Our navigation bar is loading . . .

Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.

Do you need volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?

Click here and add this page to your favorites!

Encyclopedia Britannica

SPECIFICATION (from Med. Lat. specificatio, specificare, to enumerate or mention in detail)

This article appears in Volume V25, Page 617 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SOU-STE

SPECIFICATION (from Med. Lat. specificatio, specificare, to enumerate or mention in detail) , any detailed statement, especially one on which an estimate or plan is based, as the specification of a builder or architect (see BUILDING). In patent law a specification is a description of an invention. An application for a patent must be accompanied by a specification, either provisional or complete. If a complete specification does not accompany the application, it must be forwarded usually within six months of the date of application, otherwise the application is deemed to be abandoned. A provisional specification declares the nature of the invention in general terms, while a complete specification describes the invention in detail, and shows the manner in which it is to be carried out (see further PATENTS).
In the civil law (see AccEssroN) specification was the working up of a thing into a new product; for example, the making of bread from grain. The effect of specification was that the

original

ORIGINAL

owner lost his title in favour of the creator of the new product, but had an action for the value of the materials.rigid steel wire or gold frames, with fastening-pieces over the ears; single or

double

eye-glasses, and hand-glasses, or lorgnettes, being varieties of form, according to the circumstances and the wearer's

taste

TASTE (from Lat. taxare, to touch sharply; tangere, to touch)

.
Preserves.Preserves are used to conceal deformities or to protect the eyes in the many conditions where they cannot tolerate

bright

BRIGHT, JOHN (1811-188g)
BRIGHT, SIR CHARLES TILSTON

light, such as ulceration and inflammation of the cornea, certain diseases of the iris, ciliary

body

BODY

, choroid, and retina. They are made of bluish, " smoked," or almost black coloured glass, and are of very various shapes, according to the amount of obscuration necessary.
Prisms.Prisms are of

great

GREAT

value in cases of

double

vision due to a slight tendency to squinting, caused by weakness or over-action of the muscular apparatus of the eyeball. Prisms deflect rays of light towards their bases. Hence, if a prism is placed in front of the eye with its base towards the nose, a ray of light falling upon it will be bent inwards, and seem to come from a point farther out from the

axis

AXIS (Lat. for " axle ")

of vision. Conversely, if the base of the prism is turned towards the temple, the ray of light will seem to come from a point nearer the

axis

AXIS (Lat. for " axle ")

, and will induce the eye to turn inwards, to converge towards its fellow. In cases of myopia or short-sight owing to weakness of the internal recti muscles, the eyes in looking at a near object, instead of converging, tend to turn outwards, and so double vision results. If a suitable prism is placed in front of the eyes the double vision may be prevented. These prisms may be combined with concave lenses, which correct the myopia, or, since a concave lens may be considered as composed of two prisms united at their apices, the same effect may be obtained by making the distance between the centres of the concave lenses greater than that between the centres of the pupils. Again, to obviate the necessity for excessive convergence of the eyes so common in hypermetropia, the centre of the pupil should be placed outside the centre of the corrective convex lenses; these will then act as prisms with their bases inwards. Where, on the other hand, there is no tendency to squinting, care must be taken in selecting spectacles that the distances between the centres of the glasses and the centres of the pupils are quite equal, otherwise squinting, or at any rate

great

GREAT

fatigue, of the eyes may be induced.
Spherical Lenses.Biconcave, biconvex and concavo-convex (meniscus) lenses are employed in ophthalmic practice in the treatment of errors of refraction. Until recently these spherical lenses were numbered in terms of their focal length, the inch being used as the unit. Owing principally to differences in the length of the inch in various countries this method had great inconveniences, and now the unit is the refractive power of a lens whose focal length is one metre. This unit is called a " dioptric " (usually written " D"). A lens of twice its strength has a refractive power of 2 D, and a focal length of half a metre, and so on.
Concave Lenses are used in the treatment of myopia or short-sight. In this condition the eye is elongated from before back-wards, so that the retina lies behind the principal

focus

FOCUS (Latin for " hearth " or " fireplace ")

. All objects, therefore, which lie beyond a certain point (the conjugate

focus

FOCUS (Latin for " hearth " or " fireplace ")

of the dioptric system of the eye, the far point) are indistinctly seen; rays from them have not the necessary divergence to be focused in the retina, but may obtain it bytheinterposition of suitable concave lenses. Concave lenses should never be used for

work

WORK

within the far point; but they may be used in all cases to improve distant vision, and in very short-sighted persons to remove the far point so as to enable fine

work

WORK

such as sewing or reading to be done at a convenient distance. The weakest pair of concave lenses with which one can read clearly test types at a distance of 18 ft. is the measure of the amount of myopia, and this fully correcting glass may be worn in the slighter forms of short-sight. In higher degrees, where full correction might increase the myopia by inducing a strain of the

accommodation

ACCOMMODATION (Lat. accommodare, to make fit, from ad, to, cum, with, and modus, measure)

, somewhat weaker glasses should be used for near work. In the highest degrees the complete correction may be employed, but lorgnettes are generally preferred, as they can be removed when the eyes become fatigued. It must be remembered that

End of Article: SPECIFICATION (from Med. Lat. specificatio, specificare, to enumerate or mention in detail)

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/SOU_STE/SPECIFICATION_from_Med_Lat_spe.html">
SPECIFICATION (from Med. Lat. specificatio, spe...
</a>

(Previous)
SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE

(Next)
SPECTACLES

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email