In painting, a cartoon is a drawing on stout paper or other material, intended to be used as a model for a large picture in fresco, a process in which it is necessary to complete the picture portion by portion and in which a fault cannot afterwards be easily corrected. The cartoon is made exactly the size of the picture intended, and the design is transferred to the surface to be ornamented by tracing or other processes. Cartoons executed in colour, like paintings, are used for designs in tapestries, mosaics, etc. The most famous are those painted by Raphael for the Vatican tapestries, seven of which are still preserved in the South KensingtonMuseum, London. The subjects of the seven are: 1, Paul Preaching at Athens; 2, The Death of Ananias; 3, Elymas the Sorcerer Struck with Blindness; 4, Christ's Charge to Peter; 5, The Sacrifice at Lystra; 6, Peter and John Healing the Cripple at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple; 7, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. In modern times the term is also applied to a pictorial sketch relating to some notable character or events of the day, and erroneously to an animated film. Research Cartoon
Stonehenge is the principal prehistoric monument in Great Britain. It consists of a group of large stones arranged in a circle on Salisbury Plain.
Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed that the devil bought the stones from an old woman in Ireland, wrapped them up in a wyth, and took them to Salisbury plain where after fixing them in the ground he cried out 'no man will ever find out how these stones came here'. Several hundred years later the mystery of how the stones arrived and were erected, remains a mystery.
In 2008, the results of an archaeological survey were published, suggesting that, based upon evidence of artefacts and near-by burials, that Stonehenge was used as a place of healing from prehistoric times through to the mediaeval period, including by the Romans. Whether or not Stonehenge was used for other purposes as well is not known, but it seems very likely that the stones and location were considered to have the properties of healing the body, and there is evidence that suggests people travelled from as far as Switzerland to be treated at the site. Research Stonehenge More pictures of Stonehenge
The cat is a genus of highly sophisticated, intelligent and paradoxical carnivorous mammals (Felidae or Felis). The genus includes the most highly specialized of the carnivores. The mechanism by which the claws are retracted (in some species) is highly sophisticated, and the claws are extremely sharp and powerful weapons. The teeth number thirty, and are used to tear meat which is then swallowed without mastication. The tongue is rough and functions as a rasp.
Cats have been domesticated since the earliest of times, and were considered sacred to the goddess Bast by the ancient Egyptians. Generally people either like cats and dislike dogs, or dislike cats and like dogs, reflecting the two very different, opposing natures of the two animals. Where as dogs are loyal, trainable and generally giving, cats are highly independent. Coming and going as they see fit, and often giving the impression that the owner of a pet cat is actually the pet himself! It is this independence that makes cats so attractive as a pet to many people.
Cats are renowned for their intelligence, and sensitivity, but are also completely daft at times, behaving not unlike a small child playing with pieces of string or chasing their tail. At times affectionate, and at others aloof and arrogant, but always mysterious and amusing as was reflected in the very perceptive American 'Fat Freddy's Cat' comic books which were published during the 1970s and 1980s. Almost all species of cat purr, though not tigers, and the sound of purring has been found to trigger the healing process in the cats bones, and also strengthen human bones. It is thought that cats purr for a number of reasons, most obviously as an expression of contentment, and also as a method of self-healing, which may account for their remarkable resilience to injury, being able to fall great distances and survive.
Cats, particularly tigers and Siamese, do talk to each other, and to any human prepared to listen, communicating in numerous growls and meows, though as yet their language is not understood.
The hazel is a shrub and sometimes small tree of the genus Corylus, sub-family Corylaceae, family Betulaceae, found in Europe, North Africa, Asia, and North America.. The leaves are roundish-cordate, alternate and shortly petiolate. The bark is reddish-brown and smooth. The plant is monoecious, the male flowers are clustered in pendulous catkins, the female flowers are arranged in erect, short, bud-like spikes with protruding red styles. The fruit is a hard, brown, rounded nut (filbert), enclosed by an irregularly lobed green involucre.
The European hazel (Corylus Avellana) produces the nuts called filberts, and grows best in a tolerably dry soil. It bears male and female flowers, the former composing cylindrical catkins. The hazel-nut oil is little inferior in flavour to that of almonds. Hazel branches form excellent walking-sticks, fishing-rods, etc, and the wood produces good charcoal, often employed by painters.
The American hazel (Corylus. americana) very much resembles the European. The roots are used by cabinet-makers for veneering; and in Italy the chips were formerly sometimes put into turbid wine for the purpose of fining it.
The witch hazel or wych hazel, Hamamelis virginica, is a shrub or small tree of a different natural order, the Hamamelidaceae. It is a native of the United States, and healing properties have long been ascribed to it both by the Indians and the settlers. A liquid prepared from it is said to be useful as an application to wounds, stanching the bleeding and promoting healing, being applied also to bruises, sprains, bleeding piles, in internal bleeding, etc. There arc several officinal preparations of the witch-hazel, especially a fluid extract and a tincture. The former American patent medicine, Pond's Extract, owed its chief properties to the witch-hazel. Research Hazel
Tobacco is the name given to the leaves of those varieties of the Nicotiana which are prepared in different forms for use as a narcotic. It is generally manufactured for smoking, but also for chewing and as snuth.
