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Dwight L. Moody

Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 – December 26, 1899), also known as D. L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher connected with Keswickianism, who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts (now Northfield Mount Hermon School), Moody Bible Institute, and Moody Publishers. One of his most famous quotes was "Faith makes all things possible... Love makes all things easy." Moody gave up his lucrative boot and shoe business to devote his life to revivalism, working first in the Civil War with Union troops through YMCA in the United States Christian Commission. In Chicago, he built one of the major evangelical centers in the nation, which is still active. Working with singer Ira Sankey, he toured the country and the British Isles, drawing large crowds with a dynamic speaking style.

Early life
Dwight Moody was born in Northfield, Massachusetts, as the seventh child of a large family. His father, Edwin J. Moody (1800–1841), was a small farmer and stonemason. His mother was Betsey Moody (née Holton; 1805–1896). They had five sons and a daughter before Dwight's birth. His father died when Dwight was age four; fraternal twins, a boy, and a girl were born one month after the father's death. Their mother struggled to support the nine children but had to send some off to work for their room and board. Dwight too was sent off, where he received cornmeal, porridge, and milk three times a day. He complained to his mother, but when she learned that he was getting all he wanted to eat, she sent him back. During this time, she continued to send the children to church. Together with his eight siblings, Dwight was raised in the Unitarian church. His oldest brother ran away and was not heard from by the family until many years later.

When Moody turned 17, he moved to Boston to work (after receiving many job rejections locally) in an uncle's shoe store. One of the uncle's requirements was that Moody attend the Congregational Church of Mount Vernon, where Dr. Edward Norris Kirk served as the pastor. In April 1855 Moody was converted to evangelical Christianity when his Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, talked to him about how much God loved him. His conversion sparked the start of his career as an evangelist. Moody first applied to the church in May 1855, but he was not received as a church member until May 4, 1856.

According to Moody's memoir, his teacher, Edward Kimball, said:

"I can truly say, and in saying it I magnify the infinite grace of God as bestowed upon him, that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than was his when he came into my Sunday School class; and I think that the committee of the Mount Vernon Church seldom met an applicant for membership more unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of Gospel truth, still less to fill any extended sphere of public usefulness."

Civil War
"The first meeting I ever saw him at was in a little old shanty that had been abandoned by a saloon-keeper. Mr. Moody had got the place to hold the meetings at night. I went there a little late; and the first thing I saw was a man standing up with a few tallow candles around him, holding a negro boy, and trying to read to him the story of the Prodigal Son and a great many words he could not readout, and had to skip. I thought, 'If the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that for His honor and glory, it will astonish me.' As a result of his tireless labor, within a year the average attendance at his school was 650, while 60 volunteers from various churches served as teachers. It became so well known that the just-elected President Lincoln visited and spoke at a Sunday School meeting on November 25, 1860."

D. L. Moody "could not conscientiously enlist" in the Union Army during the Civil War, later describing himself as "a Quaker" in this respect. After the Civil War started, he became involved with the United States Christian Commission of YMCA. He paid nine visits to the battlefront, being present among the Union soldiers after the Battle of Shiloh (a.k.a. Pittsburg Landing) and the Battle of Stones River; he also entered Richmond, Virginia, with the troops of General Grant.

On August 28, 1862, Moody married Emma C. Revell, with whom he had a daughter, Emma Reynolds Moody, and two sons, William Revell Moody and Paul Dwight Moody.

Chicago and the postwar years

In 1858, he started a Sunday school.

The growing Sunday School congregation needed a permanent home, so Moody started a church in Chicago, the Illinois Street Church in 1864.

In June 1871 at an International Sunday School Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, Dwight Moody met Ira D. Sankey. He was a gospel singer, with whom Moody soon began to cooperate and collaborate. Four months later, in October 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed Moody's church building, as well as his house and those of most of his congregation. Many had to flee the flames, saving only their lives, and ending up completely destitute. Moody, reporting on the disaster, said about his own situation that: "...he saved nothing but his reputation and his Bible."

In the years after the fire, Moody's wealthy Chicago patron John V. Farwell tried to persuade him to make his permanent home in the city, offering to build a new house for Moody and his family. But the newly famous Moody, also sought by supporters in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, chose a tranquil farm he had purchased near his birthplace in Northfield, Massachusetts. He felt he could better recover from his lengthy preaching trips in a rural setting.

Northfield became an important location in evangelical Christian history in the late 19th century as Moody organized summer conferences. These were led and attended by prominent Christian preachers and evangelists from around the world. Western Massachusetts has had a rich evangelical tradition including Jonathan Edwards preaching in colonial Northampton and C.I. Scofield preaching in Northfield. A protégé of Moody founded Moores Corner Church, in Leverett, Massachusetts.

Moody founded two schools here: Northfield School for Girls, founded in 1879, and the Mount Hermon School for Boys, founded in 1881. In the late 20th century, these merged, forming today's co-educational, nondenominational Northfield Mount Hermon School.

Evangelistic travels

During a trip to the United Kingdom in the spring of 1872, Moody became well known as an evangelist. Literary works published by the Moody Bible Institute claim that he was the greatest evangelist of the 19th century. He preached almost a hundred times and came into communion with the Plymouth Brethren. On several occasions, he filled stadia of a capacity of 2,000 to 4,000. According to his memoir, in the Botanic Gardens Palace, he attracted an audience estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000.

