Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

CHLOROFORM (trichlor-methane), CHCl3, a valuable anaesthetic, a colourless liquid, possessing an agreeable smell and a pleasant taste. It may be prepared by the action of bleaching powder on many carbon compounds, such, for example, as ethyl alcohol and acetone (E. Soubeiran, _Ann. chim. phys._, 1831 [2], 48, p. 131; J.v. Liebig, _Ann._, 1832, I, p. 199), by heating chloral with alkalis (Liebig), CCl3CHO + NaHO = CHCl3 + NaHCO2, or by heating trichloracetic acid with ammonia (J. Dumas, _Ann._, 1839, 32, p. 113). In the preparation of chloroform by the action of bleaching powder on ethyl alcohol it is probable that the alcohol is first oxidized to acetaldehyde, which is subsequently chlorinated and then decomposed. Chloroform solidifies in the cold and then melts at -62° C.; it boils at 61.2° C., and has a specific gravity 1.52637 (0°/4°) (T.E. Thorpe). It is an exceedingly good solvent, especially for fats, alkaloids and iodine. It is not inflammable. The vapour of chloroform when passed through a red-hot tube yields hexachlorbenzene C6Cl6, perchlorethane C2Cl6, and some perchlorethylene C2Cl4 (W. Ramsay and S. Young, _Jahresberichte_, 1886, p. 628). Chromic acid converts it into _phosgene_ (carbonyl chloride, COCl2). It reacts with sodium ethylate to form ortho-formic ester, CH(OC2H5)3, and when heated with aqueous ammonia for some hours at 200-220° C. gives carbon monoxide and ammonium formate, 2CHCl3 + 7NH3 + 3H2O = NH4·HCO2 + CO + 6NH4Cl (G. André, _Jahresb._, 1886, p. 627). When digested with phenols and caustic soda it forms oxyaldehydes (K. Reimer, _Ber._, 1876, 9, p. 423); and when heated with alcoholic potash it is converted into potassium formate, CHCl3 + 4KHO = KHCO2 + 3KCl + 2H2O. It combines with acetoacetic ester to form the aromatic compound meta-oxyuvitic acid, C6H2·CH3·OH·(COOH)2. A hydrate, of composition CHCl3·18H2O, has been described (G. Chancel, _Fresenius Zeitschrift f. anal. Chemie_, 1886, 25, p. 118); it forms hexagonal crystals which melt at 1.6° C.

Chloroform may be readily detected by the production of an isonitrile when it is heated with alcoholic potash and a primary amine; thus with aniline, phenyl isocyanide (recognized by its nauseating smell) is produced,

CHCl3 + C6H5NH2 + 3KHO = C6H5NC + 3KCl + 3H2O.

For the action and use of chloroform as an anaesthetic, see ANAESTHESIA. Chloroform may be given internally in doses of from one to five drops. The _British Pharmacopoeia_ contains a watery solution--the _Aqua Chloroformi_--which is useful in disguising the taste of nauseous drugs; a liniment which consists of equal parts of camphor liniment and chloroform, and is a useful counter-irritant; the _Spiritus Chloroformi_ (erroneously known as "chloric ether"), which is a useful anodyne in doses of from five to forty drops; and the _Tinctura Chloroformi et Morphinae Composita_, which is the equivalent of a proprietary drug called chlorodyne. This tincture contains chloroform, morphine and prussic acid, and must be used with the greatest care.

Externally chloroform is an antiseptic, a local anaesthetic if allowed to evaporate, and a rubefacient, causing the vessels of the skin to dilate, if rubbed in. Its action on the stomach is practically identical with that of alcohol (q.v.), though in very much smaller doses. The uses of chloroform which fall to be mentioned here are:--as a counter-irritant; as a local anaesthetic for toothache due to caries, it being applied on a cotton-wool plug which is inserted into the carious cavity; as an antispasmodic in tetanus and hydrophobia; and as the best and most immediate and effective antidote in cases of strychnine poisoning.

CHLOROPHYLL (from Gr. [Greek: chloros], green, [Greek: phyllon], a leaf), the green colouring matter of leaves. It is universally present in growing vegetable cells. The pigment of leaves is a complex mixture of substances; of these one is green, and to this the name, originally given in 1817 by Pelletier and Caventou, is sometimes restricted; xanthophyll (Gr. [Greek: xanthos], yellow) is dark brown; carotin is copper-coloured. Chlorophyll is related chemically to the proteids; a decomposition product, phylloporphyrin, being very closely related to haematoporphyrin, which is a decomposition product of haemoglobin, the red colouring matter of the blood. Chlorophyll is neutral in reaction, insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol, ether, &c, the solutions exhibiting a green colour and a vivid red fluorescence. Magnesium is a necessary constituent. (See S.B. Schryver, _Science Progress_, 1909, 3, p. 425.)

CHLOROSIS (Gr. [Greek: chloros], pale green), the botanical term for loss of colour in a plant-organ, a sign of disease; also in medicine, a form of anaemia (see BLOOD: _Pathology_).

CHLORPICRIN (Nitrochloroform), C·NO2·Cl3, the product of the distillation of many nitro compounds (picric acid, nitromethane, &c.) with bleaching powder; it can also be prepared by the action of concentrated nitric acid on chloral or chloroform. A. W. von Hofmann (_Annalen_, 1866, 139, p. 111) mixed 10 parts of bleaching powder into a paste with cold water and added a solution (saturated at 30° C.) of 1 part of picric acid. A violent reaction is set up and the chlorpicrin distils over, generally without the necessity for any external heating. It is a colourless liquid of boiling-point 112° C., and of specific gravity 1.692. It is almost insoluble in water, but is readily soluble in alcohol; it has a sharp smell, and its vapour affects the eyes very powerfully. Iron filings and acetic acid reduce it to trimethylamine, whilst alcoholic ammonia converts it into guanidine, HN:C(NH2)2, and sodium ethylate into ortho-carbonic ester, C(OC2H5)4. The corresponding brompicrin is also known.

