DOeBEREINER, a German chemist, professor at Jena; inventor of a lamp called after him; Goethe was much interested in his discoveries (1780-1849).

DOeBEREINER’S LAMP, a light caused by a jet of hydrogen passing over spongy platinum.

DOBROVSKI, JOSEPH, a philologist, born in Gyarmet, in Hungary; devoted his life to the study of the Bohemian language and literature; wrote a history of them, the fruit of immense labour, under which his brain gave way more than once; was trained among the Jesuits (1753-1829).

DOBRENTER, Hungarian archaeologist; devoted 30 years of his life to the study of the Magyar language; author of “Ancient Monuments of the Magyar Language” (1786-1851).

DOBRUDJA (196), the part of Roumania between the Danube and the Black Sea, a barren, unwholesome district; rears herds of cattle.

DOBSON, AUSTIN, poet and prose writer, born at Plymouth, is in a department of the Civil Service; wrote “Vignettes in Rhyme,” “Proverbs in Porcelain,” “Old World Idylls,” in verse, and in prose Lives of Fielding, Hogarth, Steele, and Goldsmith; contributed extensively to the magazines; b. 1840.

DOBSON, WILLIAM, portrait-painter, born in London; succeeded Vandyck as king’s serjeant-painter to Charles I.; painted the king and members of his family and court; supreme in his art prior to Sir Joshua Reynolds; died in poverty (1610-1646).

DOCETAE, a sect of heretics in the early Church who held that the humanity of Christ was only seeming, not real, on the Gnostic or Manichaean theory of the essential impurity and defiling nature of matter or the flesh.

DOCTOR (lit. teacher), a title implying that the possessor of it is such a master of his art that he can teach it as well as practise it.

DOCTOR MIRABILIS, Roger Bacon.

DOCTOR MY-BOOK, John Abernethy, from his saying to his patients,
“Read my book.”

DOCTOR OF THE INCARNATION, Cyril of Alexandria, from his controversy with the Nestorians.

DOCTOR SLOP, a doctor in “Tristram Shandy,” fanatical about a forceps he invented.

DOCTOR SQUINTUM, George Whitfield.

DOCTOR SYNTAX.  See COMBE, WILLIAM.

DOCTORS’ COMMONS, a college of doctors of the civil law in London, where they used to eat in common, and where eventually a number of the courts of law were held.

DOCTRINAIRES, mere theorisers, particularly on social and political questions; applied originally to a political party that arose in France in 1815, headed by Roger-Collard and represented by Guizot, which stood up for a constitutional government that should steer clear of acknowledging the divine right of kinghood on the one hand and the divine right of democracy on the other.

DODABETTA, the highest peak, 8700 ft., in the Nilgherries.