That turnout continued throughout 1874 and 1875, with crowds of thousands at all of his meetings. During his visit to Scotland, Moody was helped and encouraged by Andrew A. Bonar. The famous London Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon invited him to speak, and he promoted the American as well. When Moody returned to the US, he was said to frequently attract crowds of 12,000 to 20,000, such crowds being as common as they had been in England. President Grant and some of his cabinet officials attended a Moody meeting on January 19, 1876. Moody held evangelistic meetings from Boston to New York, throughout New England, and as far west as San Francisco, also visiting other West Coast towns from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to San Diego.

Moody aided the work of cross-cultural evangelism by promoting "The Wordless Book", a teaching tool Charles Spurgeon had developed in 1866. In 1875, Moody added a fourth color to the design of the three-color evangelistic device: gold — to "represent heaven." This "book" has been and is still used to teach uncounted thousands of illiterate people, young and old, around the globe about the gospel message.

Moody visited Britain with Ira D. Sankey, with Moody preaching and Sankey singing at meetings. Together they published books of Christian hymns. In 1883, they visited Edinburgh and raised £10,000 for the building of a new home for the Carrubbers Close Mission. Moody later preached at the laying of the foundation stone for what is now called the Carrubbers Christian Centre, one of the few buildings on the Royal Mile which continues to be used for its original purpose.

Moody greatly influenced the cause of cross-cultural Christian missions after he met Hudson Taylor, a pioneer missionary to China. He actively supported the China Inland Mission and encouraged many of his congregation to volunteer for service overseas.

International acclaim
His influence was felt among Swedes. Being of English heritage, never visiting Sweden or any other Scandinavian country, and never speaking a word of Swedish, nonetheless, he became a hero revivalist among Swedish Mission Friends (Missionsvänner) in Sweden and America.

News of Moody's large revival campaigns in Great Britain from 1873 through 1875 traveled quickly to Sweden, making "Mr. Moody" a household name in homes of many Mission Friends. Moody's sermons published in Sweden were distributed in books, newspapers, and colporteur tracts, and they led to the spread of Sweden's "Moody fever" from 1875 through 1880.

He preached his last sermon on November 16, 1899, in Kansas City, Missouri. Becoming ill, he returned home by train to Northfield. During the preceding several months, friends had observed he had added some 30 lb to his already ample frame. Although his illness was never diagnosed, it has been speculated that he suffered from congestive heart failure. He died on December 26, 1899, surrounded by his family. Already installed as the leader of the Chicago Bible Institute, R. A. Torrey succeeded Moody as its pastor.

Legacy
Religious historian James Findlay says that:
 * Speaking before thousands in the dark business suit, bearded, rotund Dwight L. Moody seemed the epitome of the "businessman in clerical garb" who typified popular religion in late 19th-century America... Earthy, unlettered, a dynamo of energy, the revivalist was very much a man of his times... Moody adapted revivalism, one of the major institutions of evangelical Protestantism, to the urban context. ... His organizational ability, demonstrated in the great revivals he conducted in England, combined to fashion his spectacular career as the creator of modern mass revivalism.

Ten years after Moody's death the Chicago Avenue Church was renamed the Moody Church in his honor, and the Chicago Bible Institute has likewise renamed the Moody Bible Institute.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was born in 1890, was named after him. During World War II, the Liberty ship SS Dwight L. Moody was built in Panama City, Florida, and named in his honor.

Works

 * Heaven Diggory Press ISBN 978-1-84685-812-3
 *  Prevailing Prayer—What Hinders it? Diggory Press ISBN 978-1-84685-803-1
 * Secret Power Diggory Press ISBN 978-1-84685-802-4
 * The Ten Commandments
 * Also, A Life for Christ—What a Normal Christian Life Looks Like.
 * The Way to God and How to Find it

title: Dwight L. Moody


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Dieting

Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. As weight loss depends on calorie intake, different kinds of calorie-reduced diets, such as those emphasising particular macronutrients (low-fat, low-carbohydrate, etc.), have been shown to be no more effective than one another. As weight regain is common, diet success is best predicted by long-term adherence. Regardless, the outcome of a diet can vary widely depending on the individual.

The first popular diet was "Banting", named after William Banting. In his 1863 pamphlet, Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, he outlined the details of a particular low-carbohydrate, low-calorie diet that led to his own dramatic weight loss.

Some guidelines recommend dieting to lose weight for people with weight-related health problems, but not for otherwise healthy people. One survey found that almost half of all American adults attempt to lose weight through dieting, including 66.7% of obese adults and 26.5% of normal weight or underweight adults. Dieters who are overweight (but not obese), who are normal weight, or who are underweight may have an increased mortality rate as a result of dieting.

History
The word diet comes from the Greek δίαιτα (diaita), which represents a notion of a whole way healthy lifestyle including both mental and physical health, rather than a narrow weight-loss regimen.

One of the first dietitians was the English doctor George Cheyne. He himself was tremendously overweight and would constantly eat large quantities of rich food and drink. He began a meatless diet, taking only milk and vegetables, and soon regained his health. He began publicly recommending his diet for everyone who was obese. In 1724, he wrote An Essay of Health and Long Life, in which he advises exercise and fresh air and avoiding luxury foods.

