852 and bequeathed to Queen Victoria. The castle is built of granite in the Scots baronial style, with an eastern tower 100 ft. high commanding a superb view—Ballochbuie and Braemar to the W., Glen Gairn to the N., Lochnagar and the beautiful valley of the Dee to the S. On Craig Gowan (1319 ft.), a hill 1 m. to the south, have been erected memorial cairns to Queen Victoria, the prince consort, Princess Alice and other members of the royal family of Great Britain. The parish church of Crathie (1903), replacing the kirk of 1806, is 1½ m. to the W., and about 2 m. farther west stands Abergeldie Castle, another Highland royal residence, an ancient building to which modern additions have been made, inhabited by King Edward VII. when prince of Wales, and after his accession to the throne used as a shooting-lodge.

BALNAVES, HENRY (1512?–1579), Scottish politician and reformer, born at Kirkcaldy about 1512, was educated at St Andrews and on the continent, where he adopted Protestant views. Returning to Scotland, he continued his legal studies and in 1538 was appointed a lord of session. He married about the same time Christian Scheves, and in 1539 was granted the estate of Halhill in Fife, after which he is generally named. Before 1540 he was sworn of James V’s. privy council, and was known as one of the party in favour of the English alliance and of an ecclesiastical reformation. He is also described as treasurer to James (Letters and Papers, 1543, i. 64), but the regent Arran appointed him secretary in the new government of the infant Queen Mary (January 1543). He promoted the act permitting the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange a marriage treaty between the little queen and the future Edward VI. In London he was not considered so complaisant as some of the other commissioners, and was not made privy to all the engagements taken by his colleagues (ib. i. 834). But Beton “loved him worst of all,” and, when Arran went over to the priestly party, Balnaves was, in November 1543, deprived of his offices and imprisoned in Blackness Castle.

Thence he was released by the arrival of Hertford’s fleet in the following May, and from this time he became a paid agent of the English cause in Scotland. He took no part in the murder of Beton, but was one of the most active defenders of the castle of St Andrews. He received £100 from Henry VIII. in December 1546, was granted an annuity of £125 by Protector Somerset in 1547 and was made English paymaster of the forces in St Andrews. When that castle surrendered to the French in July Balnaves was taken prisoner to Rouen. Somerset made vain efforts to procure his release and continued his pension. He made himself useful by giving information to the English government, and even Mary Tudor sent him £50 as reward in June 1554. Balnaves also busied himself in writing what Knox calls “a comfortable treatise of justification,” which was found in MS. with a preface by Knox, among the reformer’s papers, and was published at Edinburgh in 1584 under the title The Confession of Faith.

In 1557 Balnaves was permitted to return to Scotland and regain his property; probably it was thought that Mary Tudor’s burnings would have cooled the ardour of his English affections, and that in the war threatening between two Catholic countries, Balnaves would serve his own. The accession of Queen Elizabeth changed the situation, and Mary of Guise had reasons for accusing him of “practices out of England” (Salisbury MSS. i. 155). He took, in fact, an active part in the rising of 1559 and was commissioned by the Congregation to solicit the help of the English government through Sir Ralph Sadleir at Berwick. He was also selected one of the Scots representatives to negotiate with the duke of Norfolk in February 1560. In 1563 he was restored to his office as lord of session, and was one of those appointed by the General Assembly to revise the Book of Discipline. He was one of Bothwell’s judges for the murder of Darnley in 1567, and in 1568 he accompanied Moray to the York inquiry into Queen Mary’s guilt. He resigned his judicial office in 1574, and died in 1579 at Edinburgh. He has been claimed as a Scots bard on the strength of one ballad, “O gallandis all, I cry and call,” which is printed in Allan Ramsay's Evergreen (2 vols. 1724–1727).

See Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. (1540–1545); Bain’s and Thorp’s Cal. of Scottish State-Papers; English Domestic and Foreign Cals.; Acts of Engl. Privy Council; Reg. P.C., Scotland; Reg. Great Seal of Scotland; Hamilton Papers; Border Papers; Knox, Works; Burnet, Reformation; Froude, Hist.  (A. F. P.) 

BALNEOTHERAPEUTICS (Lat. balneum, a bath, and Gr. θεραπεύειν, to treat medically). The medical treatment of disease by internal and external use of mineral waters is quite distinct from “hydrotherapy,” or the therapeutic uses of pure water. But the term “balneotherapeutics” has gradually come to be applied to everything relating to spa treatment, including the drinking of waters and the use of hot baths and natural vapour baths, as well as of the various kinds of mud and sand used for hot applications. The principal constituents found in mineral waters are sodium, magnesium, calcium and iron, in combination with the acids to form chlorides, sulphates, sulphides and carbonates. Other substances occasionally present in sufficient quantity to exert a therapeutic influence are arsenic, lithium, potassium, manganese, bromine, iodine, &c. The chief gases in solution are oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen. Argon and helium occur in some of the “simple thermal” and “thermal sulphur waters.” There are few doctors who would deny the great value of special bathing and drinking cures in certain morbid conditions. In the employment of the various mineral waters, many of the spas adopt special means by which they increase or modify their influence, e.g. the so-called “aromatic” or “medicated” baths, in which substances are mixed to exert a special influence on the skin and peripheral nerves. Of these the “pine-needle” bath has the greatest repute; it is made by adding a decoction of the needles or young shoots of firs and pines. Fir wood oil (a mixture of ethereal oils) or the tincture of an alcoholic extract acts equally well. The volatile ethereal constituents are supposed to penetrate the skin and to stimulate the cutaneous