GLYSTER. See Enema.
GNATS and MOS′QUITOES. Smoke and strong fumes of any kind will drive away these insects. If you only burn a piece of brown paper in an enclosed space where they are, they soon after ‘settle,’ and appear to become so stupefied as to remain inactive for some
time after. In those parts of the New World where mosquitoes abound, tobacco smoke is commonly had recourse to in-doors, and large fires made of brush-wood or under-wood out-of-doors. Old travellers, when compelled to bivouac during the season in which they are troublesome, are very careful to keep close on the ‘lee’ of these fires.
GOA POWDER. See Araroba.
GOITRE. Syn. Derbyshire neck; Bronchocele, Tracheocele; Hernia bronchialis, L. A tumour on the fore part of the neck. It sometimes occurs in Derbyshire, and is endemic in the Alps and several other mountainous districts. Iodine and the iodides appear to be the only substances capable of curing or even arresting the progress of this disease.
There seems little doubt that goitre arises from drinking water rendered hard by the presence of magnesian and lime salts.
The disease called cretinism, which is a peculiar form of idiocy, is in some countries more particularly frequently associated with goitre. Both these maladies prevail in Wurtemberg, Saxony, Silesia, the Tyrol, Carynthia, Galicia, Austria, and Switzerland. In England, goitre seems principally confined to the magnesian limestone district extending from Nottingham to the Tyne; it also prevails in a smaller degree in Derbyshire, Norfolk, Cambridge, and Somersetshire, where a few scattered cases of cretinism are to be met with. Goitre is very much more general than is usually supposed in France. In Asia, it is to be found amongst the inhabitants of Chinese Tartary, Thibet, and Ceylon, and in India amongst the dwellers in the valleys and extensive plains that lie at the foot of the Himalayan mountains.
The disease is likewise known to exist in many parts of Africa; goitre is also far from uncommon in certain districts of North America; whilst in South America it is met with amongst the people inhabiting the plateaus of New Grenada, which comprise localities differing so greatly in climatic conditions, as deep and humid valleys, and arid plains almost or entirely destitute of verdure.
Goitre is a disease that may be very rapidly and readily set up. Bally says he has known certain waters in Switzerland produce it even in eight or ten days; and the French medical journals contain many similar instances of its early development.
GOLD. Au. Syn. Aurum; Or, Fr.; Gold, Ger.) Gold is the most valuable and, probably, the longest known of all the metals. From the remotest period it has been esteemed for its beauty and permanence, and has been taken as the standard measure of value amongst all civilised nations. An account of the uses of gold in the arts, and its influence on society in all ages, as a symbol of wealth and an article of ornament and utility, would embrace the whole history of mankind. At the present day it alike contributes to the conveniences, comforts, and luxuries of life; as often exciting the baser passions of the human heart as promoting the cause of benevolence and virtue.