A small river fish found in the Rhone. Perca asper Lin. It is so named from the roughness of its scales and jaws. It is good food, and very nutritious.

The oil of asper is commonly enquired for as a means of catching fish with ease and certainty. It is probably the oil of ospray which is meant, for there is a fable, that this bird, as it flies, drops something on the surface of the water, by which the fish is allured. There is, however, no such oil, and the oil of box is usually sold for it.

A Spera Arte Ria, (from asper, rough, and trachea arteria, from rough,) so called from the inequality of its cartilages. The windpipe. It is formed of the larynx, the bronchiae, and the Vesiculae malpighianae. The larynx hath five cartilages, forming the upper part of the aspera arteria: the first is the thyroidea peltata, or clypealis; resembling a shield, placed just under the basis of the os hyoides, of a quadrangular figure, and stands in the anterior part of the neck, where the pomum Adami is seen; the lateral portion runs back, and ends in two processes; one of which runs up, the other down, and are connected to the os hyoides: the second is the crycoid; called also cymbolaris cartilago; it stands beneath the preceding, is of an annular figure; the back part stands between the two processes of the thyroid cartilage, to which it is articulated. It is narrow before, thick behind, and serves as a base to all the other cartilages; being, as it were, let into the thyroides. By its means the other cartilages are joined to the trachea, on which account it is immoveable. The third and fourth are the two arytaenoid cartilages, joined to the superior and posterior parts of the crycoid by peculiar articulations, that the glottis may the more readily be opened and contracted; each of these has a protuberance for the insertion of the muscles which stands over the crycoid cartilage, and each has a process where the ligament of the epiglottis is fixed; they are small at their base, and large at their upper part. The fifth is the epiglottis, shaped like the leaf of a plant; Winslow says that of the purslane. It is joined to the anterior and superior part of the thyroid cartilage, over which it appears erected behind the root of the tongue, to which it is connected by ligaments fixed to the cornua of the os hyoides; it is also connected with the arytaenoid cartilages. It covers the glottis whilst we swallow, to prevent any thing getting into it. These form the beginning of the aspera arteria, which, passing down from behind the tongue into the lungs, is situated before the oesophagus, and surrounded, laterally and before, by the thyroid gland. It enters the cavity of the thorax behind the upper part of the sternum, where it is crossed by large vessels which run up to the head. At about the fourth vertebra of the back it divides into two branches; that which goes into the left is divided into two; these branches are called bronchiae, and are divided again into numberless other ramifications, which are distributed through the substance of the lungs, and which consist of cartilaginous segments and contractile membranes; then they are expanded into oblong vesicles, after having lost their cartilaginous nature, called vesiculae Malpighianae. They are supposed to terminate in vesicles like clusters, which adhere to the small bronchial ramifications, constituting the chief part of the lungs. The use of the bronchiae is to afford a passage for the air into the lungs, and a free return from them, with such superfluous matter as is capable of combining with it. The aspera arteria is cartilaginous forward, and membranous behind.

When any small substance falls into the trachea, it occasions much uneasiness until it is thrown up. To assist its discharge, AEtius commends sternutatories; others, expectorants and emetics; but the cough, which nature excites, is the only effectual mode of relief.