Bronchitis. BROMSEBRO, a village of Sweden, in the län, and 27 m. s. of the town, of Calmar. It is celebrated as the place where treaties were entered into between Sweden and Denmark in 1541, 1641, and 1645. BROMSGROVE, a market t. of Worcestershire, England, near the small river Salwarp, 12 m. s. s. w. from Birmingham. It is 1 m. e. from a station on the Birmingham and Bristol railway, The Birmingham and Worcester canal also passes near it. It is situated in a highly cultivated and richly wooded valley. The principal street is about a mile in length. There is a very flourishing grammar-school, founded by Edward VI. in 1553. The linen manufacture was formerly carried on at B.; button-making and nailmaking are at present the principal branches of industry. B. returned two members to the house of commons in the reign of Edward I., but was afterwards disfranchised on petition of the inhabitants themselves, because the trade of the town had declined. Pop. '71, 6967; '81, 7959. BRONCHI are the subdivisions of the trachea or windpipe. Opposite the third dorsal vertebra, the latter divides into two branches or B., of similar structure to itself— namely, round and cartilaginous in front; and flat, with muscular and fibrous tissue, behind, lined with mucous membrane. Of these B., one goes to each lung, the right being little more than an inch; the left, about two inches in length. On entering the substance of a lung, the B. divide into smaller branches, which again subdivide, until they are no larger in diameter than one-fiftieth to one-thirtieth of an inch, which give origin to, or terminate in, small polyhedral cells, which seem to cluster round their extremities, and open into them. These are the air-cells; they consist of elastic tissue, with a lining of mucous membrane, and beneath the latter, a layer of minute bloodvessels of the lung. See RESPIRATION, ORGANS AND PROCESS OF. BRONCHITIS, or inflammation of the lining membrane of the bronchial tubes, is a disease of very common occurrence in this country, and one of the greatest importance for, if neglected, it not only destroys life, but if carelessly treated, may lead to premature and miserable old age. The first symptoms are generally those which distinguish a common cold-viz., shivering, headache, and sense of weariness, with occasional cough; but the cough continues, and recurs in paroxysms; there is a feeling of oppression on the chest, and the person wheezes when he breathes. He also breathes more rapidly, six or ten respirations in the minute more than he did when in health, and his pulse is quicker; and the ear applied to his chest, after these symptoms have continued for two or three days, will hear a rattling, as if air was bubbling through thickish fluid, which is the case; he is breathing through an extraordinary amount of mucus secreted by the inflamed lining membrane of the tube. During his paroxysms of cough, this mucus is spit up. If the inflammation extend no further, it is termed tubular B., and is seldom a fatal disease in the first attack; but, as may be expected, it will often extend, or, in some cases, begin in the small tubes-vesicular B.-when the symptoms just described will be present, but in a greater degree, the breathing being so embarrassed that the patient can no longer lie down, but requires to sit or stand up, and use all his muscles of respiration. Though he coughs, he spits very little, till about the third day, when he expectorates large quantities of yellow fluid. At last, prostration becomes so complete that he ceases to spit, and dies suffocated by the accumulated mucus, from the fifth to the seventh day. In less severe cases, or those which yield to treatment, the delicate tubes may be permanently injured by the inflammation. They may be thickened, which narrows their caliber; this will prevent the proper passage of the air, and gives rise to wheezing on any exertion, and cough, especially in winter. Moreover, after repeated attacks, one of the tubes may be blocked up entirely, so that the portion of lung to which it ought to conduct air, is no longer filled, and consequently collapses and wastes. This compels the adjacent tubes and air-cells to dilate to receive more air at the expense of their elasticity (emphysema, q.v.); the air cells may even burst, and so by degrees the apparatus for aërating the blood becomes less and less perfect. The treatment of B. must vary with the patient's constitution; but in most cases, counterirritation, applied through the medium of mustard or hot turpentine fomentations, will be found very useful. These remedies act more rapidly than a blister, and may be frequently repeated. It should be remembered that patients suffering from B. are very easily depressed. Such medicines as ammonia should be given, to promote expectora tion, combined with the liquor ammoniæ acetatis, to produce perspiration. In very acute cases, after a brisk purge, salines, with ipecacuanha or squills, may be given, and an emetic will remove accumulations of mucus. In the B. of old persons, chloric ether will be found very useful, and may be combined with sedatives, as henbane; but opium must be given with great caution, or not at all, as it tends to increase the congestion of the inflamed tubes. The paregoric elixir (compound tincture of camphor) is an old and popular remedy in B., but enough has been said to impress on the reader the danger of tampering with bronchitis. In every case where it is possible, a