Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/186

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COLMAN. 154 COLOGNE. manager. He was born in Florence, was edu- cated at Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1755, but .soon abandoned law for literature. In 1760 his first di'aniatie piece, entitled Polly Honeycomh, was produced at Drury Lane with great success. This comedy was followed the next year with The Jealous ^yife, and in 1706 with The Claiulesthw Marriage, written in con- junction with Garrick. In 1767 he became one of the purchasers of the C'ovent Garden Theatre, and held the odice of acting manager for seven years. In 1777 he purchased the Hayniarket Theatre. C'olman wrote and adapted upward of thirty dramatic pieces. He also translated Terence, edited Beaumont and Fletcher, and wrote considerable other verse and prose. Con- sult Peake, Memoirs of Ike Colmaii Family (Lon- don, 1841). COLMAN, George, called The Younger(1762- 1836.) An English dramatist, son of George C'olman. His bent lay in the same direction as his father's, during whose last years be acted as manager of the Haj'market Theatre, and on the death of the elder Colman George IlL trans- ferred the patent to his son. After 1824 Col- man held the office of examiner of plays. In industry be rivaled his father, and he received large sums for his plays, of which the best known are John Bull and The Heir-at-Law. He wrote many humorous verses, among which were Broad Grins (1802) and Poetieal Vagaries (1812). In 1830 he published an amusing auto- biography. Random Recollections. COLMAN, Norman J. (1827—). The first Secretary of Agriculture of the United States. He was born on a farm near Richfield Springs, N. Y., May 10, 1827. In 1847 be removed to Louisville, Ky., and he afterwards practiced law in New Albany, Ind., and in Saint Louis, llo. He served in the Union aviny during the Civil War as lieutenant-colonel of volunteers. In 1874 he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of Missouri, and in 1885 was apjiointed United States Com- missioner of Agriculture. Toward the end of his term he was apjiointed Secretary of Agriculture, tinder the law reorganizing the Department of Agriculture. COLMAN, Samuel (1832—). An American landscape painter. He was born in Portland, Maine, and studied first in New York and later in France, Italy, and London. After traveling extensively, he returned to New York and was one of the founders of the American Water Color Society, and its first president (1860-71). As an artist, Colman is noted for American and foreign landscapes in oil and water colors, and for vigorous etchings. COLMAR'. See Kolmak. COLNE, koln. A market town of Lancashire, England, on the Colne, near the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. 32 miles north of Manchester, at the junction of the Lancashire and Yorkshire and Midland railways (Map: England. D 3). Colne was incorporated in 1895, but long before had obtained control of its gas and water supply. It has established an excellent modern system of sewage disposal, and maintains a public library, markets, and slaughter-bouses. It has manufac- tures of cotton, calicoes, and mousselines - de- laine. There are also numerous collieries and stone-quarries in the vicinity. Population, in 1891, 16,800; in 1901, 23,000. Colne is an ancient place, by some supposed to be the Colunio of the Romans. COL'OCA'SIA. See Cocco. COLOCO'LO. A wildcat of South America, related to the ocelot (q.v.). CO'LOCCTRO'NIS. See Kolokotronis. COL'OCYNTH (OF. coloquinte, from Lat. colocyulhis, from Gk. koXokvi'SIs, Icolokynthis, colocynth, from KooKiv6r}, kolulcynthe, pump- kin ) , or Bitter Apple. A well-known medicine, much used as a purgative. It is the dried pulp of the colocynth gourd, colquinti<la, bitter apple, or bitter cucumber, a globose fruit about the size of an orange, of a uniform yellow color, with a smooth, thin, solid rind. The plant which pro- duces it, Citrullus colocynthis, is allied to the cucumber (q.v.). It is common in Turkc}', the Grecian Archipelago, various parts of Asia, and in Africa and Spain, which last country supplies no small part of the colocynth of commerce. The fruit is gathered when it begins to turn yellow, peeled, and dried quickly either in a stove or in the sun. It is chiefly in the form of a dry extract that it is used in medicine. It owes its propei'ties to a bitter principle called colocynthin, a glucoside. It is a curious, though not unique, fact that the seeds of the coloc^iith- plant, produced in the midst of its medicinal pulp, are perfectly bland, and they even form an important article of food in the north of Africa. The name false colocynth is some- times given to the orange gourd (Cucurhita aurantia) , sometimes cultivated as an orna- mental plant in our gardens, on account of its globose, deep orange fruit. The pulp of the fruit possesses the properties of colocynth, but in a milder degree. Colocynth is generally ad- ministered in the form of pills, in which the extract is associated with aloes, scammony, and in some cases with calomel, or with extract of hyoscyanius. In small doses colocjTith acts as a safe and useful purgative; and, when accom- jianicd by hyoscyamus, the latter prevents much of the pain and griping which are attendant on the use of colocynth by itself. It is a drastic purgative, acting upon the whole intestine, and is used only in obstinate cases of chronic con- stipation. ColocjTith is an ingredient of some powders for destroying moths. In large doses colocynth is a poison, causing severe inflam- mation of the stomach and intestine. The medicinal dose of colocynth is from 2 to 8 grains; that of the official extract of colocynth, from ^2 to 2 grains: that of the compound ex- tract of colocynth, from 5 to 15 grains. It is sometimes administered in the form of pills. COLOGNE, ko-lon' (Ger. Koln: the Colonia Agrippina of the Romans 1. The largest city of Rhenish Prussia, on the left bank of the Rhine, in latitude 50" 56' N., longitude 6° 58' E. (Map: Prussia. B 3). Cologne is a fortress of the first rank, its fortifications forming a semicircle, with the Rhine as its chord, and the former town of Deutz (now included in Cologne) on the oppo- site bank, as a tcte-de-pont. It is connected with this suburb by a bridge of boats and a fine iron bridge 1362 feet in length, for railway and car- riage traffic. In the old quarter the streets are narrow and crooked, but the main residential quarter presents a thoroughly modern aspect.