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An abscess; a swelling filled with purulent matter. [Written corruptly imposthume.]

A widely used system of electric night signals in which a series of double electric lamps (white and red) is arranged vertically on a mast, and operated from a keyboard below.

In fire-alarm telegraphy, a system so arranged that when one alarm is being transmitted, no other alarm, sent in from another point, will be transmitted until after the first alarm has been disposed of.

A system (devised by Henri Pieper, a Belgian) of driving automobiles employing a gasoline engine and an auxiliary reversible dynamo. When there is an excess of power the dynamo is driven by the engine so as to charge a small storage battery; when there is a deficiency of power the dynamo reverses and acts as an auxilia…

See Cloche.

A system for the identification of persons by a physical description based upon anthropometric measurements, notes of markings, deformities, color, impression of thumb lines, etc.

The structureless, protoplasmic tissue of the embryo; the primitive basis of an organ yet unformed, from which it grows.

Relating to the blastema; rudimentary.

Connected with, or proceeding from, the blastema; blastemal.

A system by which the track is divided into short sections, as of three or four miles, and trains are so run by the guidance of electric, or combined electric and pneumatic, signals that no train enters a section or block until the preceding train has left it, as in absolute blocking, or that a train may be allowed to…

A system or method of connecting and operating two induction motors so that the primary circuit of one is connected to the secondary circuit of the other, the primary circuit of the latter being connected to the source of supply; also, a system of electric traction in which motors so connected are employed. The cascade…

The system of teaching law in which the instruction is primarily a historical and inductive study of leading or selected cases, with or without the use of textbooks for reference and collateral reading.

The system of home study established in connection with the summer schools assembled at Chautauqua, N. Y., by the Methodist Episcopal bishop, J. H. Vincent.

A system of electric traction, esp. for light railways, in which the actuating current passes along a wire or rail laid in an underground conduit, from which the current is "picked up" by a plow or other device fixed to the car or electric locomotive. Hence Conduit railway.

The system of commercial blockade aiming to exclude England from commerce with the Continent instituted by the Berlin decree, which Napoleon I. issued from Berlin Nov. 21, 1806, declaring the British Isles to be in a state of blockade, and British subjects, property, and merchandise subject to capture, and excluding Br…

The sweating system.

A system of prison discipline employing for consecutive periods cellular confinement, associated imprisonment under the mark system, restraint intermediate between imprisonment and freedom, and liberation on ticket of leave.

See Protoplasm.

A system of calisthenics patterned on the theories of François Delsarte (1811 -- 71), a French teacher of dramatic and musical expression.

A kind of painting. See Distemper.