skilled medical man should be employed, to determine, by the stethoscope, not only the disease but its exact situation; and as it is but too likely to recur at some future period, or symptoms caused by it to appear, a skilled opinion has a permanent value to the patient. See CATARRH. Bronze. BRÖNDSTED, PETER OLUF, a learned antiquary, born near Horsens in Jütland, Nov. 17, 1780. On completing his course of studies at the university of Copenhagen, he, in 1806, went to Paris, where he remained two years. He afterwards visited Italy and Greece, where he made excavations which furnished valuable materials for the study of classical antiquity. He died rector of the Copenhagen university in 1842. B.'s principal work is Travels and Researches in Greece (2 vols., Paris, 1826). In addition to several smaller archæological papers, amongst which was one in English, entitled An Account of some Greek Vases found near Vulci (Lond. 1832), and another on the bronzes of Siris, which appeared at Copenhagen, 1837, B. also wrote some valuable contributions to Danish history from medieval Norman manuscripts (2 vols., Copenh. 1817-18), and Memoirs of Greece during the Years 1827 and 1828 (Paris, 1835). BRONGNIART, ADOLPHE THEOPHILE, 1801-76; b. Paris; eminent botanist, and son of Alexandre, noted below. He studied medicine, and in 1826 received a diploma, but devoted himself particularly to plants and their physiology. In 1834 he became a member of the Academy of sciences, succeeding Desfontaines, and about 1834 professor of botany at the Jardin des plantes, Paris. In 1852 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal society of London. He published Prodromus of a History of Fossil Vegetables (1828); Botanical and Geological Researches on Vegetables enclosed in the Different Strata of the Earth (2 vols., 1828); Observations on the Interior Structure of the Sigillaria Elegans. BRONGNIART, ALEXANDRE, an eminent French chemist and naturalist, born at Paris in 1770, is said to have delivered a lecture on chemistry before he was 15. In 1790, he visited England for a scientific examination of the Derbyshire mines and pottery-works, and, on his return to France, published a Mémoire sur l'Art de l'Emailleur. Appointed in 1800 director of the porcelain manufactory at Sèvres, he held that office for the remainder of his life, and revived the almost lost art of painting on glass. In his Essai d'une Classification des Reptiles, 1805, he established the four divisions of reptiles, and first gave them the names of saurians, batrachians, chelonians, and ophidians. His Traite Elémentaire de Minéralogie, published in 1807, at the instance of the imperial university, became a text-book for lecturers. In 1814, appeared his Mémoire sur les Corps Organisés Fossiles nommés Trilobites, a name which, as well as a basis of classification for those singular crustacea, naturalists owe to Brongniart. In 1815, he was elected a member of the academy of sciences of the French institute; he was also a member of the royal and geological societies of London, and of other learned bodies. In 1845, appeared his Traité des Arts Ceramiques. He died 14th Oct., 1847. BRO NI, a t. of northern Italy, in the province of Pavia, about 11 m. s.e. of the town of Pavia, in a beautiful situation at the foot of the Apennines. It has a singular old church, some portions of which date from the 10th century. In its vicinity is the castle of Broni, celebrated in history as the place where prince Eugene obtained a victory over the French in 1703. Pop. about 7000. BRONKHORST, JAN VAN, 1603-80; b. Utrecht, Holland; attained success as a glass painter, but in 1639 abandoned it for oil painting and etching. BRONN, HEINRICH GEORG, a German naturalist, was born at Ziegelhausen, Mar. 3, 1800, and educated at Heidelberg university, where he devoted himself to the science of forests and natural history. In 1828, he commenced at Heidelberg a course of lectures on the physical and industrial sciences, and in 1833 was nominated ordinary professor of the same. After Leuckhardt's departure from Freiberg, B. was appointed to the zoological lectureship. B. wrote several important scientific treatises. His first was A System of Antediluvian Conchylia (Heidelberg, 1824), which was followed by A System of Antediluvian Zoophytes. In 1824, he visited the southern countries of Europe; and in 1827, made a second journey to Italy. On his return, he published the results of his journey (2 vols., Heidelberg, 1825-30). In 1834 appeared his most important geological work-Lethaa Geognostica; in 1841-49, his History of Nature; and in 1850, his Universal Zoology, which was the first attempt to develop zoology in its entirety with reference to extinct organisms. B. died in 1862. BRONNER, JOHANN PHILIPP, 1792–1865; a German authority on wines, their nature and production, on which he published more than a dozen treatises. In 1831, he established a school for teaching wine-culture; and in later years, under a commission from Baden, he traveled and investigated in all the grape-growing countries of the continent. BRONTÉ, a t. in the province of Catania, Italy, situated at the western base of Mt. Etna, about 22 m. n.n. w. of the city of Catania. B. has manufactures of woolen and paper, and the district produces oil, almonds, wine, etc. But the town is celebrated chiefly for its connection with admiral lord Nelson, who was created duke of Bronté by the Neapolitan government in 1779, with an annual