"allatration" 1701, 1724, 1907, and others

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Tue Feb 17 16:46:14 UTC 2009


(1)  From Cotton Mather, 1724:

Tertiary source:
Wm. David Sloan and Julie Hedgepeth Williams
The Early American Press, 1690--1783
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994
p. 47, n. 143

This cites the secondary source:
Kenneth Silverman
Selected Letters of Cotton Mather
Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press [1971]
p. 402

Primary source:
Cotton Mather
Letter, 1724 Dec. 15
"With an admirable patience he [Dr. Zabdiel Boylston] slighted the
allatrations of a self-destroying people [the anti-inoculation
Couranteers], and the satisfaction of having done good unto mankind
made him a noble compensation for all the trouble he met withal."
"allatration" (n.) not in OED2; "allatrate (v.)" only quotation 1583.

There are a few more instances of allatration (Google Books for
"allatration" -alliteration -illustration).

(2)  One suggest that Cotton perhaps picked it up from his father,
President Increase, 1701:

Secondary source:
Catalogue of the American Library of the Late Mr. George Brinley of
Hartford, Conn: Containing Also a Biographical Sketch of Mr. Brinley
and an Alphabetical Index to the Entire Catalogue
By George Brinley, James Hammond Trumbull, William Isaac Fletcher
Published by Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard company, 1897
Item notes: v. 1
p. 148
"I have thought it not worth while for me to take notice of the
impotent Allatrations of so little a thing as that Youth is, who is
famed to be the Author of their Pamphlet."

Primary source:
Mather [Increase or Cotton?].  _A Collection of some of the many
Offensive Matters contained in a Pamphlet entitled The Order of the
Gospel Revived_.  1701.  (This is in Early American Imprints.)

(3)  Edwin Sauer, 1907.

Edwin Sauter
Satires: Bona Peritura, The Street, King Fustian
Boston: Richard G, Badger, The Gorham Press, 1907
p. 55, lines 59-64
"King Fustian does not care one groat / For our obfuscate Witen'
gemot--- / Directed in its legislations / By his diurnal allatrations
/ It comes, assembles, draws its pay, / And shortly wends upon its way."

[To the Curious:  "witenagemot": "The assembly of the WITAN, the
national council of Anglo-Saxon times; transf. of modern parliaments
or other deliberative assemblies."  Postdates OED2 -1899.]

(4)  A use as medical terminology, date unknown, presumably from
Osler or some other practitioner of his times:

Osler and Other Papers - Page 340
by William Sydney Thayer - Medical - 1969 - 386 pages
[Snippet view, and the excerpt does not contain "allatration".  There
is an edition of Thayer dated 1931.]

And a couple other medical instances, also snippet views.

Joel






Joel

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