Animal moschiferum. The musk animal. See Moschus.

Animal zibethicum. See Zibethum. Animal kingdom. It is not our object to ascertain with precision the limits of this kingdom of nature, or to mark the various shades of distinction between animals and vegetables. It occurs in this place chiefly to notice the various medicines which it affords.

The mammalia chiefly furnish aliment;.yet artificial teeth are formed from those of the trichecus manatus: castor and civet from the viverra zibetha and castor fiber; musk from the moschus moschiferus. The various species of cervus afford a nutrient jelly from their horns, and formerly the volatile alkali was also prepared from them, though now supplied by bones. The milk of the cow, the goat, the mare, and ewe, are well known; and the suet of the sheep, and the lard of the hog, need scarcely to be noticed. The morbid concretions, the bezoars, are not at present employed; the elk's hoof is disregarded; the bile of the ox and sheep seldom prescribed; and the gastric juices chiefly used as an external application.

The physeter macrocephalus, from the cetaceous tribe, furnishes the spermaceti, now styled adipocire; and the different species of sturgeon, from their air bladders, the isinglass. The oil which spontaneously separates from the liver of the pike (esox lucius) is used in ob-fuscation of the eyes; the oil from the liver of the codfish in rheumatism.

Among the amphibia, the rana esculenta is nutritious; and the rana bufo, it is said, has been used in cancers, by sucking the venom. Several of the lizards are supposed to possess medicinal powers. The l. agi-lis has been used as a remedy for cancers; the /. scin-cus as an aphrodisiac; and the flesh of-the I. iguana, like that of some of the whales, has been suspected of exciting to action the latent venereal poison.

Of insects we shall on a future occasion treat more at length. See Insecta. The vermes intestina furnish the lumbricus terrestris and the leeches; of the molluscae, we employ only the sepia officinalis, and the Umax maxi-mus terrestris; of the testacea, the ostrea edulis and maxima, and the helix pomatia;. of the lythophites the madrepore, the coralline, the corals, and the sponges. Animalcule. A diminutive of the word animal; that is, they are such little creatures as require to be viewed through glasses to discern them distinctly. Rain, snow, and dew, contain them in great numbers. In boiled water they sometimes revive.

The animalculae in a fluid are generally collected in a mass; if disturbed, they separate, as fish in a pond, and continue for a time distant from each other. They follow the fluid to the last drop, and then seem to struggle and die; after their apparent death, on adding water, they revive. When seemingly dead, they are very-flat; but soon recover their plumpness when revived. They are destroyed by the slightest atom of oil of vitriol; of solutions of common salt, salt of tartar, and sugar: urine and blood are equally fatal.

In short, animal life abounds so copiously, that wherever a nidus occurs, its peculiar animals are found; but in this place we must consider them only as connected with medicine. The animalcules discovered by Lewenhoeck in male semen, encouraged physiologists to suppose that they had unravelled the mysterious subject of generation. More mature reflection and repeated observation have, however, dissipated the phantom, as we shall see under that article. Animalcules have also been considered as the causes of various diseases. Linnaeus's Dissertation on the fifth volume of the Amoenitates Academicae, entitled Exanthemata Viva, contains almost all the facts dispersed in various authors on this subject; and Langius has with equal anxiety reduced almost every disease to this cause. The complaints enumerated by Linnaeus as owing to animalcules are, itch, dysentery, hooping-cough, small-pox, measles, plague, and syphilis. With respect to dysentery the argument is curious: in dysenteric stools, animalcules were found, and these animalcules were only killed by an infusion of rhubarb. Unfortunately, rhubarb will not cure dysentery. At present it is doubted whether even the itch is owing to animalcules.

A later idea of a disease from animals is that of Mr. Adams, who derives cancer from a species of tenia. His arguments are at least specious, and they will be considered in their proper place. See Taenia and Cancer.

See Philos. Trans. Abr. vol. iii. Dr. Hook's Micro-graphia.