The Scottish military surgeon, John Rollo, published Notes of a Diabetic Case in 1797. It described the benefits of a meat diet for those with diabetes, basing this recommendation on Matthew Dobson's discovery of glycosuria in diabetes mellitus. By means of Dobson's testing procedure (for glucose in the urine) Rollo worked out a diet that had success for what is now called type 2 diabetes.

The first popular diet was "Banting", named after the English undertaker William Banting. In 1863, he wrote a booklet called Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, which contained the particular plan for the diet he had successfully followed. His own diet was four meals per day, consisting of meat, greens, fruits, and dry wine. The emphasis was on avoiding sugar, sweet foods, starch, beer, milk and butter. Banting's pamphlet was popular for years to come, and would be used as a model for modern diets. The pamphlet's popularity was such that the question "Do you bant?" referred to his method, and eventually to dieting in general. His booklet remains in print as of 2007.

The first weight-loss book to promote calorie counting, and the first weight-loss book to become a bestseller, was the 1918 Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories by American physician and columnist Lulu Hunt Peters.

It was estimated that over 1000 weight-loss diets have been developed up to 2014.

Types
A restricted diet is most commonly pursued by those who want to lose weight. Some people follow a diet to gain weight (such as people who are underweight or who are attempting to gain more muscle). Diets can also be used to maintain a stable body weight or to improve health.

Low-fat
Low-fat diets involve the reduction of the percentage of fat in one's diet. Calorie consumption is reduced because less fat is consumed. Diets of this type include NCEP Step I and II. A meta-analysis of 16 trials of 2–12 months' duration found that low-fat diets (without intentional restriction of caloric intake) resulted in average weight loss of 3.2 kg over habitual eating.

A low-fat, plant-based diet has been found to improve control of weight, blood sugar levels, and cardiovascular health.

Low-calorie
Low-calorie diets usually produce an energy deficit of 500–1,000 calories per day, which can result in a 0.5 to 1 kg weight loss per week. The National Institutes of Health reviewed 34 randomized controlled trials to determine the effectiveness of low-calorie diets. They found that these diets lowered total body mass by 8% in the short term, over 3–12 months. Women doing low-calorie diets should have at least 1,000 calories per day and men should have approximately 1,200 calories per day. These caloric intake values vary depending on additional factors, such as age and weight.

Very low-calorie
Very low calorie diets provide 200–800 calories per day, maintaining protein intake but limiting calories from both fat and carbohydrates. They subject the body to starvation and produce an average loss of 1.5 – per week. "2-4-6-8", a popular diet of this variety, follows a four-day cycle in which only 200 calories are consumed the first day, 400 the second day, 600 the third day, 800 the fourth day, and then totally fasting, after which the cycle repeats. There is some evidence that these diets results in considerable weight loss. These diets are not recommended for general use and should be reserved for the management of obesity as they are associated with adverse side effects such as loss of lean muscle mass, increased risks of gout, and electrolyte imbalances. People attempting these diets must be monitored closely by a physician to prevent complications.

The concept of crash dieting is to drastically reduce calories, using a very-low-calorie diet. Crash dieting can be highly dangerous because it can cause various kind of issues for the human body. Crash dieting can produce weight loss but without professional supervision all along, the extreme reduction in calories and potential unbalance in the diet's composition can lead to detrimental effects, including sudden death.

Fasting
Fasting is the act of intentional taking a long time interval between meals. Lengthy fasting (multiple days in a week) might be dangerous due to the risk of malnutrition. During prolonged fasting or very low calorie diets the reduction of blood glucose, the preferred energy source of the brain, causes the body to deplete its glycogen stores. Once glycogen is depleted the body begins to fuel the brain using ketones, while also metabolizing body protein (including but not limited to skeletal muscle) to be used to synthesize sugars for use as energy by the rest of the body. Most experts believe that a prolonged fast can lead to muscle wasting, although some dispute this. The use of short-term fasting, or various forms of intermittent fasting, have been used as a form of dieting to circumvent the issues of long fasting.

Intermittent fasting commonly takes the form of periodic fasting, alternate-day fasting, time-restricted feeding, and/or religious fasting. It can be a form of reduced-calorie dieting but pertains entirely to when the metabolism is activated during the day for digestion. The changes to eating habits on a regular basis do not have to be severe or absolutely restrictive to see benefits to cardiovascular health, such as improved glucose metabolism, reduced inflammation, and reduced blood pressure. Studies have suggested that for people in intensive care, an intermittent fasting regimen might "[preserve] energy supply to vital organs and tissues... [and] powerfully activates cell-protective and cellular repair pathways, including autophagy, mitochondrial biogenesis and antioxidant defenses, which may promote resilience to cellular stress." The effects of decreased serum glucose and depleted hepatic glycogen causing the body to switch to ketogenic metabolism are similar to the effects of reduced carbohydrate-based diets. There is evidence demonstrating profound metabolic benefits of intermittent fasting in rodents. However, evidence is lacking or contradictory in humans and requires further investigation, especially over the long-term. Some evidence suggests that intermittent restriction of caloric intake has no weight-loss advantages over continuous calorie restriction plans. For adults, fasting diets appear to be safe and tolerable, however there is a possibility that periods of fasting and hunger could lead to overeating and to weight regain after the fasting period. Adverse effects of fasting are often moderate and include halitosis, fatigue, weakness, and headaches. Fasting diets may be harmful to children and the elderly.