CHMIELNICKI, BOGDAN (c. 1593-1657), hetman of the Cossacks, son of Michael Chmielnicki, was born at Subatow, near Chigirin in the Ukraine, an estate given to the elder Chmielnicki for his lifelong services to the Polish crown. Bogdan, after learning to read and write, a rare accomplishment in those days, entered the Cossack ranks, was dangerously wounded and taken prisoner in his first battle against the Turks, and found leisure during his two years' captivity at Constantinople to acquire the rudiments of Turkish and French. On returning to the Ukraine he settled down quietly on his paternal estate, and in all probability history would never have known his name if the intolerable persecution of a neighbouring Polish squire, who stole his hayricks and flogged his infant son to death, had not converted the thrifty and acquisitive Cossack husbandman into one of the most striking and sinister figures of modern times. Failing to get redress nearer home, he determined to seek for justice at Warsaw, whither he had been summoned with other Cossack delegates to assist Wladislaus IV. in his long-projected war against the Turks. The king, perceiving him to be a man of some education and intelligence, appointed him _pisarz_ or secretary of the registered Cossacks, and he subsequently served under Koniecpolski in the Ukraine campaign of 1646. His hopes of distinction were, however, cut short by a decree of the Polish diet, which, in order to vex the king, refused to sanction the continuance of the war. Chmielnicki, now doubly hateful to the Poles as being both a royalist and a Cossack, was again maltreated and chicaned, and only escaped from gaol by bribing his gaolers. Thirsting for vengeance, he fled to the Cossack settlements on the Lower Dnieper and thence sent messages to the khan of the Crimea, urging a simultaneous invasion of Poland by the Tatars and the Cossacks (1647).

On the 11th of April 1648, at an assembly of the Zaporozhians (see POLAND: _History_), he openly declared his intention of proceeding against the Poles, and was elected ataman by acclamation. At Zheltnaya Vodui (Yellow Waters) in the Ukraine he annihilated, on the 19th of May, a detached Polish army corps after three days' desperate fighting, and on the 26th routed the main Polish army under the grand hetman, Stephen Potocki, at Kruta Balka (Hard Plank), near the river Korsun. The immediate consequence of these victories was the outbreak of a "serfs' fury." Throughout the Ukraine the Polish gentry were hunted down, flayed and burnt alive, blinded and sawn asunder. Every manor-house was reduced to ashes. Every Uniat and Catholic priest was hung up before his own altar, along with a Jew and a hog. The panic-stricken inhabitants fled to the nearest strongholds, and soon the rebels were swarming all over the palatinates of Volhynia and Podolia. But the ataman was as crafty as he was cruel. Disagreeably awakened to the insecurity of his position by the refusal of the tsar and the sultan to accept him as a vassal, he feigned to resume negotiations with the Poles in order to gain time, dismissed the Polish commissioners in the summer of 1648 with impossible conditions, and on the 23rd of September, after a contest of three days, utterly routed the Polish chivalry, 40,000 strong, at Pildawa, where the Cossacks are said to have reaped an immense booty after the fight was over. All Poland now lay at his feet, and the road to the defenceless capital was open before him; but he wasted the precious months in vain before the fortress of Zamosc, and was then persuaded by the new king of Poland, John Casimir, to consent to a suspension of hostilities. In June 1649, arrayed in cloth-of-gold and mounted on a white charger, Chmielnicki made his triumphal entry into Kiev, where he was hailed as the Maccabaeus of the Orthodox faith, and permitted the committal of unspeakable atrocities on the Jews and Roman Catholics. At the ensuing peace congress at Pereyaslavl he demanded terms so extravagant that the Polish commissioners dared not listen to them. In 1649, therefore, the war was resumed. A bloody battle ensued near Zborow, on the banks of the Strypa, when only the personal valour of the Polish king, the superiority of the Polish artillery, and the defection of Chmielnicki's allies the Tatars enabled the royal forces to hold their own. Peace was then patched up by the compact of Zborow (August 21, 1649), whereby Chmielnicki was virtually recognized as a semi-independent prince.

For the next eighteen months he was the absolute master of the Ukraine, which he divided into sixteen provinces, made his native place Chigirin the Cossack capital, and entered into direct relations with foreign powers. Poland and Muscovy competed for his alliance, and in his more exalted moods he meditated an Orthodox crusade against the Turk at the head of the northern Slavs. But he was no statesman, and his difficulties proved overwhelming. Instinct told him that his old ally the khan of the Crimea was unreliable, and that the tsar of Muscovy was his natural protector, yet he could not make up his mind to abandon the one or turn to the other. His attempt to carve a principality for his son out of Moldavia, which Poland regarded as her vassal, led to the outbreak in 1651 of a third war between subject and suzerain, which speedily assumed the dignity and the dimensions of a crusade. Chmielnicki was now regarded not merely as a Cossack rebel, but as the arch-enemy of Catholicism in eastern Europe, and the pope granted a plenary absolution to all who took up arms against him. But Bogdan himself was not without ecclesiastical sanction. The archbishop of Corinth girded him with a sword which had lain upon the Holy Sepulchre, and the metropolitan of Kiev absolved him from all his sins, without the usual preliminary of confession, before he rode forth to battle. But fortune, so long his friend, now deserted him, and at Beresteczko (July 1, 1651) the Cossack ataman was defeated for the first time. But even now his power was far from broken. In 1652 he openly interfered in the affairs of Transylvania and Walachia, and assumed the high-sounding title of "guardian of the Ottoman Porte." In 1653 Poland made a supreme effort, the diet voted 17,000,000 gulden in subsidies, and John Casimir led an army of 60,000 men into the Ukraine and defeated the arch-rebel at Zranta, whereupon Chmielnicki took the oath of allegiance to the tsar (compact of Pereyaslavl, February 19, 1654), and all hope of an independent Cossack state was at an end. He died on the 7th of August 1657. With all his native ability, Chmielnicki was but an eminent savage. He was the creature of every passing mood or whim, incapable of cool and steady judgment or of the slightest self-control--an incalculable weather-cock, blindly obsequious to every blast of passion. He could destroy, but he could not create, and other people benefited by his exploits.

