capsule (kapsul)

[= D. G. Dan. Sw. kapsel, covering, etc., natural or artificial, usually thin or membranous; a cover or container of some small object or quantity of matter. Specifically-2. In bot., a dehiscent pod or seed-ve el, either membranous or woody, composed of Capsules, after dehiscence. a, asphodel; b, argemone; c, violet. two or more carpels, which at maturity becomes dry and opens by regular valves corresponding in number to the carpels, or twice as numerous. The term is sometimes applied to any dry dehiscent fruit, and even to the spore-cases of various cryptogamic plants. 3. In chem.: ( a ) A small saucer made of clay for roasting samples of ores, or for melting them. ( b ) A small shallow ve el made of Berlin ware, platinum, etc., for evaporations, solutions, and the like.-4. In an at. and zoöl., a membrane or ligament inclosing some part or organ as in a bag or sac; a saccular envelop or investment: as, the capsule of the crystalline lens of the eye; the capsule of a joint, as the hip.-5. In an at., some part or organ likened to a capsule: as, the adrenal capsules.-6. In Protozoa, the included perforated test of a radiolarian.7. In entom., a horny case inclosing the eggs of an insect, as those of the cockroach. Also called oötheca.-8. A cap of thin metal, such as tin-foil, put over the mouth of a corked bottle to preserve the cork from drying. Wine of good quality when bottled was formerly sealed with wax upon the cork, but the use of the capsule is now almost universal, the grower's or dealer's name or device being commonly stamped upon it. 9. A small gelatinous case or envelop in which nauseous medicines are inclosed to be swallowed.-10. The shell of a metallic cartridge or of a fulminating tube. - Adrenal capsule, an adrenal (which see). - Atrabiliary capsule, the suprarenal capsule, or adrenal. Bonnet's capsule, the posterior part of the tunica vaginal is of the eye, behind the point of perforation of the tendons of the muscles of the eyeballs. -Bowman's capsule, the capsule of a Malpighian body of the kidney. - Capsule of Gli on, the sheath of connective ti ue enveloping the branches of the portal vein, hepatic artery, and hepatic duct as they ramify in the liver. Capsule of the kidney, the smooth fibrous membrane closely investing the kidney, and forming its outer coat.Capsule of the lens, the transparent, elastic, brittle, and structurele membrane inclosing the lens of the eye.Central capsule, the capsule of a radiolarian. - External capsule, the layer of white nervous substance between the claustrum and the putamen of the brain. Internal capsule, the layer of nerve-fibers pa ing upward in the brain from the crura cerebri to the cortex, between the caudate nucleus and the optic thalamus on the one side and the lenticular nucleus on the other. - Marsupial capsule, in Polyzoa (or Bryozoa ), an individual of a colony captain Suprarenal capsule, a small flattened body, somewhat glandular in appearance, but with no duct, which in many animals surmounts kidney. Also called suprarenal body and adrenal. See cut under kidney. - Urticating capsule, a nematocyst, cnida, or thread-cell.