The word tobacco is probably derived from tobaco, the name given to a peculiar Y-shaped instrument used by the old inhabitants of the island of Santo Domingo for inhaling tobacco-smoke through the nostrils. Other authorities claim that the name of the herb is derived from the Mexican word tabacco. Columbus and his party made the earliest European reference to tobacco on their return from the voyage to Cuba in 1492. The tobacco plant was first brought to Europe in 1558 by Francisco Fernandes, a Spanish physician. The wonderful healing properties which the plant was supposed to possess caused the habit of smoking and snuff-taking to spread with great rapidity over almost the whole of Europe. Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, who gives his name to the genusNicotiana, sent a present of tobacco seeds to Catherine de'Medici, and she initiated in France the snuff-taking habit as a cure for headache. This habit soon spread to Scotland and Ireland, where it remained popular long after the smoking habit had become established in England.
The smoking of tobacco was really started by English example. In 1586, Ralph Lane, the first governor of Virginia, and Sir Francis Drake brought smoking materials and implements to Sir Walter Raleigh, who very rapidly popularised the custom.
Most of the tobacco used in the 17th and 18th centuries was grown in Virginia by English colonists, whose industry was carefully protected by laws prohibiting the production of tobacco in the British Isles.
There are about 50 species of Nicotiana, most of them indigenous to America. Of these, three varieties are in general use by smokers: (1) Nicotiana tabacum, the Virginian variety, originally derived from the South or Central American seed, and now cultivated in almost all temperate and warmer climates. (2) Nicotianarustica, grown principally in Turkey, Syria, and India. This is milder in flavour, and is principally used for the manufacture of cigarettes. It burns too quickly for a pipe tobacco. (3) Nicotiana Persica, or Persian tobacco, which is good for pipe tobacco, but not sufficiently uniform for the manufacture of cigars.
The tobacco plant is a coarse, rank-growing annual. Its stem is simple and unbranched, and grows to a height of about two meters, terminating in a bunch of yellow or rose-coloured flowers. The East Indian variety is slightly different, producing a green tobacco from a smaller plant. It is derived from the Mexican seed, and is also cultivated in Southern Germany and Hungary.
The tobacco plant can be cultivated in every part of the world, but with widely varying measures of success. It is grown in British gardens for the sake of its flowers. Clayey, moist soils produce tobaccos which are dark brown or reddish in colour when cured. Bright and yellow tobaccos are grown on sandy soils, and the leaf of this variety is thinner. The bright tobacco produced in Virginia and North Carolina is all grown in loose sandy soil with a clay subsoil.
The tobacco seeds are generally sown in nursery beds, and set out later. About 3OOOOO to 4000000 go to the ounce, and this produces about 40,000 plants, for which 50 square yards of nursery bed are sufficient. The seeds are sown at the end of March or beginning of April, in rich, heavy soil which has been carefully prepared and fertilised. The seedlings remain in the nursery from fifty to sixty days, during which time the fields are well tilled and manured. Transplanting is done on a warm, rainy day, and the young plants set in ridges varying from one to four feet in width. Ridges of one to one and a half feet are most usual in Cuba and Sumatra, as the wider ridge produces a leaf which is too coarse for the purpose of cigar-making.
The crop takes another two months until it flowers, and at this stage the buds are pinched off or 'topped', and some of the leaves pruned, so that only a certain number are left to ripen. For cigar-tobacco, from 15 to 20 leaves are left on the plant; for the best smoking tobaccos, 10 to 12 leaves. Plants which have been topped form suckers, and in Florida these are left to produce a second, although inferior, sucker crop.
The leaves take about 35 days to ripen after the plants are topped and pruned. The ripening leaf changes from a dark to a lighter yellowish-green colour, and is often mottled and becomes gummy. The ripe leaf cracks and creases when folded. The lower leaves ripen first, and for the best tobaccos the leaves are picked singly ;
as they ripen. For the bulk of the tobaccos, however, the whole plant is cut when the middle leaves are ripe. Warm, cloudy days are best for cutting, and the plants are not gathered in hot sunshine or when they are wet from rain or dew.
After harvesting the plants are left in the open to wilt, and are then conveyed to the drying-house or ventilating-barn, where they are straddled across tiers of poles and dried in a temperature which is raised to 170° F for four to five days. On damp days the moisture is allowed to penetrate into the drying-house to make the leaves pliable.