Exclusion Diet
This type of diet is based on the restriction of specific foods or food groups. Examples include gluten-free, Paleo, plant-based, and Mediterranean diets.

Plant-based diets include vegetarian and vegan diets, and can range from the simple exclusion of meat products to diets that only include raw vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, and sprouted grains. Exclusion of animal products can reduce the intake of certain nutrients, which might lead to nutritional deficiencies of protein, iron, zinc, calcium, and vitamins D and B12. Therefore, long term implementation of a plant-based diet requires effective counseling and nutritional supplementation as necessary. Plant-based diets are effective for short-term treatment of overweight and obesity, likely due to the high consumption of low energy density foods. However, evidence for long-term efficacy is limited.

The Paleo diet includes foods that were available to our hunter-gatherer ancestors including meat, nuts, eggs, some oils, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Overall, it is high in protein and moderate in fats and carbohydrates. Some limited evidence suggests various health benefits and effective weight loss with this diet. However, similar to the plant-based diet, the Paleo diet has potential nutritional deficiency risks, specifically with vitamin D, calcium, and iodine.

Gluten-free diets are often used for weight loss but little has been studied about the efficacy of this diet and metabolic mechanism for its effectiveness is unclear.

The Mediterranean diet is characterized by high consumption of vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole-grain cereals, seafood, olive oil, and nuts. Red meat, dairy and alcohol are only recommended in moderation. Studies show that the Mediterranean diet is associated with short term as well as long term weight loss in addition to health and metabolic benefits.

Detox
Detox diets are promoted with unsubstantiated claims that they can eliminate "toxins" from the human body. Many of these diets use herbs or celery and other juicy low-calorie vegetables. Detox diets can include fasting or exclusion (as in juice fasting). Detox diets tend to result in short-term weight loss (because of calorie restriction), followed by weight gain.

Environmentally sustainable
Another kind of diet focuses not on the dieter's health effects, but on its environment. The One Blue Dot plan of the BDA offers recommendations towards reducing diets' environmental impacts, by:
 * 1) Reducing meat to 70g per person per day.
 * 2) Prioritising plant proteins.
 * 3) Promoting fish from sustainable sources.
 * 4) Moderate dairy consumption.
 * 5) Focusing on wholegrain starchy foods.
 * 6) Promoting seasonal locally sourced fruits and vegetables.
 * 7) Reducing high fat, sugar and salty foods overconsumption.
 * 8) Promoting tap water and unsweetened tea/coffee as the de facto choice for healthy hydration.
 * 9) Reducing food waste.

Effectiveness
Several diets are effective for short-term weight loss for obese individuals, with diet success most predicted by adherence and little effect resulting from the type or brand of diet. As weight maintenance depends on calorie intake, diets emphasising certain macronutrients (low-fat, low-carbohydrate, etc.) have been shown to be no more effective than one another and no more effective than diets that maintain a typical mix of foods with smaller portions and perhaps some substitutions (e.g. low-fat milk, or less salad dressing). A meta-analysis of six randomized controlled trials found no difference between low-calorie, low-carbohydrate, and low-fat diets in terms of short-term weight loss, with a 2–4 kilogram weight loss over 12–18 months in all studies. Diets that severely restrict calorie intake do not lead to long term weight loss. Extreme diets may, in some cases, lead to malnutrition.

A major challenge regarding weight loss and dieting relates to compliance. While dieting can effectively promote weight loss in the short term, the intervention is hard to maintain over time and suppresses skeletal muscle thermogenesis. Suppressed thermogenesis accelerates weight regain once the diet stops, unless that phase is accompanied by a well-timed exercise intervention, as described by the Summermatter cycle. Most diet studies do not assess long-term weight loss.

Some studies have found that, on average, short-term dieting results in a "meaningful" long-term weight-loss, although limited because of gradual 1 to 2 kg/year weight regain. Because people who do not participate in weight-loss programs also tend to gain weight over time, and baseline data from such "untreated" participants are typically not included in diet studies, it is possible that diets do result in lower weights in the long-term relative to people who do not diet. Others have suggested that dieting is ineffective as a long-term intervention. For each individual, the results will be different, with some even regaining more weight than they lost, while a few others achieve a tremendous loss, so that the "average weight loss" of a diet is not indicative of the results other dieters may achieve. A 2001 meta-analysis of 29 American studies found that participants of structured weight-loss programs maintained an average of 23% (3 kg) of their initial weight loss after five years, representing a sustained 3.2% reduction in body mass. Unfortunately, patients are generally unhappy with weight loss of <10%, and reductions even as high as 10% are insufficient for changing someone with an "obese" BMI to a "normal weight" BMI.

Partly because diets do not reliably produce long-term positive health outcomes, some argue against using weight loss as a goal, preferring other measures of health such as improvements in cardiovascular biomarkers, sometimes called a Health at Every Size (HAES) approach or a "weight neutral" approach.

