in medicine, denotes spots in the skin like flea bites, which come out in malignant fevers, hence called petechial or spotted fevers. See MEDICINE, p. 67.

PETTER, or Epistles of St. Peter, two canonical books of the New Testament, written by the apostle St. Peter, and addressed to those Jewish converts who were scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, &c., not only upon the persecution raised at Jerusalem, but upon former dispersions of the Jews into those places. The first of these epistles is principally designed to comfort and confirm them, under those fiery trials they were then subject to; and to direct them how to behave in the several states and relations, both of the civil and the Christian life. In the second epistle, the apostle prosecutes the same subject, to prevent their apostacy from the faith, and guard them against the corrupt principles of the gnostics, and those who scoffed at the promise of Christ's coming.

St. Peter's day, a festival of the Christian church, observed on the twenty-ninth of June.