ame.

The Boii, as we know them, belonged almost certainly to the Early Iron
age. They probably used long iron swords for dealing cutting blows, and
from the size of the handles they must have been a race of large men
(cf. Polybius ii. 30). For their ethnological affinities and especially
their possible connexion with the Homeric Achaeans see W. Ridgeway's
_Early Age of Greece_ (vol. i., 1901).

See L. Contzen, _Die Wanderungen der Kelten_ (Leipzig, 1861); A.
Desjardins, _Geographie historique de la Gaule romaine_, ii.
(1876-1893); T.R. Holmes, _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_ (1899), pp.
426-428; T. Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, ii. (Eng. trans. 5 vols., 1894),
p. 373 note; M. Ihm in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_, iii. pt. 1
(1897); A. Holder, _Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz_.

BOIL, in medicine, a progressive local inflammation of the skin, taking
the form of a hard suppurating tumour, with a core of dead tissue,
resulting from infection by a microbe, _Staphylococcus pyogenes_, and
commonly occurring in young persons whose blood is disordered, or as a
complication in certain diseases. Treatment proceeds on the lines of
bringing the mischief out, assisting the evacuation of the boil by the
lancet, and clearing the system. In the English Bible, and also in
popular medical terminology, "boil" is used of various forms of ulcerous
affection. The boils which were one of the plagues in Egypt were
apparently the bubonic plague. The terms Aleppo boil (or button), Delhi
boil, Oriental boil, Biskra button, &c., have been given to a tropical
epidemic, characterized by ulcers on the face, due to a diplococcus
parasite.

BOILEAU-DESPREAUX, NICOLAS (1636-1711), French poet and critic, was born
on the 1st of November 1636 in the rue de Jerusalem, Paris. The same
Despreaux was derived from a small property at Crosne near Villeneuve
Saint-Georges. He was the fifteenth child of Gilles Boileau, a clerk in
the parlement. Two of his brothers attained some distinction: Gilles
Boileau (1631-1669), the author of a translation of Epictetus; and
Jacques Boileau, who became a canon of the Sainte-Chapelle, and made
valuable contributions to church history. His mother died when he was
two years old; and Nicolas Boileau, who had a delicate constitution,
seems to have suffered something from want of care. Sainte-Beuve puts
down his somewhat hard and unsympathetic outlook quite as much to the
uninspiring circumstances of these da