Part 37

DRONE, in music[1] (corresponding to Fr. _bourdon_; Ger. _Summer_, _Stimmer_, _Hummel_; Ital. _bordone_), the bass pipe or pipes of the bagpipe, having no lateral holes and therefore giving out the same note without intermission as long as there is wind in the bag, thus forming a continuous pedal, or drone bass. The drone consists of a jointed pipe having a cylindrical bore and usually terminating in a bell. During the middle ages bagpipes are represented in miniatures with conical drones,[2] and M. Praetorius[3] gives a drawing of a bagpipe, which he calls _Grosser Bock_, having two drones ending in a curved ram's horn. The drone pipe has, instead of a mouthpiece, a socket fitted with a reed, and inserted into a stock or short pipe immovably fixed in an aperture of the bag. The reed is of the kind known as beating reed or _squeaker_, prepared by making a cut in the direction of the circumference of the pipe and splitting back the reed from the cut towards a joint or knot, thus leaving a flap or tongue which vibrates or beats, alternately opening and closing the aperture. The sound is produced by the stream of air forced from the bag by the pressure of the performer's arm causing the reed tongue to vibrate over the aperture, thus setting the whole column of air in vibration. Like all cylindrical pipes with reed mouthpiece, the drone pipe has the acoustic properties of the closed pipe and produces a note of the same pitch as that of an open pipe twice its length. The conical drones mentioned above would, therefore, speak an octave higher than a cylindrical drone of the same length. The drones are tuned by means of sliding tubes at the joints.

The drones of the old French _cornemuse_ played in concert with the _hautbois de Poitou_ (see BAGPIPE), and differing from the shepherd's _cornemuse_ or _chalémie_, formed an exception to this method of construction, being furnished with double reeds like that of the oboe. The drones of the musette and of the union pipes of Ireland are also constructed on an altogether different plan. Instead of having long cumbersome pipes, pointing over the shoulder, the musette drones consist of a short barrel containing lengths of tubing necessary for four or five drones, reduced to the most compact form and resembling the rackett (q.v.). The narrow bores are pierced longitudinally through the thickness of the barrel in parallel channels communicating with each other in twos or threes, and so arranged as to provide the requisite length for each drone. The reeds are double reeds all set in the wooden stock within the bag. By means of regulating slides (called in English _regulators_ and in French _layettes_), which may be pushed up and down in longitudinal grooves round the circumference of the barrel, the length of each drone tube can be so regulated that a simple harmonic bass consisting of the common chord is obtainable. In the union pipes the drones are separate pipes having keys played by the elbow, which correspond to the sliders in the musette drone and produce the same kind of harmonic bass. The modern Egyptian arghool consists of a kind of clarinet with a drone attached to it by means of waxed thread; in this case the beating reed of the drone is set in vibration directly by the breath of the performer, who takes both mouthpieces into his mouth, without the medium of a wind reservoir. Mersenne gave very clear descriptions of the construction of cornemuse and musette, with clear illustrations of the reeds and stock.[4] There are allusions in the Greek classics which point to the existence of a pipe with a drone, either of the arghool or the bagpipe type.[5] (K. S.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For the "drone," the male of the honey bee, see BEE. The musical sense, both for the noise made and for the instrument, comes from the buzzing of the bee.

[2] British Museum, Add. MS. 12,228 (Italian work), _Roman du Roy Meliadus_, 14th century, fol. 221 b., and Add. MS. 18,851, end 15th century (Spanish work illustrated by Flemish artists), fol. 13.

[3] _Syntagma musicum. Theatrum instrumentorum_, pl. xi. No. 6.

[4] _L'Harmonie universelle_ (Paris, 1636-1637), t. ii. bk. 5, pp. 282-287 and p. 305.

[5] Plato, _Crito_, 54; Aristophanes, _Acharnians_, 865, where some musicians are in derision dubbed "bumblebee pipers." See BAGPIPE; also Kathleen Schlesinger, "Researches into the Origin of the Organs of the Ancients," _Intern. mus. Ges._ vol. ii. (1901), Sammelband ii. pp. 188-202.

