The basis, in England, of rating lands and hereditaments to the poor-rate, and to other rates and taxes that are expressed to be leviable or assessable in like manner as the poor-rate. … [Read more...]

In old English law. A parish. … [Read more...]

A paroxysmal disease or disorder of the nervous system, more common in females than males, not originating in any anatomical lesion, due to psychic rather than physical causes, and attended, in the acute or convulsive form, by extraordinary manifestations of secondary effects of extreme nervousness. Hysteria is a state in which ideas control the body and produce morbid changes … [Read more...]

In medical jurisprudence. (1) The morbid deposition of a sediment of any kind in the body. (2) A congestion or flushing of the blood vessels, as in varicose veins. Post-mortem hypostasis, a peculiar lividlty of the cadaver. … [Read more...]

Those who, having been thought dead, had, after a long absence in foreign countries, returned safely home; or those who, having been thought dead in battle, had afterwards unexpectedly escaped from their enemies and returned home. These, among the Romans, were not permitted to enter their own houses at the door, but were received at a passage opened in the roof. Enc. Lond. … [Read more...]