(the Little),** a Scythian, became abbot of a monastery at Rome: he was the first who computed time from the birth of Dionysius to Christ, and fixed that great event, according to the vulgar era. He was also a learned canon-law writer, and died about the year 540.
**DEOBSTRUENTS,** in pharmacy, such medicines as open obstructions. See DETERTENT.
**DEODAND,** in our customs, a thing given or forfeited as it were to God, for the pacification of his wrath in a case of misadventure, whereby a Christian soul comes to a violent end, without the fault of any reasonable creature.
As, if a horse strike his keeper and kill him: if a man, in driving a cart, falls so as the cart-wheel runs over him, and presses him to death: if one be felling a tree, and gives warning to the standers-by to look to themselves, yet a man is killed by the fall thereof: in the first place, the horse; in the second, the cart-wheel, cart, and horses; and in the third, the tree, is Deodandus, "to be given to God," that is, to the king, to be distributed to the poor by his almoner, for expiation of this dreadful event; though effected by irrational, nay, senseless and dead creatures.
Omnia qua movent ad mortem sunt Deodanda.
What moves to death, or kills him dead, Is Deodand, and forfeited.
This law seems to be an imitation of that in Exodus, chap. xxi. "If an ox gore a man, or a woman, with his horns, so as they die; the ox shall be stoned to death, and his flesh not be eat; so shall his owner be innocent."
Fleta says, the Deodand is to be sold, and the price distributed to the poor, for the soul of the king, his ancestors, and all faithful people departed this life.
**DEPHLEGMATION,** is an operation by which the superabundant water of a body is taken from it; and it is principally effected by evaporation or distillation. Dephlegmation is also called concentration, particularly when acids are the subject. See CONCENTRATION.
**DEPILATORY MEDICINES,** those applied in order to take off the hair: such are lime and orpiment known to be, but which ought to be used with great caution.
**DEPONENT,** in Latin grammar, a term applied to verbs which have active significations, but passive terminations or conjugations, and want one of their participles passive.
**DEPONENT,** in the law of Scotland, a person who makes a deposition. See DEPOSITION.
**DEPOPULATION,** the act of diminishing the number of people in any country, whether by war or bad politics.
**DEPORTATION,** a sort of banishment used by the Romans, whereby some island or other place was allotted to a criminal for the place of his abode, with a prohibition not to stir out of the same on pain of death.
**DEPOSIT,** among civilians, something that is committed to the custody of a person, to be kept without any reward, and to be returned again on demand.
**DEPOSITARY,** in law, a person intrusted as keeper or guardian of a deposit.
**DEPOSITION,** in Scots law. See LAW, No. cxxiii. 8.
**DEPOSITION,** in law, the testimony given in court by a witness upon oath.
**DEPOSITION** also signifies the sequestering or depriving a man of some dignity and office.
**DEPRECATION,** in rhetoric, a figure whereby the orator invokes the aid and assistance of some one; or prays for some great evil or punishment to befall him who speaks falsely, either himself or his adversary.
**DEPRECATORY,** or **DEPRECATIVE,** in theology, a term applied to the manner of performing some ceremonies in the form of prayer. The form of absolution is deprecatory in the Greek church, being conceived in these terms, *May God absolve you*; whereas it is in the declarative form in the Latin church, and in some of the reformed churches, *I absolve you*.
**DEPRESSION of the Pole.** When a person sails or travels towards the equator, he is said to depress the pole; because as many degrees as he approaches nearer the equator, so many degrees will the pole be nearer the horizon. This phenomenon arises from the spherical figure of the earth.