See P. Kulish, _On the Defection of Malo-Russia from Poland_ (Rus.)
(Moscow, 1890); S.M. Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.) (Moscow,
1857, &c.), vol. x.; Robert Nisbet Bain, _The First Romanovs_, chaps.
3-4 (London, 1905). (R. N. B.)

CHOATE, JOSEPH HODGES (1832- ), American lawyer and diplomat, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 24th of January 1832. He was the son of Dr George Choate, a physician of considerable note, and was a nephew of Rufus Choate. After graduating at Harvard College in 1852 and at the law school of Harvard University in 1854, he was admitted first to the Massachusetts (1855) and then (1856) to the New York bar, and entered the law office of Scudder & Carter in New York City. His success in his profession was immediate, and in 1860 he became junior partner in the firm of Evarts, Southmayd & Choate, the senior partner in which was William M. Evarts. This firm and its successor, that of Evarts, Choate & Beaman, remained for many years among the leading law firms of New York and of the country, the activities of both being national rather than local. During these busy years Mr Choate was associated with many of the most famous litigations in American legal history, including the Tilden, A.T. Stewart, and Stanford will cases, the Kansas prohibition cases, the Chinese exclusion cases, the Maynard election returns case, and the Income Tax Suit. In 1871 he became a member of the "Committee of Seventy" in New York City, which was instrumental in breaking up the "Tweed Ring," and later assisted in the prosecution of the indicted officials. In the retrial of the General Fitz John Porter case he obtained a reversal of the decision of the original court-martial. His greatest reputation was won perhaps in cross-examination. In politics he allied himself with the Republican party on its organization, being a frequent speaker in presidential campaigns, beginning with that of 1856. He never held political office, although he was a candidate for the Republican senatorial nomination against Senator Thomas C. Platt in 1897. In 1894 he was president of the New York state constitutional convention. He was appointed, by President McKinley, ambassador to Great Britain to succeed John Hay in 1899, and remained in this position until the spring of 1905. In England he won great personal popularity, and accomplished much in fostering the good relations of the two great English-speaking powers. He was one of the representatives of the United States at the second Peace Congress at the Hague in 1907.

Several of his notable public addresses have been published. _The
Choate Story Book_ (New York, 1903) contains a few of his addresses
and after-dinner speeches, and is prefaced by a brief biographical
sketch.

CHOATE, RUFUS (1799-1859), American lawyer and orator, was born at Ipswich, Massachusetts, on the 1st of October 1799, the descendant of a family which settled in Massachusetts in 1667. As a child he was remarkably precocious; at six he is said to have been able to repeat large parts of the Bible and of _Pilgrim's Progress_ by heart. He graduated as valedictorian of his class at Dartmouth College in 1819, was a tutor there in 1819-1820, spent a year in the law school of Harvard University, and studied for a like period at Washington, in the office of William Wirt, then attorney-general of the United States. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1823 and practised at what was later South Danvers (now Peabody) for five years, during which time he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1825-1826) and in the state senate (1827). In 1828 he removed to Salem, where his successful conduct of several important law-suits brought him prominently into public notice. In 1830 he was elected to Congress as a Whig from the Salem district, defeating the Jacksonian candidate for re-election, B.W. Crowninshield (1772-1851), a former secretary of the navy, and in 1832 he was re-elected. His career in Congress was marked by a notable speech in defence of a protective tariff. In 1834, before the completion of his second term, he resigned and established himself in the practice of law in Boston. Already his fame as a speaker had spread beyond New England, and he was much sought after as an orator for public occasions. For several years he devoted himself unremittingly to his profession, but in 1841 succeeded Daniel Webster in the United States Senate. Shortly afterwards he delivered one of his most eloquent addresses at the memorial services for President Harrison in Faneuil Hall, Boston. In the Senate he made a series of brilliant speeches on the tariff, the Oregon boundary, in favour of the Fiscal Bank Act, and in opposition to the annexation of Texas. On Webster's re-election to the Senate, Choate resumed (1845) his law practice, which no amount of urging could ever persuade him to abandon for public office, save for a short term as attorney-general of Massachusetts in 1853-1854. In 1853 he was a member of the state constitutional convention. He was a faithful supporter of Webster's policy as declared in the latter's famous "Seventh of March Speech" (1850) and laboured to secure for him the presidential nomination at the Whig national convention in 1852. In 1856 he refused to follow most of his former Whig associates into the Republican party and gave his support to James Buchanan, whom he considered the representative of a national instead of a sectional party. In July 1859 failing health led him to seek rest in a trip to Europe, but he died on the 13th of that month at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he had been put ashore when it was seen that he probably could not outlive the voyage across the Atlantic. Choate, besides being one of the ablest of American lawyers, was one of the most scholarly of American public men, and his numerous orations and addresses were remarkable for their pure style, their grace and elegance of form, and their wealth of classical allusion.

His _Works_ (edited, with a memoir, by S.G. Brown) were published in 2
vols. at Boston in 1862. The _Memoir_ was afterwards published
separately (Boston, 1870). See also E.G. Parker's _Reminiscences of
Rufus Choate_ (New York, 1860); E.P. Whipple's _Some Recollections of
Rufus Choate_ (New York, 1879); and the _Albany Law Review_
(1877-1878).

CHOBE, a large western affluent of the middle Zambezi (q.v.). The river was discovered by David Livingstone in 1851, and to him was known as the Chobe. It is also called the Linyante and the Kwando, the last name being that commonly used.

