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Blister – Blood Wort

Blister

a topical application, which, when applied to the skin, raises the cuticle in the form of a vesicle, filled with serous fluid, and so produces a counterirritation. The Spanish fly blister operates with most certainty and expedition, and is commonly used for this purpose, as well as mustard, hartshorn, etc.

Blister Steel

steel of blistered apperance formed by rosting bar iron in contact with carbon in a cementing furnace. Two subsequent processes convert it into shear steel and cast steel.

Block Island

an island in the Atlantic off the coast of Rhode Island, to which it belongs: named from Adrian Block, a Dutch navigator who discovered it in 1616. There is a lighthouse at its S. E. extremity visible 21 miles. The island forms the township of New Shoreham, esteemed as a summer resort.

Block Printing

the method of printing from wooden blocks (producing block books), as is still done in calico printing and in making wall paper. See PRINTING.

Blood

COUNCIL OF sucker, so called from the rich scarlet color of the head, breast and back of the male.

Blood

COUNCIL OF, the name popularly applied to the Council of Troubles, established by the Duke of Alva, in the Netherlands, in 1567. In the first three months alone its victims numbered 1,800, and soon there was hardly a Protestant house in the Netherlands that had not furnished a victim.

Blood Flower

the English name of the hæmanthus, a genus of plants belonging to the order amaryllidaceæ (amaryllids). The allusion is to the brilliant red flowers. The species, which are mostly from the Cape of Good Hope, are ornamental plants.

Blood Poisoning

a name loosely used of pyæmia and allied diseases. It is also used popularly in a wider sense for the results on the human system of poison germs from malaria, bad drains, etc.; or for the condition of the blood caused by such ailments as Bright's disease of the kidneys, etc.

Blood Stone

a variety of jaspery quartz, flecked with red spots like drops of blood.

Blood Vessels

the tubes or vessels in which the blood circulates.

Blood Wood

a name of several trees. Indian bloodwood (lagerstræmia reginæ), is a large tree of the henna family, with wood of a blood-red color, used for many purposes. It is called also jarool.

Blood Wort

same as blood root (sanguinaria).