in medicine, is the assigning a proper and adequate remedy to the disease, from an examination of its symptoms, and an acquaintance with the virtues and effects of the materia medica.
in law, is a title acquired by use and time, and allowed by law; as when a man claims anything, because he, his ancestors, or they whose estate he hath, have had or used it all the time whereof no memory is to the contrary: or it is where for continuance of time, *ultra memoriam hominis*, a particular person hath a particular right against another.
There is a difference between prescription, custom, and usage. Prescription hath respect to a certain person, who by intendment may have continuance for ever; as for instance, he and all they whose estate he hath in such a thing, this is a prescription: but, Custom is local, and always applied to a certain place; as, time out of mind there has been such a custom in such a place, &c. And prescription belongeth to one or a few only; but custom is common to all. Usage differs from both, for it may be either to persons or places; as to inhabitants of a town to have a way, &c.
A custom and prescription are in the right; usage is in the possession; and a prescription that is good for the matter and substance, may be bad by the manner of setting it forth: but where that which is claimed as a custom, in or for many, will be good, that regularly will be so when claimed by prescription for one. Prescription is to be time out of mind; though it is not the length of time that begets the right of prescription, nothing being done by time, although every thing is done in time; but it is a presumption in law, that a thing cannot continue so long quiet, if it was against right, or injurious to another.
**Prescription**, in Scotch law. See Law, p. 698, and 725.
**Prescription**, in theology, was a kind of argument pleaded by Tertullian and others in the 3rd century against erroneous doctors. This mode of arguing has been despised by some, both because it has been used by Papists, and because they think that truth has no need of such a support. But surely in disputed points, if it can be shown that any particular doctrine of Christianity was held in the earliest ages, even approaching the apostolic, it must have very considerable weight; and indeed that it has so, appears from the universal appeals of all parties to those early times in support of their particular opinions. Besides, the thing is in itself natural; for if a man finds a variety of opinions in the world upon important passages in scripture, where shall he be apt to get the true sense from contemporary writers or others who lived very near the apostolic age? and if such a man shall find any doctrine or interpretation to have been universally believed in the first ages, or as Vincentius Lirinensis words it, *semper ubique et ab omnibus*, he will unquestionably be disposed to think such early and universal consent, or such prescription, of very considerable weight in determining his opinion.
**Presence**, a term of relation, used in opposition to absence, and signifying the existence of a person in a certain place.
**Present Tense**, in grammar, the first tense of a verb, expressing the present time, or that something is now performing; as *scribo*, I write, or am writing. See Grammar.
**Presentation**, in ecclesiastical law. See Patronage.
**Presentation of the Virgin**, is a feast of the Romish church, celebrated on the 21st of November, in memory of the Holy Virgin's being presented by her parents in the temple, to be there educated. Emanuel Commenus, who began to reign in 1143, makes mention of this feast in his Constitution. Some imagine it to have been established among the Greeks in the 11th century; and think they see evident proofs of it in some homilies of George of Nicomedia, who lived in the time of Photius. Its institution in the West is ascribed to Gregory XI. in 1372. Some think it was instituted in memory of the ceremony practised among the Jews for their newborn females, corresponding to the circumcision on the eighth day for males.
**Presentation of our Lady** also gives the title to three orders of nuns. The first, projected in 1618, by a maid named Joan of Cambrai. The habit of the nuns, according to the vision she pretended to have, was to be a grey gown of natural wool, &c.; but this project was never accomplished. The second was established in France, about the year 1627, by Nicholas Sanguin, bishop of Senlis; it was approved by Urban VIII. This order never made any great progress. The third was established in 1664, when Frederic Borromeo, being apostolical visitor in the Valteline, was intreated by some devout maids at Morbegno to allow them to live in community in a retired place; which he granted, and erected them into a congregation, under the title of congregation of our Lady. They live under the rule of St Augustine.
**Presentment**, in law. See Prosecution.
A presentment, generally taken, is a very comprehensive term; including not only presentments properly so called, but also inquisitions of office, and indictments by a grand jury. A presentment, properly speaking, is the notice taken by a grand jury of any offence from their own knowledge or observation, without any bill of indictment laid before them at the suit of the king: As the presentment of a nuisance, a libel, and the like; upon which the officer of the court must afterwards frame an indictment, before the party presented can be put to answer it. An inquisition of office is the act of a jury, summoned by the proper officer to inquire of matters relating to the crown, upon evidence laid before them. Some of these are in themselves convictions, and cannot afterwards be traversed or denied; and therefore the inquest, or jury, ought to hear all that can be alleged on both sides. Of this nature are all inquisitions of *fide de fe*; of flight in perious accused of felony; of decedants, and the like; and presentments of petty offences in the sheriff's town or court-leet, whereupon the presiding officer may let a fine. Other inquisitions may be afterwards traversed and examined; as particularly the coroner's inquisition of the death of a man, when it finds any one guilty of homicide; for in such cases the offender so presented must be arraigned upon this inquisition, and may dispute the truth of it; which brings it to a kind of indictment, the most usual and effectual means of prosecution. See Indictment.
**President**, Præses, is an officer created or elected to preside over a company or assembly; so called in contradistinction to the other members, who are termed *reguli*.
Lord President of the Council, is a great officer of the crown, who has precedence next after the lord chancellor and lord treasurer; as ancient as the time of King John, when he was styled *consiliarius capituli*. His office is to attend on the king, to propose business at the council-table, and to report to the king the several transactions there. See Privy-Council.