income of 6000 oncie (about £3750), Pop. '82, 16,000. BRONTÉ, ANNE, b. about 1820; d. 1849; English novelist, and sister of Charlotte Bronté. With her sisters she published a volume of verse in 1846, assuming the penname of Acton Bell; and in 1847 and 1848 published the romances Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall. Bronze. BRONTÉ, CHARLOTTE, one of the most distinguished of modern novelists, was born at Thornton, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the 21st of April, 1816. Her father, a clergyman of Irish descent, removed, with six young children and an invalid wife, from Thornton to Haworth, in the same county, in 1821. Soon after their arrival, Mrs. Bronté died, so that Charlotte, trying hard in after-life, could but dimly recall the remembrance of her mother. Her father, eccentric and solitary in his habits, and full of extravagant theories for making his children hardy and stoical, was ill fitted to replace a mother's love. When Charlotte was eight years old, she was sent with three of her sisters to Cowan's Bridge school, which, whether deservedly or not, had an unfortunate notoriety conferred upon it 25 years later in the pages of Jane Eyre. Her two eldest sisters falling dangerously ill, and dying a few days after their removal thence, and the low situation evidently disagreeing with Charlotte's health, she was sent home when little more than nine, and remained there, "the motherly friend and guardian of her younger sisters," till, in 1831, she was sent to Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head, where her remarkable talents were duly appreciated by her kind instructress, and friendships formed with some of her fellow-pupils that lasted throughout life. A few years later, she returned to Miss Wooler's school as teacher there, and also had some sorrowful experiences as governess in one or two families. It was with a view of better qualifying themselves for the task of teaching that Charlotte and her sister Emily went to Brussels in 1842, and took up their abode in a pensionnat. When Charlotte returned home in 1844, a new shadow darkened the gloomy Yorkshire parsonage. Her father's sight was declining fast, and her only brother was a source of continual anxiety. It now seemed plain that school-keeping could never be a resource, and the sisters turned their thoughts to literature. Their volume of poems was published in 1846; their names being veiled under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, but it met with little or no attention. Charlotte's next venture was a prose tale, The Professor, and while it was passing slowly and heavily from publisher to publisher, Jane Eyre was making progress. In the Aug. of 1847, it was submitted to Messrs. Smith & Elder, and published by them two months later. It took the public by storm. It was felt that a fresh hand, making new harmonies, was thrown over the old instrument. Henceforward, Charlotte B. had a "twofold life, as author and woman." Over the latter the clouds closed thicker and thicker. Mr. Bronté had indeed recovered his sight; but the sister Charlotte so intensely loved, and whose genius she ever delighted to exalt above her own, Emily-the Ellis Bell of Wuthering Heights-died in 1848. Her only brother also died in the same year; and Anne, the youngest of the family, following in 1849, Charlotte was left alone with her aged father in that dreary deserted home among the graves. Nevertheless, her energy never flagged. Shirley, begun soon after the appearance of Jane Eyre, was published in the autumn of 1849; and Villette, written under the frequent pressure of bad health and low spirits, came out in 1852. In the spring of 1854, Charlotte B. was married to her father's curate, the Rev. A. Nicholls, who had long known and loved her. It is a relief to find that a little bright sunshine was permitted to the close of a hitherto clouded life. It was, however, but brief; for serious illness set in, and on the 31st of Mar., 1855, she died. A fragment of an unfinished novel appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for April, 1860. See Mrs. Gaskell's Life of C. B. (1857). BRONZE is a reddish-yellow, fine-grained alloy of copper and tin, in variable proportions. It was early known, and what is usually spoken of as brass in regard to the ancient nations, was in reality bronze. The brass or B. referred to in the Bible was probably composed of copper and tin, though some translators consider it likely to have been copper alone. The examination of the most ancient coins and metallic ornaments and implements leaves no doubt as to the acquaintance of the ancients with B.; so much so, that in the antiquarian history of European nations, there is a distinct period styled the bronze period (see next art.). At the present time, B. is largely used for house and church bells, Chinese gongs, ordnance or cannon metal, and speculum or telescope metal. In the preparation of the various kinds of B., great care must be taken to keep the tin from being burned away or wasted. To obviate this, it is customary to use much old B., as worn-out cannon, etc., and when that is fused in the furnace, to add the new copper and tin. The best Cornish and Banca tin are employed for the better kinds of castings, especially where strength of alloy is required. For inferior work, old scrap tin, which often contains lead, is used; and where strength of material is not an object, a little zinc and lead are