DRONFIELD, an urban district in the north-eastern parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, 6 m. S. of Sheffield, on the Midland railway. Pop. (1901) 3809. It lies on the small river Drone, a tributary of the Rother, in a busy industrial district in which are numerous coal-mines, and there are iron foundries and manufactures of tools and other iron and steel goods. The church of St John the Baptist, with a lofty spire, is a good example of Decorated work, with Perpendicular additions.

DROPSY (contracted from the old word _hydropisy_, derived from the Gr. [Greek: udrôps]; [Greek: udôr], water, and [Greek: ôps], appearance), the name given to a collection of simple serous fluid in all or any of the cavities of the body, or in the meshes of its tissues. Dropsy of the subcutaneous connective tissue is termed _oedema_ when it is localized and limited in extent; when more diffuse it is termed _anasarca_; the term _oedema_ is also applied to dropsies of some of the internal organs, notably to that of the lungs. _Hydrocephalus_ signifies an accumulation of fluid within the ventricles of the brain or in the arachnoid cavity; _hydrothorax_, a collection of fluid in one or both pleural cavities; _hydropericardium_, in the pericardium; _ascites_, in the peritoneum; and, when _anasarca_ is conjoined with the accumulation of fluid in one or more of the serous cavities, the dropsy is said to be general (see also PATHOLOGY).

Dropsy (excluding "epidemic dropsy," for which see below) is essentially a symptom and not a specific disease, and is merely an exaggeration of a certain state of health. Fluid, known as lymph, is continually passing through the capillary walls into the tissues, and in health this is removed as fast as it is exuded, in one or more of three ways: part of it is used in the nutrition of the tissues, part is returned to the general circulation by the veins, and part by the lymphatics. Any accumulation constitutes dropsy and is a sign of disease, though not a disease in itself. The serous effusions due to inflammation are not included under the term dropsy. A dropsical fluid varies considerably in composition according to its position in the body, but varies only slightly according to the disease which has given rise to it. Its specific gravity ranges between 1008 and 1018; the mineral salts present are the same and in about the same proportion as those of blood, nor do they vary with the position of the exudation. The quantity of albumin, however, depends much on the position of the fluid, and slightly on the underlying disease. In oedema the fluid contains only traces, whereas a pleural or peritoneal effusion is always highly albuminous. Also an effusion due to heart disease contains more albumin than one due to kidney disease. In appearance it may be colourless, greenish or reddish from the presence of blood pigment, or yellowish from the presence of bile pigment; transparent or opalescent or milky from the presence of fatty matter derived from the chyle. The membrane from which the dropsical fluid escapes is healthy, or at least not inflamed, and only somewhat sodden by long contact with the fluid--the morbid condition on which the transudation depends lying elsewhere.

The simplest cause of dropsy is purely mechanical, blood pressure being raised beyond a certain point owing to venous obstruction. This may be due to thrombosis of a vein as in phlegmasia dolens (white leg), retardation of venous circulation as in varicose veins, or obstruction of a vein due to the pressure of an aneurism or tumour. Cardiac and renal dropsy are more complicated in origin, but cardiac dropsy is probably due to diminished absorption, and renal dropsy, when unassociated with heart failure, to increased exudation. But the starting point of acute renal dropsy, of the dropsy sometimes occurring in diabetes, and that of chlorosis is the toxic condition of the blood. For accounts of the various local dropsies see HYDROCEPHALUS; ASCITES; LIVER, &c.; general dropsy, or dropsy which depends on causes acting on the system at large, is due chiefly to diseases of the heart, kidneys or lungs, occasionally on lardaceous disease, more rarely still on diabetes or one of the anaemias.