CHOCOLATE, a paste of the ground kernels of the cocoa bean, mixed with sugar, vanilla or other flavouring, made into a cake, which is used for the manufacture of various forms of sweetmeat, or in making the beverage, also known as "chocolate," obtained by dissolving cakes of chocolate in boiling water or milk (see COCOA). The word came into Eng. through the Fr. _chocolat_ or Span. _chocolate_ from the Mex. _chocolatl_. According to the _New English Dictionary_ (quoting R. Siméon, _Dict. de la langue Nahuatl_), this was "an article of food made of ... the seeds of cacao and of the tree pochotl (_Bombax ceiba_)," and was etymologically distinct from the Mexican _cacauatl_, cacao, or cocoa.

CHOCTAWS, CHAHTAS, or CHACATOS (apparently a corruption of Span. _chato_, flattened), a tribe of North American Indians of Muskhogean stock. They are now settled in Oklahoma, but when first known to Europeans they occupied the district now forming the southern part of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama. On the settlement of Louisiana they formed an alliance with the French, and assisted them against the Natchez and Chickasaws; but by degrees they entered into friendly relations with the English, and at last, in 1786, recognized the supremacy of the United States by the treaty of Hopewell. Their emigration westward began about 1800, and the last remains of their original territory were ceded in 1830. In their new settlements the Choctaws continued to advance in prosperity till the outbreak of the Civil War, which considerably diminished the population and ruined a large part of their property. They sided with the Confederates, and their territory was occupied by Confederate troops; and accordingly at the close of the war they were regarded as having lost their rights. Part of their land they were forced to surrender to the government; their slaves were emancipated; and provision was claimed for them in the shape of either land or money. Since then they have considerably recovered their position. They long constituted a quasi-independent people under the title of the Choctaw nation, and were governed by a chief and a national council of forty members, according to a written constitution, dating in the main from 1838; they possessed a regular judicial system and employed trial by jury. Tribal government virtually ceased in 1906. The Choctaws number some 18,000. A few groups still linger in Mississippi and Louisiana. The Choctaw language has been reduced to writing, and brought to some degree of literary precision.

See INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN; _Handbook of American Indians_, ed. F.W.
Hodge (Washington, 1907).

CHODKIEWICZ, JAN KAROL (1560-1621), Polish general, was the son of Hieronymus Chodkiewicz, castellan of Wilna. After being educated at the Wilna academy he went abroad to learn the science of war, fighting in the Spanish service under Alva, and also under Maurice of Nassau. In 1593 he married the wealthy Sophia Mielecka, by whom he had one son who predeceased him. His first military service at home was against the Cossack rising of Nalewajko as lieutenant to Zolkiewski, and he subsequently assisted Zamoyski in his victorious Moldavian campaign. Honours and dignities were now showered upon him. In 1599 he was appointed starosta of Samogitia, and in 1600 acting commander-in-chief of Lithuania. In the war against Sweden for the possession of Livonia he brilliantly distinguished himself, capturing fortress after fortress and repulsing the duke of Sudermania, afterwards Charles IX, from Riga. In 1604 he captured Dorpat, twice defeated the Swedish generals at Bialy Kamien, and was rewarded with the grand bâton of Lithuania. Criminally neglected by the diet, which from sheer niggardliness turned a deaf ear to all his requests for reinforcements and for supplies and money to pay his soldiers, Chodkiewicz nevertheless more than held his own against the Swedes. His crowning achievement was the great victory of Kirkholm (Aug. 27th, 1605), when with barely 5000 men he annihilated a threefold larger Swedish army; for which feat he received letters of congratulation from the pope, all the Catholic potentates, of Europe, and even from the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Persia. Yet this great victory was absolutely fruitless, owing to the domestic dissensions which prevailed in Poland during the following five years. Chodkiewicz's own army, unpaid for years, abandoned him at last _en masse_ in order to plunder the estates of their political opponents, leaving the grand hetman to carry on the war as best he could with a handful of mercenaries paid out of the pockets of himself and his friends. Chodkiewicz was one of the few magnates who remained loyal to the king, and after helping to defeat the rebels in Poland a fresh invasion of Livonia by the Swedes recalled him thither, and once more he relieved Riga besides capturing Pernau. Meanwhile the war with Muscovy broke out, and Chodkiewicz was sent against Moscow with an army of 2000 men--though if there had been a spark of true patriotism in Poland he could easily have marshalled 100,000. Moreover, the diet neglected to pay for the maintenance even of this paltry 2000, with the result that they mutinied and compelled their leader to retreat through the heart of Muscovy to Smolensk. Not till the crown prince Wladislaus arrived with tardy reinforcements did the war assume a different character, Chodkiewicz opening a new career of victory by taking the fortress of Drohobu in 1617. The Muscovite war had no sooner been ended by the treaty of Deulina than Chodkiewicz was hastily despatched southwards to defend the southern frontier against the Turks, who after the catastrophe of Cecora (see ZOLKIEWSKI) had high hopes of conquering Poland altogether. An army of 160,000 Turkish veterans led by Sultan Osman in person advanced from Adrianople towards the Polish frontier, but Chodkiewicz crossed the Dnieper in September 1621 and entrenched himself in the fortress of Khotin right in the path of the Ottoman advance. Here for a whole month the Polish hero held the sultan at bay, till the first fall of autumn snow compelled Osman to withdraw his diminished forces. But the victory was dearly purchased by Poland. A few days before the siege was raised the aged grand hetman died of exhaustion in the fortress (Sept. 24th, 1621).

See Adam Stanislaw Naruszewicz, _Life of J.K. Chodkiewicz_ (Pol.; 4th
ed., Cracow, 1857-1858); Lukasz Golebiowski, _The Moral Side of J.K.
Chodkiewicz as indicated by his Letters_ (Pol.; Warsaw, 1854).
(R. N. B.)