added. In either case, during the fusion of the mixed metals in the furnace, at a high temperature, as little air as possible must be admitted to the furnace, otherwise the metals are oxidized, and the alloy is deteriorated. B., when well made, is, excepting gold, platinum, and some of the rare metals, the most durable metallic material with which we are acquainted; and this, coupled with its extreme hardness, rendering it difficult for time and ordinary wear and tear to efface inscriptions or medallions stamped on it, has led the mint in France, some years ago, to issue a bronze coinage in place of copper; and for the last twelve or fifteen years bronze coinage has taken the place of a copper coinage in Great Britain. The principal varieties of B. have the following average composition: Ancient. Bronzing. Recently, B. has been deposited on small statues and other articles, in greater or less thickness, by the electrotype process (see GALVANISM), forming very pleasing ornaments at a cheaper rate than ordinary B. ornaments can be purchased for. The same process has been suggested for coating those parts of machinery which are liable to rust. BRONZE, AGE OF (Dan. Broncealderen), a term used by many modern archæologists to distinguish the second of the three successive periods into which, as they hold, the primitive or pre-historic antiquities of a country may be divided. They take for granted that among a rude or savage people, stone, being more easily fashioned, would come into use before any kind of metal; and that of metals, copper, being oftener found ready for the hammer, would come into use before iron, which has generally to be smelted before it can be wrought. These assumptions-which, in so far, are only in accordance with what has actually been observed among uncivilized races-have obtained from a very early date. Lucretius, writing in the century before the Christian era, has recorded them with his usual vigorous precision: Arma antiqua, manus, ungues, dentesque fuerunt, Et prior æris erat quam ferri cognitus usus. De Rerum Natura, v. 1282. Man's earliest arms were fingers, teeth, and nails, The tyrant iron.-Mason Good's Translation. More than one antiquary of the last century appears to have suggested the distribution of archæological objects into eras of stone, of copper or bronze, and of iron. But the proposed classification received scarcely any attention until about forty years ago, when it was adopted and developed by Mr. C. J. Thomsen, superintendent of the ethnographical and archæological museum of Copenhagen, in his Ledetraad tit Nordisk Oldkyndighed (Kjöbenhavn, 1836), and by Mr. Nilsson, professor of zoology in the university of Lund, in Sweden, in his Skandinaviska Nordens Urinvonare (Lund, 1838-43). According to the theory of these writers-which is held by almost all archæologists in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, by many in northern Germany and in Switzerland, and by a few in other parts of Europe-the first three stages in the progress of a nation from barbarism to civilization are as clearly identified and defined by their relics of stone, of bronze, and of iron, as the comparative antiquity of geological strata, or periods of the world's creation, is determined by the fossils which they are found to contain. The name of the "age of stone" is given to the period when weapons and implements were made of stone, amber, wood, bone, horn, or some such easily wrought material, and during which very little or nothing was known of metals. During this era, the people, few in number, and savage in their habits, clothed themselves chiefly with skins of animals. They buried their dead in large sepulchral chambers, covered by what have been called cromlechs, or girdled round by the unhewn stone pillars called "Druidical circles." The bodies have most frequently been found unburned, and often with rude urns beside them. During the age of bronze," weapons and implements were made of copper or of bronze, and iron and silver were little or not at all known. The dead were burned, and their ashes kept in urns, or deposited in stone-chests, which were covered by conical mounds of earth or heaps of loose stones. In the urns, articles of gold and amber are found, but never of silver. Most articles of metal appear to have been cast; where marks of the hammer appear, it is contended that the forging or beating must have been done by a stone hammer upon a stone anvil. The age of iron" is the name applied to the third and last of the three supposed periods. During this era, it is conceived that iron displaced bronze in the manufacture of weapons and implements, and that silver and glass came into use. The dead were still occasionally burned; but they were frequently buried without burning, often seated on chairs, and, at times, with a horse in full war-harness laid beside the body of his master. 