Broadly speaking, 50% of cases of general dropsy are due to disease of the heart or aorta, and 25% to renal troubles. The natural tendency of all diseases of the heart is to transfer the blood pressure from the arteries to the veins, and, so soon as this has reached a sufficient degree, dropsy in the form of local _oedema_ commences to appear at whatever may be the most depending part of the body--the instep and ankle in the upright position, the lower part of the back or the lungs if the patient be in bed--and this tends gradually to increase till all the cavities of the body are invaded by the serous accumulation. The diseases of the lungs which produce dropsy are those which obstruct the passage of the blood through them, such as emphysema and fibrosis, and thus act precisely like disease of the heart in transferring the blood pressure from the arteries to the veins, inducing dropsy in exactly a similar manner. The dropsy of renal disease is dependent for the most part on an excess of exudation, due largely to an increase of arterial and cardiac tension. This in its turn produces arterial thickening and cardiac hypertrophy, which, if the case be sufficiently prolonged, brings about a natural removal of the fluid. In kidney cases, in the absence of cardiac disease, the dropsy will be found to appear first about the loose cellular tissue surrounding the eyes, where the vessels, turgid with watery blood, have less efficient support. The dropsy of chlorosis is very similar to renal dropsy, a toxic condition of blood being present in both; also other forms of anaemia, as also hydraemia, tend to produce or assist in the production of dropsical effusions.

For the treatment of dropsy the reader is referred to the articles on the several diseases of which it is a symptom. Briefly, however, tapping of the abdomen or puncture of the legs are constantly resorted to in severe cases. Dehydration by diet is very valuable under certain circumstances when the dropsy is other than renal. And there is the routine treatment by drugs, purgative, diaphoretic and diuretic as the symptoms of the case may demand.

It may be well to mention that there are certain affections which may be termed _spurious dropsies_, such as _ovarian dropsy_, which is only a cystic disease of the ovary; _hydrometria_, dropsy of the uterus, due to inflammatory occlusion of the os uteri; _hydronephrosis_, dropsy of the kidney, due to obstruction of the ureter, and subsequent distension of these organs by serous accumulations; other hollow organs may also be similarly affected.

Having no known relation to the preceding is _epidemic dropsy_, the first recorded outbreak of which occurred in Calcutta in the year 1877. It disappeared during the hot weather of the following year, only to recur over a wider area in the cold months of 1878 to 1879, and once again in the cold of 1879 to 1880. Since then only isolated cases have been recorded in the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta, though epidemics have broken out in other places both by land and sea. At the end of 1902 an outbreak occurred in the Barisal gaol, Bengal, in which nearly one-third of the cases ended fatally. Dropsy was an invariable feature of the disease, and was either the first symptom or occurred early. The lower limbs were first affected, trunk and upper limbs later in severe cases, the face very rarely. It was accompanied by pyrexia, gastro-enteritis, deep-seated pains in limbs and body, and burning and pricking of the skin. Various rashes appeared early in the attack, while eczema, desquamation and even ulceration supervened later. Anaemia was very marked, giving rise in Mauritius to the name of acute anaemic dropsy. The duration of the disease was very variable, the limits being three weeks and three months. Death was often sudden, resulting chiefly from cardiac and respiratory complications. The cause of the disease has remained obscure, but there is reason to suppose that it was originally imported from the Madras famine tracts.

DROPWORT, in botany, the common name for a species of _Spiraea_, _S. filipendula_ (nat. ord. _Rosaceae_), found in dry pastures. It is a perennial herb, with much divided radical leaves and an erect stem 2 to 3 ft. high bearing a loose terminal inflorescence of small white flowers, closely resembling those of the nearly allied species _S. Ulmaria_, or meadowsweet.

Water Dropwort, _Oenanthe crocata_ (nat. ord. _Umbelliferae_), is a tall herbaceous plant growing in marshes and ditches. The stem, which springs from a cluster of thickened roots, is stout, branched, hollow and 2 to 5 ft. high; the leaves are large and pinnately divided, and the flowers are borne in a compound umbel, the long rays bearing dense partial umbels of small white flowers. The plant, which is very poisonous, is often mistaken for celery.

DROSHKY (Russ. _drozhki_, diminutive of _drogi_, a wagon), a light four-wheeled uncovered carriage used in Russia. Properly it consists of two pairs of wheels joined by a board. This forms a seat for the passengers who sit sideways, while the driver sits astride in front. The word _Droschke_, however, is applied especially in Germany to light carriages generally which ply for hire.