**Presidial**, was a tribunal, or bench of judges, established (before the Revolution) in the several considerable cities of France, to judge ultimately, or in the last resort, of the several causes brought before them by way of appeal from the subaltern judges. The presidials made one company with the officers of the bailliages and senechausées, where they were established.
**Press (Prelum)**, in the mechanic arts, a machine made of iron or wood, serving to squeeze or compress any body very close.
The ordinary presses consist of six members, or pieces; viz. two flat smooth planks; between which the things to be pressed are laid; two screws, or worms, fastened to the lower plank, and passing through two holes in the upper; and two nuts, in form of an S, serving to drive the upper plank, which is moveable, against the lower, which is stable, and without motion.
**Presses used for expressing of Liquors**, are of various kinds; some, in most respects, the same with the common presses, excepting that the under plank is perforated. forated with a great number of holes, to let the juice expressed run through into a tub, or receiver, underneath.
A very useful machine for a press, in the process of cider-making, has been lately constructed by Mr Anstice, who, with his well-known zeal for the improvement of mechanics, permits us to lay before our readers the following description of it.
Plate AA, no. 1, two pieces of timber, 21 feet long, 12 by 6 inches, laid side by side at the distance of 12 inches, and secured in that situation by blocks placed between and bolts passing through them; this frame forms the bed of the machine. BB, two uprights, 12 feet long, 6 by 8 inches, morticed upon them, and secured in their position by pins and iron squares. CC, two uprights, five feet long, 6 by 10 inches, morticed near the end of the under frame, and secured as before. DD, a lever, 17 feet long, 12 by 13 inches, turning on a large bolt which passes through the short uprights, also through iron straps, which secure them to the bed inside, and a flirrup of iron which passes over the end of the lever, and which makes the turning point in the line of its lower side, and not through its middle. EE, a lever 20 feet long, fixed by eight inches at its largest part, and tapering towards the other end; this lever turns on a bolt in the uprights BB. FF, 1, 2, 3, 4, four pieces of oak (which he calls needles, 10 feet long), four by two and an half inches, morticed loosely into the upper lever, and hung thereto by bolts, so as to swing perpendicularly, and play in a long mortice or channel cut through the large lever to receive them. These needles have inch-holes pretty closely bored through them (in a direction crossing the machine), from the lower ends, as far upwards as the great lever will reach, when it is as high as it can go. GG, a bed to receive what is to be pressed. HH, a frame to support a winch worked by a handle at I. At the end of the small lever two blocks or pulleys are fixed, one above, and the other below it; a rope of about half an inch diameter is then fastened to the ceiling (or continuation of the uprights of the winch frame if necessary) at K; then passed through the upper block on the lever, from thence passed through a block at L, and then goes with four turns round the winch, from whence it is carried through the block under the lever, and fastens to the machine at M; by this means, if the winch be turned one way, it raises the end of the small lever if the other depresses it.
To work the machine. If we suppose the great lever bearing on the matter to be pressed, an iron pin must be put into one of the holes in the needles above the great lever; and when the small lever is worked as far as it will go, either up or down, another bolt is to be put into the hole, which comes nearest above the great lever on the other side of the uprights BB, and the winch then turned the contrary way, by which means the pressing goes on whether the small lever rises or falls. Before the resistance is very great, the needles farthest from the fulcrum of the small lever are used; after that the nearest are employed, which doubles the power of the machine. In raising the great lever, or lowering it to its bearing, the needles most distant from the fulcrum of the small lever, are used under instead of over it. As the rope is liable to stretch and get slack, he passes it, after taking two turns on the winch, through a pulley, to which is suspended a weight of half a hundred, and then takes two turns more before it is carried through the other block, by which means the slack is constantly gathered in, and the weight holds on without increasing the friction, as by hanging under the winch it counteracts the pressure upwards on its axis.
The power of this machine is very great, being as 1 to 1126 nearly, and capable by a trifling addition of any other proportion. It is applicable to many purposes beside cider-pressing, and is more simple, and less liable to injury, than any other which has fallen under our observation. Perhaps, however, it would be an improvement to use, instead of the ropes and pulleys, by which the lever E is moved, a small wheel or pinion of 10 or 12 teeth, on the axis of the winch W (no. 2.), and a stiff beam set down from the lever, having on its lower end an iron rack, of which the teeth take into those of the pinion. The action of these teeth would, in our opinion, be less diminished by friction and obliquity, than the pulleys are by friction and the stiffness of the rope; and the machine would retain all its other advantages.
Press used by Joiners, to keep close the pieces they have glued, especially panels, &c. of wainscot, is very simple, consisting of four members; viz. two screws, and two pieces of wood, four or five inches square, and two or three feet long; whereof the holes at the two ends serve for nuts to the screws.
Press used by Glazers, resembles the joiner's press except that the pieces of wood are thicker, and that only one of them is moveable; the other, which is in form of a trefoil, being sustained by two legs or pillars, joined into it at each end. This press serves them for sawing and cleaving the pieces of wood required in marquetry or inlaid work.
Funder's Press, is a strong square frame, consisting of four pieces of wood, firmly joined together with tenons, &c. This press is of various sizes, according to the sizes of the moulds; two of them are required to each mould, at the two extremes whereof they are placed; so as that, by driving wooden wedges between the mould and the sides of the presses, the two parts of the mould wherein the metal is to be run may be pressed close together.
Printing-Press. See Printing-Press.
Rolling-Press, is a machine used for the taking off prints from copper-plates. It is much less complex than that of the letter-printers. See its description and use under the article Rolling-press Printing.