93 Bronzing. The Scandinavian and German antiquaries admit that their three periods run, more or less, one into another; that stone weapons continued to be used throughout the age of B.; that B. and gold were not unknown in the age of stone; and that weapons of stone and B. continued to be used in the age of iron. This admission obviously detracts very much from the practical value of the classification for chronological or other scientific purposes. But the late Mr. J. M. Kemble, and other British antiquaries, have taken objections to the classification altogether, as irreconcilable with generally admitted facts, when carried out to its strict and necessary consequences. They point to the every-day discovery of objects of stone, B., and iron, in the same ancient urns, graves, and dwellings. They instance the case of the Huns, who had swords of iron, while they pointed their arrows with bones; the case of the Anglo-Saxons, who fought with stone mauls at Hastings; and the case of the Germans, who used stone hammers in the thirty years' war. They show stone weapons, in some of which the traces of metal are still fresh, while others attest for themselves that they could not have been cut but by a thin sharp metal point.* They prove from Greek and Roman writers that the nations of the n. and w. of Europe used iron weapons during what must have been their B. age. And they repudiate the proposed appropriation of different modes of burial to the different ages-a point on which the supporters of the theory appear to be hopelessly divided among themselves on the ground that graves assigned to the B. period have been found to contain more iron than B., and that other supposed characteristics of sepulchers of the B. But although the threefold age are quite as common in sepulchers of the iron age. classification of the Scandinavian and German archæologists cannot be relied upon for historical uses, it may be accepted as a very convenient mode of arranging archæological objects. It has been adopted, with some modifications, in the gallery of British antiquities in the British museum at London, in the national museum of the antiquaries of Scotland at Edinburgh, in the museum of the royal Irish academy at Dublin, and in other collections. For implements of bronze age, see illus., ARCHEOLOGY, vol. I., p. 626, figs. 7, 8, 13, 18, 19, 37. BRONZE-WING, BRONZE-WINGED PIGEON, and BRONZE PIGEON, names given in the Australian colonies to certain species of pigeon (see PIGEON and COLUMBIDE), chiefly of the genus peristera of Swainson, on account of the lustrous bronze color with which their wings are variously marked. They are otherwise also birds of beautiful plumage.— The COMMON B. or bronze-winged ground dove (columba or peristera chalcoptera) is distributed over all the Australian colonies. It is often seen in flocks, feeds on the ground, and builds its nest chiefly on low branches of trees growing on meadow-lands or near water. It is a plump bird, often weighing fully a pound, and is acceptable at every table.-The BRUSH B. or little bronze pigeon (C. or P. elegans) is not so plentiful nor so widely distributed, chiefly inhabiting Tasmania and the southern parts of Australia. It inhabits low swampy grounds, never perches on trees, resembles a partridge in its habits, and makes a loud burring noise like a partridge when it takes wing on being alarmed. The HARLEQUIN B. (Č. or P. histrionica) is found in the n. w. parts of New South Wales in great flocks, feeding on seeds. -Some of the species of geophaps, another of the genera or sub-genera of the columbida, are also sometimes called bronze-wing. Their partridge-like appearance and habits have gained for them the name of partridge pigeon (q.v). BRONZING is the process of covering plaster or clay figures, and articles in ivory, metal, and wood, so as to communicate to them the appearance of ordinary bronze. Several of the materials employed are of little value, whilst others are expensive. Thus, gold powder is used for the finer work, and is prepared by grinding gold-leaf with honey on a stone slab till a very fine state of division is attained, then washing Inferior gold-leaf, or that which conout the honey, and drying the gold powder. tains much silver and copper, yields the German gold powder employed in bronzing. Copper powder is prepared by introducing an iron bar or plate into a solution of copper, when the latter metal is precipitated as a finely-divided red powder. Mosaic gold, or musicum, is made by fusing 1 lb. of tin, introducing + lb. mercury, allowing the alloy or amalgam to cool, then pulverizing and grinding up with 4 lb. sal-ammoniac, and 7 ozs. sublimed sulphur. Ultimately, the whole is subjected to the process of sublimation, when the tin, as a brilliant yellow powder, resembling gold, is left in the subliming vessel. The color of mosaic gold may be deepened by the addition of red oxide of lead, and it then assumes a copper tint. Gold size is prepared by heating 1 lb. of linseed oil, and gradually adding 4 ozs. of gum animi in very fine powder. When boiled sufficiently, it assumes the consistence of tar, and may then be strained through cloth. employed in bronzing, some vermilion is added, to make it opaque, and turpentine, When M. Frederic Troyon, of Lausanne, one of the Swiss antiquaries who accept the three periods of their Scandinavian brethren, instances certain stone axes (now in the collection of baron Renberg, at Prague), which were found, along with their cores, at the site of a primitive manufactory of these weapons in Bohemia. "These cores," he says, "when replaced in the holes from verified by the corresponding veins of the stone), left so little play-room, that it was evident they could only have been detached by a metal point, and not by a hollow cylinder, which could not have given to the hole its conical form, now quite apparent. Instead of the soft iron which is employed nowadays in such operations, the ancients used copper or bronze; and, of course, water and silicious sand were likewise employed in the process.' |