MARASMUS (emaciation) is a term often used by the older medical writers to designate those cases in which no particular cause for the atrophy of the body was discovered. It is now very rarely employed, since the condition which was thus named is known to be the result of various local diseases, by which the complete nutrition of the body is prevented, or by which a quantity of its material is constantly abstracted ; as disease of the mesenteric glands, pulmonary consump tion, diabetes, &c.
MARCH, the third month of the year according to modern comMarch, the third month of the year according to modern com- putation, containing thirty-one days. The Roman year originally began with March, and was in fact so considered in England before the alteration of the style in 1752, the legal year commencing on the 25th of March. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called it most commonly 111yd month, loud or stormy month ; and sometimes Limed or Rived =math, which some interpret Rhoda's, others Rhede or Bethe, the rugged or rough month. The name of the month is said to be derived from that of Mars, the god of war.
Before 1564 the computation of the French year began from Easter, so that occasionally the same year might comprehend two months of March, Mars avant, and Mars apes. If Easter occurred in March itself, the month began in one year and ended in another. The change of computation from Easter to the first of January, in that country, was directed by an edict of Charles IX.
There is an old proverb, mentioned by various writers, which represents March as borrowing certain days from April. These are called, by the rustics in many parts both of England and Scotland, the Borrowed Days. They are particularly noticed in the poem called ' The Complaynt of Scotland "March said to AperIII, I see three hogs upon a hill; But lend your three first days to me, And I'll be bound to gar them die. The first It shall be wind and weet, The next it shall be saaw and sleet, The third It shall be sic a freeze, Sall gar the birds stick to the trees. But when the borrowed days were gone, The three silly hogs came hirplin home." Dr. Jamieson, in Etymological Dictionary,' says, These days being generally stormy, our forefathers have endeavoured to account for this circumstance by pretending that March borrowed them from April, that he might extend his power so much longer Those," he adds, "who are much addicted to superstition, will neither borrow nor lend on any of these days. If any one would propose to borrow
of them, they would consider it as an evidence that the person wished to employ the article borrowed for the purposes of witchcraft against the lenders." Ray, in his Collection, has a different proverb relating to this month, namely, that "A bushel of March dust is worth a king's ransom ;" thereby expressing the importance of dry or dusty weather at this particular season of the year, in an agricultural point of view.
MARCH, in music, is, properly speaking, an air in duple time, March, in music, is, properly speaking, an air in duple time, played by martial instruments—that is, by inflatile and pulsatile instruments—to mark the steps of the infantry, as well as to amuse and cheer troops of all kinds. It however has long since gained admission wherever music is heard, and consequently is written for every kind of musical instrument. Hence some of the most striking compositions by the greatest masters ; as, for instance, the marches in Handel's oratorios; the religious marches (' Marches religieusea ') in Gluck'e Alceste' and Mozart's Zauberflote ;' the two funeral marches (; _Marcie funebri ') of Beethoven ; the Wedding March' of Mend.els Bohn, &c.
The true March is always written in common time, or in what is allied a compound of that measure, and begins on a broken part of the bar, with an odd crotchet or a quaver. It is slow for grand or parade occasions, quick for ordinary marching. We are told by Rousseau, that Marshal Saxe used the march also for the purpose of accelerating or retarding the pace of his troops in battle. In his days there was more form, more ceremony used; something like etiquette was kept up in fighting : we doubt whether the movements of the battalions in the fields of Austerlitz and Waterloo were performed to musical move ments, or even to the simple beat of drums.