Long term losses from dieting are best maintained with continuing professional support, long term increases in physical activity, the use of anti-obesity medications, continued use of meal replacements, and additional periods of dieting to undo weight regain. The most effective approach to weight loss is an in-person, high-intensity, comprehensive lifestyle intervention: overweight or obese adults should maintain regular (at least monthly) contact with a trained interventionalist who can help them engage in exercise, monitor their body weight, and reduce their calorie consumption. Even with high-intensity, comprehensive lifestyle interventions (consisting of diet, physical exercise, and bimonthly or even more frequent contact with trained interventionists), gradual weight regain of 1–2 kg/year still occurs. For patients at high medical risk, bariatric surgery or medications may be warranted in addition to the lifestyle intervention, as dieting by itself may not lead to sustained weight loss.

Many studies overestimate the benefits of calorie restriction because the studies confound exercise and diet (testing the effects of diet and exercise as a combined intervention, rather than the effects of diet alone).

Increased mortality rate
A number of studies have found that intentional weight loss is associated with an increase in mortality in people without weight-related health problems. A 2009 meta-analysis of 26 studies found that "intentional weight loss had a small benefit for individuals classified as unhealthy (with obesity-related risk factors), especially unhealthy obese, but appeared to be associated with slightly increased mortality for healthy individuals, and for those who were overweight but not obese."

Dietary supplements
Due to extreme or unbalanced diets, dietary supplements are sometimes taken in an attempt to replace missing vitamins or minerals. While some supplements could be helpful for people eating an unbalanced diet (if replacing essential nutrients, for example), overdosing on any dietary supplement can cause a range of side effects depending on the supplement and dose that is taken. Supplements should not replace foods that are important to a healthy diet.

Eating disorders
In an editorial for Psychological Medicine, George Hsu concludes that dieting is likely to lead to the development of an eating disorder in the presence of certain risk factors. A 2006 study found that dieting and unhealthy weight-control behaviors were predictive of obesity and eating disorders five years later, with the authors recommending a "shift away from dieting and drastic weight-control measures toward the long-term implementation of healthful eating and physical activity".

Mechanism
When the body is expending more energy than it is consuming (e.g. when exercising), the body's cells rely on internally stored energy sources, such as complex carbohydrates and fats, for energy. The first source to which the body turns is glycogen (by glycogenolysis). Glycogen is a complex carbohydrate, 65% of which is stored in skeletal muscles and the remainder in the liver (totaling about 2,000 kcal in the whole body). It is created from the excess of ingested macronutrients, mainly carbohydrates. When glycogen is nearly depleted, the body begins lipolysis, the mobilization and catabolism of fat stores for energy. In this process fats, obtained from adipose tissue, or fat cells, are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids, which can be used to generate energy. The primary by-products of metabolism are carbon dioxide and water; carbon dioxide is expelled through the respiratory system.

Set-Point Theory
The Set-Point Theory, first introduced in 1953, postulated that each body has a preprogrammed fixed weight, with regulatory mechanisms to compensate. This theory was quickly adopted and used to explain failures in developing effective and sustained weight loss procedures. A 2019 systematic review of multiple weight change procedures, including alternate day fasting and time-restricted feeding but also exercise and overeating, found systematic "energetic errors" for all these procedures. This shows that the body cannot precisely compensate for errors in energy/calorie intake, countering the Set-Point Theory and potentially explaining both weight loss and weight gain such as obesity. This review was conducted on short-term studies, therefore such a mechanism cannot be excluded in the long term, as evidence is currently lacking on this timeframe.

Meal timing
A meal timing schedule is known to be an important factor of any diet. Recent evidence suggest that new scheduling strategies, such as intermittent fasting or skipping meals, and strategically placed snacks before meals, may be recommendable to reduce cardiovascular risks as part of a broader lifestyle and dietary change.

Food diary
A 2008 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine showed that dieters who kept a daily food diary (or diet journal), lost twice as much weight as those who did not keep a food log, suggesting that if a person records their eating, they are more aware of what they consume and therefore eat fewer calories.

Water
A 2009 review found limited evidence suggesting that encouraging water consumption and substituting energy-free beverages for energy-containing beverages (i.e., reducing caloric intake) may facilitate weight management. A 2009 article found that drinking 500 ml of water prior to meals for a 12-week period resulted in increased long-term weight reduction. (References given in main article.)

Society
It is estimated that about 1 out of 3 Americans is dieting at any given time. 85% of dieters are women. Approximately sixty billion dollars are spent every year in the USA on diet products, including "diet foods," such as light sodas, gym memberships or specific regimes. 80% of dieters start by themselves, whereas 20% see a professional or join a paid program. The typical dieter attempts 4 tries per year.

Weight loss groups
Some weight loss groups aim to make money, others work as charities. The former include Weight Watchers and Peertrainer. The latter include Overeaters Anonymous, TOPS Club and groups run by local organizations.

These organizations' customs and practices differ widely. Some groups are modelled on twelve-step programs, while others are quite informal. Some groups advocate certain prepared foods or special menus, while others train dieters to make healthy choices from restaurant menus and while grocery-shopping and cooking.

