Hyson

( Com.) One of the best varieties of green tea. An inferior quality is known as Hyson - skin. - See TEA. Hy op us, n. [Heb. ezob; Arab. ozzof, hy op.] ( Bot.) The Hy op, a genus of plants, order Lamiacese. They are perennial herbs, natives of S. Europe, cultivated in our gardens for their beauty, and on account of their reputed medicinal pro perties. H. officinal is, the Common Hy op, is a handsome plant, 18 inches long, the upper part of the stem quadrangular, the leaves evergreen and lanceolate, the flowers in one-sided, whorled racemes. The flowers are generally of a very beautiful blue. It has an agreeable aromatic odor. It has long been in cultivation for the sake of its leaves and young shoots, which are sometimes used for culinary purposes as a seasoning, but more generally in a dried state as a stomachic and carminative. A syrup made with them is a popular remedy for colds. The IMG:content-0671.png:[blocks in formation] nervous affection to which females are particularly sub ject, and which is generally connected with uterine irregularities. It occurs most frequently with persons between the ages of fifteen and forty-five or fifty, and is most common with single women of weakly constitution, and who lead sedentary lives. This complaint appears in such variety of forms, and simulates such a variety of diseases, that it is scarcely po ible to give a just character or definition of it. The attack is usually preceded by dejection of spirits, anxiety of mind, difficulty of breathing; a ball is felt advancing upwards from the stomach into the throat, and threatening to stop the pa age of the air; then the trunk and limbs of the body become violently convulsed, the patient sobs and cries, and occasionally bursts out into fits of laughter. After a time these symptoms gradually cease, a quantity of wind is evacuated upwards, with frequent sighing and sobbing, and the woman recovers the exercise of sense and motion without any recollection of what has taken place during the fit; feeling, however, a severe pain in her head, and a sorene all over her body. A fit of hysteria may last from a few minutes to several hours, or even days. It is to be distinguished from an epileptic fit by the absence of foaming at the mouth, by the sobbing and crying, by the milder expre ion of countenance, and by its being gradual, and preceded by the sensation of a ball. Hysteria a umes various other forms; as palpitations of the heart and difficult respiration; pains in different parts, as the head, left breast, .; different forms of paralytic affections, . The hysteric fit, however alarming and dreadful it may appear, is rarely accompanied with danger, and never terminates fatally unle it pa es into epilepsy, or the patient be in a very reduced state. During the paroxysm, the first care is to see that the patient do no injury to herself by striking her head or hands against any hard substances, nor to others by biting. If the fit be slight, it may frequently be arrested by dashing cold water on the face, or by filling the mouth with something of an unpleasant taste, or by applying some stimulating scent to the nostrils. If more serious, the face and neck ought to be freely exposed to the air, the forehead bathed with wet cloths, and a slight purgative administered. In some cases hysteria is owing to plethora, or fullne of blood; in others to deficiency of it. In the former case, a spare diet, exercise, and occasional purgatives are recommended, with sometimes the actual abstraction of blood; in the other case, the system is to be kept up and sustained by nourishing diet and tonics, particularly iron. The patient's mind is to be kept as cheerful and tranquil as po ible by agreeable company; and all tendency to exce or irregularities kept in check. The great cause of the prevalence of this disorder among our young females is owing to the defective physical and mental training to which they are subjected. Were their physical frames developed and strengthened by proper exercise, and their mental powers kept in proper subjection, there would be much le of hysteria.