CHODOWIECKI, DANIEL NICOLAS (1726-1801), German painter and engraver of Polish descent, was born at Danzig. Left an orphan at an early age, he devoted himself to the practice of miniature painting, the elements of which his father had taught him, as a means of support for himself and his mother. In 1743 he went to Berlin, where for some time he worked as clerk in an uncle's office, practising art, however, in his leisure moments, and gaining a sort of reputation as a painter of miniatures for snuff-boxes. The Berlin Academy, attracted by a small engraving of his, entrusted to him the illustration of its yearly almanac. After designing and engraving several subjects from the story of the Seven Years' War, Chodowiecki produced the famous "History of the Life of Jesus Christ," a set of admirably painted miniatures, which made him at once so popular that he laid aside all occupations save those of painting and engraving. Few books were published in Prussia for some years without plate or vignette by Chodowiecki. It is not surprising, therefore, that the catalogue of his works (Berlin, 1814) should include over 3000 items, of which, however, the picture of "Jean Calas and his Family" is the only one of any reputation. He became director of the Berlin Academy in 1797. The title of the German Hogarth, which he sometimes obtained, was the effect of an admiration rather imaginative than critical, and was disclaimed by Chodowiecki himself. The illustrator of Lavater's _Essays on Physiognomy_, the painter of the "Hunt the Slipper" in the Berlin museum, had indeed but one point in common with the great Englishman--the practice of representing actual life and manners. In this he showed skilful drawing and grouping, and considerable expressional power, but no tendency whatever to the use of the grotesque.

His brother Gottfried (1728-1781) and son Wilhelm (1765-1803) painted and engraved after the style of Daniel, and sometimes co-operated with him.

CHOERILUS. (1) An Athenian tragic poet, who exhibited plays as early as 524 B.C. He was said to have competed with Aeschylus, Pratinas and even Sophocles. According to F.G. Welcker, however, the rival of Sophocles was a son of Choerilus, who bore the same name. Suidas states that Choerilus wrote 150 tragedies and gained the prize 13 times. His works are all lost; only Pausanias (i. 14) mentions a play by him entitled _Alope_ (a mythological personage who was the subject of dramas by Euripides and Carcinus). His reputation as a writer of satyric dramas is attested in the well-known line

[Greek: ênika men basileus ên Choirilos en Saturois]

The Choerilean metre, mentioned by the Latin grammarians, is probably so called because the above line is the oldest extant specimen. Choerilus was also said to have introduced considerable improvements in theatrical masks and costumes.

See A. Nauck, _Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta_ (1889); F.G. Welcker,
_Die griechischen Tragödien_, pp. 18, 892.

(2) An epic poet of Samos, who flourished at the end of the 5th century B.C. After the fall of Athens he settled at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, where he was the associate of Agathon, Melanippides, and Plato the comic poet. The only work that can with certainty be attributed to him is the [Greek: Persêis] or [Greek: Persika], a history of the struggle of the Greeks against Persia, the central point of which was the battle of Salamis. His importance consists in his having taken for his theme national and contemporary events in place of the deeds of old-time heroes. For this new departure he apologizes in the introductory verses (preserved in the scholiast on Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, iii. 14), where he says that, the subjects of epic poetry being all exhausted, it was necessary to strike out a new path. The story of his intimacy with Herodotus is probably due to the fact that he imitated him and had recourse to his history for the incidents of his poem. The _Perseis_ was at first highly successful and was said to have been read, together with the Homeric poems, at the Panathenaea, but later critics reversed this favourable judgment. Aristotle (_Topica_, viii. 1) calls Choerilus's comparisons far-fetched and obscure, and the Alexandrians displaced him by Antimachus in the canon of epic poets. The fragments are artificial in tone.

G. Kinkel, _Epicorum Graecorum Frag._ i. (1877); for another view of
his relations with Herodotus see Müder in _Klio_ (1907), 29-44.

(3) An epic poet of Iasus in Caria, who lived in the 4th century B.C. He accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns as court-poet. He is well known from the passages in Horace (_Epistles_, ii. 1, 232; _Ars Poëtica_, 357), according to which he received a piece of gold for every good verse he wrote in celebration of the glorious deeds of his master. The quality of his verses may be estimated from the remark attributed to Alexander, that he would rather be the Thersites of Homer than the Achilles of Choerilus. The epitaph on Sardanapalus, said to have been translated from the Chaldean (quoted in Athenaeus, viii. p. 336), is generally supposed to be by Choerilus.

See G. Kinkel, _Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta_, i. (1877); A.F. Näke,
_De Choerili Samii Aetate Vita et Poësi aliisque Choerilis_ (1817),
where the above poets are carefully distinguished; and the articles in
Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencydopädie_, iii. 2 (1899).

CHOEROBOSCUS, GEORGIUS (c. A.D. 600), deacon and professor at the oecumenical school at Constantinople. He is also called _chartophylax_ either as the holder of some ecclesiastical office or as superintendent of the university library. It is not known whether "Choeroboscus" (Gr. for "swineherd") is an allusion to his earlier occupation or an inherited family name. During his tenure of office he delivered a course of lectures on grammar, which has come down to us in the shape of notes taken by his pupils. He drew from the best authorities--Apollonius Dyscolus, Herodian, Orion, Theodosius of Alexandria. The lectures are written in simple style, but suffer from diffuseness. They were much used by Constantine Lascaris in his Greek grammar and by Urban of Belluno (end of 15th cent.). The chief work of Choeroboscus, which we have in its complete form, is the commentary on the canons of Theodosius on Declension and Conjugation. Mention may also be made of a treatise on orthography, of which a fragment (on Quantity) has been preserved; a tract on prosody; commentaries on Hephaestion and Dionysius Thrax; and grammatical notes on the Psalms.

See C. Krumbacher, _Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur_ (1897);
A. Hilgard, _Grammatici Graeci_, iv. (1889-1894), containing the text
of the commentary on Theodosius, and a full account of the life and
writings of Choeroboscus; L. Kohn in Pauly-Wissowa's
_Realencydopädie_, iii. 2 (1889); Reitzenstein, _Etymologika_, 190, n.
4.

CHOIR (O. Fr. _cuer_ from Lat. _chorus_; pronounced _quire_, and until the end of the 17th century so spelt, the spelling being altered to agree with the Fr. _choeur_), the body of singers who perform the musical portion of the service in a church, or the place set apart for them. Any organized body of singers performing full part choral works or oratorios is also called a choir.