Attending group meetings for weight reduction programmes rather than receiving one-on-one support may increase the likelihood that obese people will lose weight. Those who participated in groups had more treatment time and were more likely to lose enough weight to improve their health. Study authors suggested that one explanation for the difference is that group participants spent more time with the clinician (or whoever delivered the programme) than those receiving one-on-one support.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Dieting


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Diet

Diet may refer to:

Food

 * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
 * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake
 * Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss or gain
 * Healthy diet, the process of helping to maintain or improve overall health

Politics

 * Diet (assembly), a formal deliberative assembly

Current

 * National Diet, Japan's bicameral legislature, in its current form since 1947, composed of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors
 * Landtag, a diet of states and provinces in Germany, Austria, South Tyrol in Italy, and the national parliament of Liechtenstein
 * Bundestag (Deutscher Bundestag), the lower house of Germany's Parliament, was established in West Germany in 1949, and all of Germany in 1990

Historical

 * Diet of Finland, the legislative assembly of the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1809 to 1906
 * Diet of Hungary, the legislative assembly of the Kingdom of Hungary from 15th century to 1946
 * Imperial Diet (Holy Roman Empire), the imperial assembly of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire until 1806
 * Federal Convention (German Confederation), or Confederate Diet (German: Bundesversammlung or Bundestag) was the only central institution of the German Confederation (1815–1848 and 1850–1866)
 * Reichstag
 * Reichstag (German Empire) (Reichstag), the Diet of the Empire, the legislative assembly of the German Empire, 1871–1917
 * Reichstag (Weimar Republic), (Reichstag), the Diet of the Weimar Republic, from 1919 to 1933
 * Reichstag (Nazi Germany), (Reichstag), the Diet of Nazi Germany, from 1933 to 1945, a purely ceremonial "parliament" in a totalitarian dictatorship without elections

Television, film, or music

 * "Diet", an episode of the Adult Swim animated television series, Aqua Teen Hunger Force
 * The Diet (cartoon), a Beetle Bailey animated short
 * "Diet", a 2020 single by Peakboy

Other uses

 * DIET, an open-source middleware for high-performance computing

title: Diet


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Dubnium

Dubnium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Db and atomic number 105. It is highly radioactive: the most stable known isotope, dubnium-268, has a half-life of about 16 hours. This greatly limits extended research on the element.

Dubnium does not occur naturally on Earth and is produced artificially. The Soviet Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) claimed the first discovery of the element in 1968, followed by the American Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1970. Both teams proposed their names for the new element and used them without formal approval. The long-standing dispute was resolved in 1993 by an official investigation of the discovery claims by the Transfermium Working Group, formed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, resulting in credit for the discovery being officially shared between both teams. The element was formally named dubnium in 1997 after the town of Dubna, the site of the JINR.

Theoretical research establishes dubnium as a member of group 5 in the 6d series of transition metals, placing it under vanadium, niobium, and tantalum. Dubnium should share most properties, such as its valence electron configuration and having a dominant +5 oxidation state, with the other group 5 elements, with a few anomalies due to relativistic effects. A limited investigation of dubnium chemistry has confirmed this.

Background
Uranium, element 92, is the heaviest element to occur in significant quantities in nature; heavier elements can only be practically produced by synthesis. The first synthesis of a new element—neptunium, element 93—was achieved in 1940 by a team of researchers in the United States. In the following years, American scientists synthesized the elements up to mendelevium, element 101, which was synthesized in 1955. From element 102, the priority of discoveries was contested between American and Soviet physicists. Their rivalry resulted in a race for new elements and credit for their discoveries, later named the Transfermium Wars.

Reports
The first report of the discovery of element 105 came from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union, in April 1968. The scientists bombarded 243Am with a beam of 22Ne ions, and reported 9.4 MeV (with a half-life of 0.1–3 seconds) and 9.7 MeV (t1/2 > 0.05 s) alpha activities followed by alpha activities similar to those of either 256103 or 257103. Based on prior theoretical predictions, the two activity lines were assigned to 261105 and 260105, respectively.

 * + → 265−x105 + x  (x = 4, 5)

After observing the alpha decays of element 105, the researchers aimed to observe spontaneous fission (SF) of the element and study the resulting fission fragments. They published a paper in February 1970, reporting multiple examples of two such activities, with half-lives of 14 ms and $2.2 s$. They assigned the former activity to 242mfAm and ascribed the latter activity to an isotope of element 105. They suggested that it was unlikely that this activity could come from a transfer reaction instead of element 105, because the yield ratio for this reaction was significantly lower than that of the 242mfAm-producing transfer reaction, in accordance with theoretical predictions. To establish that this activity was not from a (22Ne,xn) reaction, the researchers bombarded a 243Am target with 18O ions; reactions producing 256103 and 257103 showed very little SF activity (matching the established data), and the reaction producing heavier 258103 and 259103 produced no SF activity at all, in line with theoretical data. The researchers concluded that the activities observed came from SF of element 105.

In April 1970, a team at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), in Berkeley, California, United States, claimed to have synthesized element 105 by bombarding californium-249 with nitrogen-15 ions, with an alpha activity of 9.1 MeV. To ensure this activity was not from a different reaction, the team attempted other reactions: bombarding 249Cf with 14N, Pb with 15N, and Hg with 15N. They stated no such activity was found in those reactions. The characteristics of the daughter nuclei matched those of 256103, implying that the parent nuclei were of 260105.

 * + → 260105 + 4

These results did not confirm the JINR findings regarding the 9.4 MeV or 9.7 MeV alpha decay of 260105, leaving only 261105 as a possibly produced isotope.