DROSTE-HÜLSHOFF, ANNETTE ELISABETH, FREIIN VON (1797-1848), German poet, was born at the family seat of Hülshoff near Münster in Westphalia on the 10th of January 1797. Her early mental training was largely influenced by her cousin, Clemens August, Freiherr von Droste zu Vischering, who, as archbishop of Cologne, became notorious for his extreme ultramontane views (see below); and she received a more liberal education than in those days ordinarily fell to a woman's lot. After prolonged visits among the intellectual circles at Coblenz, Bonn and Cologne, she retired to the estate of Ruschhaus near Münster, belonging to her mother's family. In 1841, owing to delicate health, she went to reside in the house of her brother-in-law, the well-known scholar, Joseph, Freiherr von Lassberg (1770-1855), at Schloss Meersburg on the Lake of Constance, where she met Levin Schücking (q.v.); and there she died on the 24th of May 1848. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff is, beyond doubt, the most gifted and original of German women poets. Her verse is strong and vigorous, but often unmusical even to harshness; one looks in vain for a touch of sentimentality or melting sweetness in it. As a lyric poet, she is at her best when she is able to attune her thoughts to the sober landscape of the Westphalian moorlands of her home. Her narrative poetry, and especially _Das Hospiz auf dem Grossen St Bernard_ and _Die Schlacht im Loener Bruch_ (both 1838), belongs to the best German poetry of its kind. She was a strict Roman Catholic, and her religious poems, published in 1852, after her death, under the title _Das geistliche Jahr, nebst einem Anhang religiöser Gedichte_, enjoyed great popularity.

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's _Gedichte_ were first published in 1844 during her lifetime, and a number of her poems were translated into English by Thomas Medwin. The most complete edition of her works is that in 4 vols. edited by E. von Droste-Hülshoff (Münster, 1886). The _Ausgewählte Gedichte_ were edited by W. von Scholz (Leipzig, 1901). See Levin Schücking, _Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, ein Lebensbild_ (2nd ed., Hanover, 1871)--her letters to L. Schücking were published at Leipzig in 1893; also H. Hueffer, _Annette von Droste-Hülshoff und ihre Werke_ (Gotha, 1887), and W. Kreiten, _Annette von Droste-Hülshoff_ (2nd ed., Paderborn, 1900).

DROSTE-VISCHERING, CLEMENS AUGUST, BARON VON (1773-1845), German Roman Catholic divine, was born at Münster on the 21st of January 1773. He was educated in his native town and entered the priesthood in 1798; in 1807 the local chapter elected him vicar-general. This office he resigned in 1813 through his opposition to Napoleon, but assumed it again after the battle of Waterloo (1815) until a disagreement with the Prussian government in 1820 led to his abdication. He remained in private life until 1835, when he was appointed archbishop of Cologne. Here again his zeal for the supremacy of the church led him to break the agreement between the state and the Catholic bishops which he had signed at his installation, and he was arrested by the Prussian government in November 1837. A battle of pamphlets raged for some time; Droste was not re-installed but was obliged to accept a coadjutor. His chief works were: _Über die Religionsfreiheit der Katholiken_ (1817), and _Über den Frieden unter der Kirche und den Staaten_ (1843).

See Carl Mirbt's article in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyk. für prot. Theol._ v. 23.