In English cathedrals the choir is composed of men (vicars-choral or lay clerks) and boys (choristers). They are divided into two sets, sitting on the north and south sides of the chancel respectively, called _cantoris_ and _decani_, from being on the same side as the _cantor_ (precentor) or the _decanus_ (dean). This arrangement, together with the custom of vesting choirmen and choristers in surplices (traditional only in cathedrals and collegiate churches), has, since the middle of the 19th century, been adopted in a large number of parish and other churches. Surpliced choirs of women have occasionally been introduced, notably in America and the British colonies, but the practice has no warrant of traditional usage. In the Roman Catholic Church the choir plays a less conspicuous rôle than in the Church of England, its members not being regarded as ministers of the church, and non-Catholics are allowed to sing in it. The singers at Mass or other solemn services are usually placed in a gallery or some other inconspicuous place. The word "choir," indeed, formerly applied to all the clergy taking part in services of the church, and the restriction of the term to the singing men and boys, who were in their origin no more than the representatives (vicars) of the clergy, is a comparatively late development. The distinction between "choir services" (Mattins, Vespers, Compline, &c.)--consisting of prayers, lections, the singing of the psalms, &c.--and the service of the altar was sharply drawn in the middle ages, as in the modern Roman Church. "Choir vestments" (surplice, &c.) are those worn by the clergy at the former, as distinguished from those used at the Mass (see VESTMENTS). In England at the Reformation the choir services (Mattins, Evensong) replaced the Mass as the principal popular services, and, in general, only the choir vestments were retained in use. In the English cathedrals the members of the choir often retain privileges reminiscent of an earlier definite ecclesiastical status. At Wells, for instance, the vicars-choral form a corporation practically independent of the dean and chapter; they have their own lodgings inside the cathedral precincts (Vicars' Close) and they can only be dismissed by a vote of their own body. (W. A. P.)

In an architectural sense a "choir" is strictly that part of a church which is fitted up for the choir services, and is thus limited to the space between the choir screen and the presbytery. Some confusion has arisen owing to the term being employed by medieval writers to express the entire space enclosed for the performance of the principal services of the church, and therefore to include not only the choir proper, but the presbytery. In the case of a cruciform church the choir is sometimes situated under the central tower, or in the nave, and this is the case in Westminster Abbey, where it occupies four bays to the west of the transept. The choir is usually raised one step above the nave, and its sides are fitted up with seats or stalls, of which in large buildings there are usually two or three rows rising one behind the other.

In Romanesque churches there are eastern and western choirs, and in former times the term was given to chantries and subsidiary chapels, which were also called chancels. In the early Christian church the ambones where the gospels and epistles were read were placed one on either side of the choir and formed part of its enclosure, and this is the case in S. Clemente, S. Lorenzo and S. Maria in Cosmedin in Rome. In England the choir seems almost universally to have assembled at the eastern part of the church to recite the breviary services, whereas on the continent it was moved from one place to another according to convenience. In Spanish churches it occupies the nave of the church, and in the church of the Escorial in Spain was at the west end above the entrance vestibule. (R. P. S.)

CHOISEUL, CÉSAR, DUC DE (1602-1675), French marshal and diplomatist, generally known for the best part of his life as the marshal du Plessis-Praslin, came of the old French family of Choiseul, which arose in the valley of the Upper Marne in the 10th century and divided into many branches, three of the names of which, Hostel, Praslin and du Plessis, were borne, at one time or another, by the subject of this article. Entering the army at the age of fourteen as proprietary colonel of an infantry regiment, he shared in almost all the exploits of the French arms during the reign of Louis XIII. He took part in the siege of La Rochelle, assisted to defend the island of Ré against the attacks of the English under the duke of Buckingham, and accompanied the French forces to Italy in 1629. In 1630 he was appointed ambassador at the court of the duke of Savoy, and was engaged in diplomatic and administrative work in Italy until 1635, when war was declared between France and Spain. In the war that followed Plessis-Praslin distinguished himself in various battles and sieges in Italy, including the action called the "Route de Quiers" and the celebrated four-cornered operations round Turin. In 1640 he was made governor of Turin, and in 1642 lieutenant-general, and after further service in Italy he was made a marshal of France (1645) and appointed second in command in Catalonia. During the first War of the Fronde, which broke out in 1649, he assisted Condé in the brief siege of Paris; and in the second war, remaining loyal to the queen regent and the court party, he won his greatest triumph in defeating Turenne and the allied Spaniards and rebels at Rethel (or Blanc-Champ) in 1650. He then held high office at the court of Louis XIV., became minister of state in 1652, and in November 1665 was created duc de Choiseul. He was concerned in some of the negotiations between Louis and Charles II. of England which led to the treaty of Dover, and died in Paris on the 23rd of December 1675.

CHOISEUL, ÉTIENNE FRANÇOIS, Duc de (1719-1785), French statesman, was the eldest son of François Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville (1700-1770), and bore in early life the title of comte de Stainville. Born on the 28th of June 1719, he entered the army, and during the War of the Austrian Succession served in Bohemia in 1741 and in Italy, where he distinguished himself at the battle of Coni, in 1744. From 1745 until 1748 he was with the army in the Low Countries, being present at the sieges of Mons, Charleroi and Maestricht. He attained the rank of lieutenant-general, and in 1750 married Louise Honorine, daughter of Louis François Crozat, marquis du Châtel (d. 1750), who brought her husband a large fortune and proved a most devoted wife.