The plants are then taken down and stripped, and the leaves sorted into firsts, seconds, and lugs - the name given to the inferior leaves. They are formed into hands containing ten to twelve leaves, and these are left in heaps and fermented at a temperature of about 130° F for from three to four weeks. The heaps are shuffled from time to time, to allow all the leaves to assume a uniform brown tint. This process is called the fermenting or sweetening process. In the non-fermenting processes the leaves are simply sun-cured, or sun-dried, and this tobacco is used chiefly for chewing tobaccos. In the fermenting process the starch and sugar in the leaf are decomposed, but they are retained in the sun-dried process. Lastly, the leaves are packed carefully in hogsheads for shipment.
Tobacco leaf is used for making into various smoking mixtures, roll tobacco, cake or plug, cigars, cigarettes, and snuff. For snuff the leaf requires very careful fermentation during several weeks. It is ground up and flavoured so as to produce the greatest possible amount of free ammonia, free nicotine, and other aromatic scents. Syria produces and manufactures a smoking tobacco which is known as Latakia. It is similar to Turkish-grown tobacco, but differently treated. The plants are not topped. The seeds as well as the leaves are included in the curing, this taking place in the smoke of a fire of evergreen-oak, which gives a black colour and a peculiarly strong flavour to the tobacco.
Tobacco for pipe-smoking is mostly grown in the USA, the chief states being Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia. Louisiana grows a dark, almost black, and very strong tobacco known as perique. Cigarette tobaccos are principally imported from Virginia, and Turkish and Egyptian cigarettes are also in great demand. The Egyptian cigarette is made from Turkish leaf, as the cultivation of tobacco in Egypt was prohibited in 1891. The best cigar tobaccos are grown in Cuba. A very good cigar leaf is also produced in Jamaica, Sumatra and North Borneo.
Since the introduction of tobacco into England, it has been subject to continuous legislation and import duties. In the early days a certain quantity of tobacco was grown in England for domestic consumption, and quite a considerable trade was done with Turkey, which, at that time, imported her tobacco supplies from England. Queen Elizabeth imposed a tax of 2d per Ib on imported tobacco. In 1621 James I increased this to 6s. lOd. per Ib.
During the American War of Independence, England's source of supply and the revenue there from were temporarily suspended, and tobacco was again widely planted in England, although the prohibition laws had not been repealed. These laws had never applied to Scotland, and to reimburse themselves for the loss of revenue during the non-importation of American tobacco, the Government purchased the Scotch tobacco crops at the fixed price of 4d. per Ib., thus temporarily creating a Government monopoly in tobacco. The ban on the growing of tobacco in the British Isles, renewed in 1782 in England, and in 1830 in Ireland, was modified later in the 19th century, and tobacco can now be cultivated under licence.
During the late 20th century an American-led ban on tobacco smoking supposedly because of the connection with lung cancer, but more likely under pressure from the pharmaceutical lobby, in public places slowly extended to Britain, with Scotland banning the smoking of tobacco in pubs and clubs in 2005. Research Tobacco
St Fillan the leper or St Faolan the leper is a saint whose annual festival is the 20th of June. His principal church in Scotland was at the lower end of Loch Earn, in Perthshire, where 'St. Fillan's Well' was long believed to have wonderful healing properties.
Asclepius was a Greek god of healing. He was the son of Apollo and Coronis. He was taught the art of healing by Cheiron. Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt as a punishment for bringing a dead man back to life. Research Asclepius
Athena, or Athene was a Greek goddess, identified by the Romans with Minerva, the representative of the intellectual powers. She was the daughter of Zeus and Metis (that is, wisdom or cleverness). According to the legend, which is perhaps allegorical, before her birth Zeus swallowed her mother, and Athena afterwards sprang from the head of Zeus with a mighty war shout and in complete armour. In her character of a wise and prudent warrior she was contrasted with the fierce Ares. In the wars of the giants she slew Pallas and Enceladus. In the wars of the mortals she aided and protected heroes. She is also represented as the patroness of the arts of peace. The sculptor, the architect, and the painter, as well as the philosopher, the orator, and the poet, considered her their tutelar deity. She is also represented among the healing gods. In all these representations she is the symbol of the thinking faculty, the goddess of wisdom, science, and art; the latter, however, only in so far as invention and thought are comprehended. In the images of the goddess a manlygravity and an air of reflection are united with female beauty in her features. As a warrior she is represented completely armed, her head covered with a gold helmet. As the goddess of peaceful arts she appears in the dress of a Grecian matron. To her insignia belong the AEgis, the Gorgon's head, the round Argive buckler; and the owl, the cock, the serpent, an olive branch, and a lance were sacred to her. All Attica, but particularly Athens, was sacred to her, and she had numerous temples there. Her most brilliant festival at Athens was the Panathenaea. Research Athena
In Roman mythology, Bona Dea was a goddess of chastity, fertility and healing. She was worshipped from the earliest times exclusively by women. A prophetic deity with a sanctuary in the Aventine, she revealed her oracles only to women, and men were not even allowed to know her name. Bona Dea means 'good goddess', and she was also called Fauna. Legend has it that she was related to the god Faunus, but the legends differ as to whether she was his sister, wife or daughter. Research Bona Dea
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