JINR then attempted another experiment to create element 105, published in a report in May 1970. They claimed that they had synthesized more nuclei of element 105 and that the experiment confirmed their previous work. According to the paper, the isotope produced by JINR was probably 261105, or possibly 260105. This report included an initial chemical examination: the thermal gradient version of the gas-chromatography method was applied to demonstrate that the chloride of what had formed from the SF activity nearly matched that of niobium pentachloride, rather than hafnium tetrachloride. The team identified a 2.2-second SF activity in a volatile chloride portraying eka-tantalum properties, and inferred that the source of the SF activity must have been element 105.

In June 1970, JINR made improvements on their first experiment, using a purer target and reducing the intensity of transfer reactions by installing a collimator before the catcher. This time, they were able to find 9.1 MeV alpha activities with daughter isotopes identifiable as either 256103 or 257103, implying that the original isotope was either 260105 or 261105.

Naming controversy
JINR did not propose a name after their first report claiming synthesis of element 105, which would have been the usual practice. This led LBL to believe that JINR did not have enough experimental data to back their claim. After collecting more data, JINR proposed the name bohrium (Bo) in honor of the Danish nuclear physicist Niels Bohr, a founder of the theories of atomic structure and quantum theory; they soon changed their proposal to nielsbohrium (Ns) to avoid confusion with boron. Another proposed name was dubnium. When LBL first announced their synthesis of element 105, they proposed that the new element be named hahnium (Ha) after the German chemist Otto Hahn, the "father of nuclear chemistry", thus creating an element naming controversy.

In the early 1970s, both teams reported synthesis of the next element, element 106, but did not suggest names. JINR suggested establishing an international committee to clarify the discovery criteria. This proposal was accepted in 1974 and a neutral joint group formed. Neither team showed interest in resolving the conflict through a third party, so the leading scientists of LBL—Albert Ghiorso and Glenn Seaborg—traveled to Dubna in 1975 and met with the leading scientists of JINR—Georgy Flerov, Yuri Oganessian, and others—to try to resolve the conflict internally and render the neutral joint group unnecessary; after two hours of discussions, this failed. The joint neutral group never assembled to assess the claims, and the conflict remained unresolved. In 1979, IUPAC suggested systematic element names to be used as placeholders until permanent names were established; under it, element 105 would be unnilpentium, from the Latin roots un- and nil- and the Greek root pent- (meaning "one", "zero", and "five", respectively, the digits of the atomic number). Both teams ignored it as they did not wish to weaken their outstanding claims.

In 1981, the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI; Society for Heavy Ion Research) in Darmstadt, Hesse, West Germany, claimed synthesis of element 107; their report came out five years after the first report from JINR but with greater precision, making a more solid claim on discovery. GSI acknowledged JINR's efforts by suggesting the name nielsbohrium for the new element. JINR did not suggest a new name for element 105, stating it was more important to determine its discoverers first.

In 1985, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) formed a Transfermium Working Group (TWG) to assess discoveries and establish final names for the controversial elements. The party held meetings with delegates from the three competing institutes; in 1990, they established criteria on recognition of an element, and in 1991, they finished the work on assessing discoveries and disbanded. These results were published in 1993. According to the report, the first definitely successful experiment was the April 1970 LBL experiment, closely followed by the June 1970 JINR experiment, so credit for the discovery of the element should be shared between the two teams.

LBL said that the input from JINR was overrated in the review. They claimed JINR was only able to unambiguously demonstrate the synthesis of element 105 a year after they did. JINR and GSI endorsed the report.

In 1994, IUPAC published a recommendation on naming the disputed elements. For element 105, they proposed joliotium (Jl) after the French physicist Frédéric Joliot-Curie, a contributor to the development of nuclear physics and chemistry; this name was originally proposed by the Soviet team for element 102, which by then had long been called nobelium. This recommendation was criticized by the American scientists for several reasons. Firstly, their suggestions were scrambled: the names rutherfordium and hahnium, originally suggested by Berkeley for elements 104 and 105, were respectively reassigned to elements 106 and 108. Secondly, elements 104 and 105 were given names favored by JINR, despite earlier recognition of LBL as an equal co-discoverer for both of them. Thirdly and most importantly, IUPAC rejected the name seaborgium for element 106, having just approved a rule that an element could not be named after a living person, even though the 1993 report had given the LBL team the sole credit for its discovery.

In 1995, IUPAC abandoned the controversial rule and established a committee of national representatives aimed at finding a compromise. They suggested seaborgium for element 106 in exchange for the removal of all the other American proposals, except for the established name lawrencium for element 103. The equally entrenched name nobelium for element 102 was replaced by flerovium after Georgy Flerov, following the recognition by the 1993 report that that element had been first synthesized in Dubna. This was rejected by American scientists and the decision was retracted. The name flerovium was later used for element 114.

In 1996, IUPAC held another meeting, reconsidered all names in hand, and accepted another set of recommendations; it was approved and published in 1997. Element 105 was named dubnium (Db), after Dubna in Russia, the location of the JINR; the American suggestions were used for elements 102, 103, 104, and 106. The name dubnium had been used for element 104 in the previous IUPAC recommendation. The American scientists "reluctantly" approved this decision. IUPAC pointed out that the Berkeley laboratory had already been recognized several times, in the naming of berkelium, californium, and americium, and that the acceptance of the names rutherfordium and seaborgium for elements 104 and 106 should be offset by recognizing JINR's contributions to the discovery of elements 104, 105, and 106.