Choiseul gained the favour of Madame de Pompadour by procuring for her some letters which Louis XV. had written to his cousin Madame de Choiseul, with whom the king had formerly had an intrigue; and after a short time as _bailli_ of the Vosges he was given the appointment of ambassador to Rome in 1753, where he was entrusted with the negotiations concerning the disturbances called forth by the bull _Unigenitus_. He acquitted himself skilfully in this task, and in 1757 his patroness obtained his transfer to Vienna, where he was instructed to cement the new alliance between France and Austria. His success at Vienna opened the way to a larger career, when in 1758 he supplanted Antoine Louis Rouillé (1689-1761) as minister for foreign affairs and so had the direction of French foreign policy during the Seven Years' War. At this time he was made a peer of France and created duc de Choiseul. Although from 1761 until 1766 his cousin César, duc de Choiseul-Praslin (1712-1785), was minister for foreign affairs, yet Choiseul continued to control the policy of France until 1770, and during this period held most of the other important offices of state. As the author of the "Family Compact" he sought to retrieve by an alliance with the Bourbon house of Spain the disastrous results of the alliance with Austria; but his action came too late. His vigorous policy in other departments of state was not, however, fruitless. Coming to power in the midst of the demoralization consequent upon the defeats of Rossbach and Crefeld, by boldness and energy he reformed and strengthened both army and navy, and although too late to prevent the loss of Canada and India, he developed French colonies in the Antilles and San Domingo, and added Corsica and Lorraine to the crown of France. His management of home affairs in general satisfied the _philosophes_. He allowed the _Encyclopédie_ to be published, and brought about the banishment of the Jesuits and the temporary abolition of the order by Pope Clement IV.

Choiseul's fall was caused by his action towards the Jesuits, and by his support of their opponent La Chalotais, and of the provincial parlements. After the death of Madame de Pompadour in 1764, his enemies, led by Madame Du Barry and the chancellor Maupeou, were too strong for him, and in 1770 he was ordered to retire to his estate at Chanteloupe. The intrigues against him had, however, increased his popularity, which was already great, and during his retirement, which lasted until 1774, he lived in the greatest affluence and was visited by many eminent personages. Greatly to his disappointment Louis XVI. did not restore him to his former position, although the king recalled him to Paris in 1774, when he died on the 8th of May 1785, leaving behind him a huge accumulation of debt which was scrupulously discharged by his widow.

Choiseul possessed both ability and diligence, and though lacking in tenacity he showed foresight and liberality in his direction of affairs. In appearance he was a short, ill-featured man, with a ruddy countenance and a sturdy frame. His _Mémoires_ were written during his exile from Paris, and are merely detached notes upon different questions. Horace Walpole, in his _Memoirs_, gives a very vivid description of the duke's character, accuses him of exciting the war between Russia and Turkey in 1768 in order to be revenged upon the tsarina Catherine II., and says of his foreign policy, "he would project and determine the ruin of a country, but could not meditate a little mischief or a narrow benefit." "He dissipated the nation's wealth and his own; but did not repair the latter by plunder of the former," says the same writer, who in reference to Choiseul's private life asserts that "gallantry without delicacy was his constant pursuit." Choiseul's widow, a woman "in whom industrious malice could not find an imperfection," lived in retirement until her death on the 3rd of December 1808.

See _Mémoires du duc de Choiseul_, edited by F. Calmettes (Paris,
1904); P. Boutaric, _L'Ambassade de Choiseul à Vienne en 1757-1758_
(Paris, 1872); Duc de Cars, _Mémoires_ (Paris, 1890); F.J. de P.,
Cardinal de Bernis, _Mémoires et lettres_ (Paris, 1878); Madame de
Pompadour, _Correspondance_ (Paris, 1878); _Revue historique_, tomes
82 and 87 (Paris, 1903-1905); Horace Walpole, _Memoirs of the Reign of
George III._, edited by G.F.R. Barker (London, 1894); G. Mangros, _Le
duc et la duchesse de Choiseul_ (Paris, 1903); and _La Disgrace du duc
et de la duchesse de Choiseul_ (Paris, 1903); E. Calmettes, _Choiseul
et Voltaire_ (Paris, 1902); A. Bourguet, _Études sur la politique
étrangère du duc de Choiseul_ (Paris, 1907); and _Le Duc de Choiseul
et l'alliance espagnole_ (Paris, 1906). See also the _Edinburgh
Review_ for July 1908.

CHOISEUL-STAINVILLE, CLAUDE ANTOINE GABRIEL, Duc de (1760-1838), French soldier, was brought up at Chanteloup, under the care of his relative, Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, who was childless. The outbreak of the Revolution found him a colonel of dragoons, and throughout those troublous times he was distinguished for his devotion to the royal house. He took part in the attempt of Louis XVI. to escape from Paris on the 20th of June 1791; was arrested with the king, and imprisoned. Liberated in May 1792, he emigrated in October, and fought in the "army of Condé" against the republic. Captured in 1795, he was confined at Dunkirk; escaped, set sail for India, was wrecked on the French coast, and condemned to death by the decree of the Directory. Nevertheless, he was fortunate enough to escape once more. Napoleon allowed him to return to France in 1801, but he remained in private life until the fall of the Empire. At the Restoration he was called to the House of Peers by Louis XVIII. At the revolution of 1830 he was nominated a member of the provisional government; and he afterwards received from Louis Philippe the post of aide-de-camp to the king and governor of the Louvre. He died in Paris on the 1st of December 1838.