DROUAIS, JEAN GERMAIN (1763-1788), French historical painter, was born at Paris on the 25th of November 1763. His father, François Hubert Drouais, and his grandfather, Hubert Drouais, were well-known portrait painters; and it was from his father that he received his first artistic instruction. He was afterwards entrusted to the care of Brenet, an excellent teacher, though his own pictures did not take high rank. In 1780 David, who had just returned from Rome, opened a school of painting in Paris, and Drouais was one of his earliest and most promising pupils. He adopted the classical style of his master, and gave his whole time to study--painting during the day, and spending a great part of every night in designing. For weeks together it is said that he never left his studio. In 1783 he was admitted to compete for the great prize of painting offered by the Academy, the subject being the "Widow of Nain." After inspecting the works of his fellow-competitors, however, he lost hope and destroyed his own canvas, but was consoled by the assurance of his master David that had he not done so he would have won the prize. Next year he was triumphantly successful, the "Woman of Canaan at the Feet of Christ," with which he gained the prize, being compared by competent critics with the works of Poussin. He was carried shoulder high by his fellow-students through the streets to his mother's house, and a place was afterwards found for his picture in the Louvre. His success making him only the more eager to perfect himself in his art, he accompanied David to Rome, where he worked even more assiduously than in Paris. He was most strongly influenced by the remains of ancient art and by the works of Raphael. Goethe, who was at Rome at the time it was finished, has recorded the deep impression made by his "Marius at Minturno," which he characterizes as in some respects superior to the work of David, his master. The last picture which he completed was his "Philoctetus on the Island of Lemnos." He died on the 15th of July 1788. A monument to his memory was erected by his fellow-students in the church of Santa Maria in the Via Lata.

DROUET, JEAN BAPTISTE (1763-1824), French Revolutionist, chiefly noted for the part he played in the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes, was born at Sainte-Menehould. He served for seven years in the army, and afterwards assisted his father, who was post-master of his native town. The carriages conveying the royal family on their flight to the frontier stopped at his door on the evening of the 21st of June 1791; and the passengers, travelling under assumed names, were recognized by Drouet, who immediately took steps which led to their arrest and detection on reaching Varennes. For this service the Assembly awarded him 30,000 francs, but he appears to have declined the reward. In September 1792 he was elected deputy to the Convention, and took his place with the most violent party. He voted the death of the king without appeal, showed implacable hostility to the Girondins, and proposed the slaughter of all English residents in France. Sent as commissioner to the army of the north, he was captured at the siege of Maubeuge and imprisoned at Spielberg till the close of 1795. He then became a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and was named secretary. Drouet was implicated in the conspiracy of Babeuf, and was imprisoned; but he made his escape into Switzerland, and thence to Teneriffe. There he took part in the successful resistance to the attempt of Nelson on the island, in 1797, and later visited India. The first empire found in him a docile sub-prefect of Sainte-Menehould. After the second Restoration he was compelled to quit France. Returning secretly he settled at Macon, under the name of Merger and a guise of piety, and preserved his incognito till his death on the 11th of April 1824.

See G. Lenotre, _Le Drame de Varennes_ (Paris, 1905).

DROWNING AND LIFE SAVING. To "drown" (a verb used both transitively and intransitively, of which the origin, though traced to earlier forms, is unknown) is to suffer or inflict death by submersion in water, or figuratively to submerge entirely in water or some other liquid. As a form of ancient capital punishment, the method of drowning is referred to at the end of this article, but the interest of the subject is mainly associated with rescue-work in cases of accident.

Death from drowning is the result of asphyxia, due to the stoppage of a supply of fresh air to the lungs. There is a certain amount of stationary air in the lungs, and into this is diffused oxygen from the fresh air taken in, while the carbonic acid which it has taken from the blood through the walls of the capillaries is driven out. This process of exchange is ever proceeding, the whole of it being regulated from the nervous centre at the base of the brain. When a person gets under water and cannot swim, there is a natural tendency to struggle, and in the efforts to respire water is drawn into the windpipe and cough is brought on. This expels the air from the lungs with the water which threatened to suffocate him, and as further efforts are made to respire more water is taken in and has to be swallowed. Meanwhile, the oxygen in the lungs is gradually diminishing, the quantity of carbonic acid is increasing, and at length the air in the lungs becomes too impure to effect an exchange with the blood. Then the blood passing into the heart becomes venous and the heart begins to send out venous instead of arterial blood to all parts of the body. Immediately a dull, sickening pain becomes apparent at the base of the neck, and insensibility rapidly ensues. This arises from the affection of the respiratory nerve centre. In a short space of time the face becomes dark and congested through the veins being gorged with blood, and the heart ultimately ceases to beat.