a person who can use both hands with the same facility, and for the same purposes, that the generality of people do their right hands.—As to the natural cause of this faculty, some, as Hocler, attribute it to an extraordinary supply of blood and spirits from the heart and brain, which furnish both hands with the necessary strength and agility: others, as Nicholas Massa, to an erect situation of the heart, inclining neither to the right hand nor left; and others to the right and left subclavian arteries being of the same height and the same distance from the heart, by which the blood is propelled with equal force to both hands.—But these are only conjectures, or rather chimeras. Many think, that, were it not for education and habit, all mankind would be ambidexters; and in fact, we frequently find nurses obliged to be at a good deal of pains before they can bring children to forego the use of their left hands. How far it may be an advantage to be deprived of half our natural dexterity, may be doubted. It is certain, there are infinite occasions in life, when it would be better to have the equal use of both hands. Surgeons and ocultists are of necessity obliged to be ambidexters; bleeding, &c. in the left-arm or left-ankle, and operations on the left-eye, cannot be well performed but with the left-hand.—Various instances occur in history, where the left-hand has been exercised preferably to the right. But by the laws of the ancient Scythians, people were enjoined to exercise both hands alike; and Plato enjoins ambidexterity to be observed and encouraged in his republic.

among English lawyers, a juror or embracer, who accepts money of both parties, for giving his verdict; an offence for which he is liable to be imprisoned, for ever excluded from a jury, and to pay ten times the sum he accepted of.