CHOISY, FRANÇOIS TIMOLÉON, Abbé de (1644-1724), French author, was born in Paris on the 16th of August 1644, and died in Paris on the 2nd of October 1724. His father was attached to the household of the duke of Orleans, and his mother, who was on intimate terms with Anne of Austria, was regularly called upon to amuse Louis XIV. By a whim of his mother, the boy was dressed like a girl until he was eighteen, and, after appearing for a short time in man's costume, he resumed woman's dress on the advice--doubtless satirical--of Madame de La Fayette. He delighted in the most extravagant toilettes until he was publicly rebuked by the duc de Montausier, when he retired for some time to the provinces, using his disguise to assist his numerous intrigues. He had been made an abbé in his childhood, and poverty, induced by his extravagance, drove him to live on his benefice at Sainte-Seine in Burgundy, where he found among his neighbours a kindred spirit in Bussy-Rabutin. He visited Rome in the suite of the cardinal de Bouillon in 1676, and shortly afterwards a serious illness brought about a sudden and rather frivolous conversion to religion. In 1685 he accompanied the chevalier de Chaumont on a mission to Siam. He was ordained priest, and received various ecclesiastical preferments. He was admitted to the Academy in 1687, and wrote a number of historical and religious works, of which the most notable are the following:--_Quatre dialogues sur l'immortalitè de l'âme_ ... (1684), written with the Abbé Dangeau and explaining his conversion; _Traduction de l'Imitation de Jésus-Christ_ (1692); _Histoire de France sous les règnes de Saint Louis ... de Charles V et Charles VI_ (5 vols., 1688-1695); and _Histoire de l'Église_ (11 vols., 1703-1723) He is remembered, however, by his gossiping _Mémoires_ (1737), which contain striking and accurate pictures of his time and remarkably exact portraits of his contemporaries, although he has otherwise small pretensions to historical accuracy.

The _Mémoires_ passed through many editions, and were edited in 1888
by M. de Lescure. Some admirable letters of Choisy are included in the
correspondence of Bussy-Rabutin. Choisy is said to have burnt some of
his indiscreet revelations, but left a considerable quantity of
unpublished MS. Part of this material, giving an account of his
adventures as a woman, was surreptitiously used in an anonymous
_Histoire de madame la comtesse de Barres_ (Antwerp, 1735), and again
with much editing in the _Vie de M. l'abbé de Choisy_ (Lausanne and
Geneva, 1742), ascribed by Paul Lacroix to Lenglet Dufresnoy; the text
was finally edited (1870) by Lacroix as _Aventures de l'abbé de
Choisy_. See also Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. iii.

CHOLERA (from the Gr. [Greek: cholê], bile, and [Greek: rheein], to flow), the name given to two distinct forms of disease, simple cholera and malignant cholera. Although essentially different both as to their causation and their pathological relationships, these two diseases may in individual cases present many symptoms of mutual resemblance.

SIMPLE CHOLERA (synonyms, _Cholera Europaea_, _British Cholera_, _Summer_ or _Autumnal Cholera_) is the cholera of ancient medical writers, as is apparent from the accurate description of the disease given by Hippocrates, Celsus and Aretaeus. Its occurrence in an epidemic form was noticed by various physicians in the 16th century, and an admirable account of the disease was subsequently given by Thomas Sydenham in 1669-1672. This disease is sometimes called _Cholera Nostras_, the word _nostras_, which is good Latin and used by Cicero, meaning "belonging to our country." The relations between it and Asiatic cholera (see below) are obscure. Clinically they may exactly resemble each other, and bacteriology has not been able to draw an absolute line between them. The real difference is epidemiological, cholera nostras having no epidemic significance.

The chief symptoms in well-marked cases are vomiting and purging occurring either together or alternately. The seizure is usually sudden and violent. The contents of the stomach are first ejected, and this is followed by severe retching and vomiting of thin fluid of bilious appearance and bitter taste. The diarrhoea which accompanies or succeeds the vomiting, and is likewise of bilious character, is attended with severe griping abdominal pain, while cramps affecting the legs or arms greatly intensify the suffering. The effect upon the system is rapid and alarming, a few hours of such an attack sufficing to reduce the strongest person to a state of extreme prostration. The surface of the body becomes cold, the pulse weak, the voice husky, and the whole symptoms may resemble in a striking manner those of malignant cholera, to be subsequently described. In unfavourable cases, particularly where the disorder is epidemic, death may result within forty-eight hours. Generally, however, the attack is arrested and recovery soon follows, although there may remain for a considerable time a degree of irritability of the alimentary canal, rendering necessary the utmost care in regard to diet.

Attacks of this kind are of frequent occurrence in summer and autumn in almost all countries. They appear specially liable to occur when cold and damp alternate with heat. Occasionally the disorder prevails so extensively as to constitute an epidemic. The exciting causes of an attack are in many cases errors in diet, particularly the use of unripe fruit and new vegetables, and the excessive drinking of cold liquids during perspiration. Outbreaks of this disorder in a household or community can sometimes be traced to the use of impure water, or to noxious emanations from the sewers.

In the treatment, vomiting should be encouraged so long as it shows the presence of undigested food, after which opiates ought to be administered. Small opium pills, or Dover's powder, or the aromatic powder of chalk with opium, are likely to be retained in the stomach, and will generally succeed in allaying the pain and diarrhoea, while ice and effervescing drinks serve to quench the thirst and subdue the sickness. In aggravated cases where medicines are rejected, enemata of starch and laudanum, or the hypodermic injection of morphia, ought to be resorted to. Counter-irritation by mustard or turpentine over the abdomen is always of use, as is also friction with the hands where cramps are present. When sinking threatens, brandy and ammonia will be called for. During convalescence the food should be in the form of milk and farinaceous diet, or light soups, and all indigestible articles must be carefully avoided.

In the treatment of this disease as it affects young children (_Cholera Infantum_), most reliance is to be placed on the administration of chalk and the use of starch enemata. In their case opium in any form cannot be safely employed.

MALIGNANT CHOLERA (synonyms, _Asiatic Cholera, Indian Cholera, Epidemic Cholera, Algide Cholera_) is one of the most severe and fatal diseases. In describing the symptoms it is customary to divide them into three stages, but it must be noted that these do not always present themselves in so distinct a form as to be capable of separate recognition. The first or premonitory stage consists in the occurrence of diarrhoea. Frequently of mild and painless character, and coming on after some error in diet, this symptom is apt to be disregarded. The discharges from the bowels are similar to those of ordinary summer cholera, which the attack closely resembles. There is, however, at first the absence of vomiting. This diarrhoea generally lasts for two or three days, and then if it does not gradually subside either may pass into the more severe phenomena characteristic of the second stage of cholera, or on the other hand may itself prove fatal.