in general, signifies defilement, or the rendering a person or place unclean or unholy. For the Jewish pollutions, see the article IMPURITY.
The Romanists hold a church to be polluted by the effusion of blood or of seed therein; and that it must be consecrated anew. And the Indians are so superstitious on this head, that they break all the vessels which those of another religion have drank out of, or even only touched; and drain all the water out of a pond in which a stranger has bathed.
in medicine, a disease which consists in an involuntary emission of the seed in time of sleep. This, in different persons, is very different in degree; some being affected with it only once in a week, a fortnight, three weeks, or a month, and others being subject to it almost every night. The persons most subject to it, are young men of a sanguineous temperament, who feed high and lead a sedentary life. When this happens to a person but once in a fortnight or a month, it is of no great consequence; but when it happens almost every night, it greatly injures the health; the patient looks pale and sickly; in some the eyes become weak and inflamed, are sometimes affected with violent delusions, and are usually at last encircled with a livid appearance of the skin. This disorder is to be cured rather by a change of life than by medicines. When it has taken its rise from a high diet and a sedentary life, a coarser food and the use of exercise will generally cure it. Persons subject to this disease should never take any stimulating purges, and must avoid as much as possible all violent passions of the mind; and though exercise is recommended in moderation, yet if this be too violent, it will rather increase the disorder than contribute to its cure.
Self-POLLUTION. See ONANISM.
POLUX (Julius), a Greek writer of antiquity, flourished in the reign of the emperor Commodus, and was born at Naucrates, a town in Egypt. He was educated under the sophists, and made great progress in grammatical and critical learning. He taught rhetoric at Athens, and became so famous that he was made preceptor of the emperor Commodus. He drew up for his use, and inscribed to him, while his father Marcus Antoninus was living, an Onomasticon or Greek Vocabulary, divided into ten books. It is extant, and contains a vast variety of synonymous words and phrases, agreeably to the copiousness of the Greek tongue, ranged under the general classes of things. It was intended to facilitate the knowledge of the Greek language to the young prince; and it is still very useful to all who have a mind to be perfect in it. The first edition of it was printed at Venice by Aldus in 1502, and a Latin version was afterwards made and published with it: but there was no correct and handsome edition of it till that of Amsterdam, 1706, in folio, by Lederlinus and Hemsterhuis. Lederlinus went through the first seven books, correcting the text and version, and subjoining his own, with the notes of Salmatius, If. Vofine, Valerius, and of Kuhnus, whose scholar he had been, and whom he succeeded in the professorship of the oriental languages in the university of Straßburg.
Hemsterhuis continued the same method through the three last books: this learned man has since distinguished himself by an excellent edition of Lucian, and other monuments of solid and profound literature.
Pollux wrote many other things, none of which remain. He lived to the age of 58. Philostratus and Lucian have treated him with much contempt and ridicule. Philostrat. de vit. Sophyl. lib. ii. and Lucian in Rhetorum praecipere.
Pollux. See CASTOR and POLLUX.