Even after 1997, LBL still sometimes used the name hahnium for element 105 in their own material, doing so as recently as 2014. However, the problem was resolved in the literature as Jens Volker Kratz, editor of Radiochimica Acta, refused to accept papers not using the 1997 IUPAC nomenclature.

Isotopes

Dubnium, having an atomic number of 105, is a superheavy element; like all elements with such high atomic numbers, it is very unstable. The longest-lasting known isotope of dubnium, 268Db, has a half-life of around a day. No stable isotopes have been seen, and a 2012 calculation by JINR suggested that the half-lives of all dubnium isotopes would not significantly exceed a day. Dubnium can only be obtained by artificial production.

The short half-life of dubnium limits experimentation. This is exacerbated by the fact that the most stable isotopes are the hardest to synthesize. Elements with a lower atomic number have stable isotopes with a lower neutron–proton ratio than those with higher atomic number, meaning that the target and beam nuclei that could be employed to create the superheavy element have fewer neutrons than needed to form these most stable isotopes. (Different techniques based on rapid neutron capture and transfer reactions are being considered as of the 2010s, but those based on the collision of a large and small nucleus still dominate research in the area.)

Only a few atoms of 268Db can be produced in each experiment, and thus the measured lifetimes vary significantly during the process. As of 2022, following additional experiments performed at the JINR's Superheavy Element Factory (which started operations in 2019), the half-life of 268Db is measured to be $+6 −4$ hours. The second most stable isotope, 270Db, has been produced in even smaller quantities: three atoms in total, with lifetimes of 33.4 h, 1.3 h, and 1.6 h. These two are the heaviest isotopes of dubnium to date, and both were produced as a result of decay of the heavier nuclei 288Mc and 294Ts rather than directly, because the experiments that yielded them were originally designed in Dubna for 48Ca beams. For its mass, 48Ca has by far the greatest neutron excess of all practically stable nuclei, both quantitative and relative, which correspondingly helps synthesize superheavy nuclei with more neutrons, but this gain is compensated by the decreased likelihood of fusion for high atomic numbers.

Predicted properties
According to the periodic law, dubnium should belong to group 5, with vanadium, niobium, and tantalum. Several studies have investigated the properties of element 105 and found that they generally agreed with the predictions of the periodic law. Significant deviations may nevertheless occur, due to relativistic effects, which dramatically change physical properties on both atomic and macroscopic scales. These properties have remained challenging to measure for several reasons: the difficulties of production of superheavy atoms, the low rates of production, which only allows for microscopic scales, requirements for a radiochemistry laboratory to test the atoms, short half-lives of those atoms, and the presence of many unwanted activities apart from those of synthesis of superheavy atoms. So far, studies have only been performed on single atoms.

Atomic and physical
A direct relativistic effect is that as the atomic numbers of elements increase, the innermost electrons begin to revolve faster around the nucleus as a result of an increase of electromagnetic attraction between an electron and a nucleus. Similar effects have been found for the outermost s orbitals (and p1/2 ones, though in dubnium they are not occupied): for example, the 7s orbital contracts by 25% in size and is stabilized by 2.6 eV.

A more indirect effect is that the contracted s and p1/2 orbitals shield the charge of the nucleus more effectively, leaving less for the outer d and f electrons, which therefore move in larger orbitals. Dubnium is greatly affected by this: unlike the previous group 5 members, its 7s electrons are slightly more difficult to extract than its 6d electrons.

Another effect is the spin–orbit interaction, particularly spin–orbit splitting, which splits the 6d subshell—the azimuthal quantum number ℓ of a d shell is 2—into two subshells, with four of the ten orbitals having their ℓ lowered to 3/2 and six raised to 5/2. All ten energy levels are raised; four of them are lower than the other six. (The three 6d electrons normally occupy the lowest energy levels, 6d3/2.)

A singly ionized atom of dubnium (Db+) should lose a 6d electron compared to a neutral atom; the doubly (Db2+) or triply (Db3+) ionized atoms of dubnium should eliminate 7s electrons, unlike its lighter homologs. Despite the changes, dubnium is still expected to have five valence electrons. As the 6d orbitals of dubnium are more destabilized than the 5d ones of tantalum, and Db3+ is expected to have two 6d, rather than 7s, electrons remaining, the resulting +3 oxidation state is expected to be unstable and even rarer than that of tantalum. The ionization potential of dubnium in its maximum +5 oxidation state should be slightly lower than that of tantalum and the ionic radius of dubnium should increase compared to tantalum; this has a significant effect on dubnium's chemistry.

Atoms of dubnium in the solid state should arrange themselves in a body-centered cubic configuration, like the previous group 5 elements. The predicted density of dubnium is 21.6 g/cm3.

Chemical

Computational chemistry is simplest in gas-phase chemistry, in which interactions between molecules may be ignored as negligible. Multiple authors have researched dubnium pentachloride; calculations show it to be consistent with the periodic laws by exhibiting the properties of a compound of a group 5 element. For example, the molecular orbital levels indicate that dubnium uses three 6d electron levels as expected. Compared to its tantalum analog, dubnium pentachloride is expected to show increased covalent character: a decrease in the effective charge on an atom and an increase in the overlap population (between orbitals of dubnium and chlorine).

Calculations of solution chemistry indicate that the maximum oxidation state of dubnium, +5, will be more stable than those of niobium and tantalum and the +3 and +4 states will be less stable. The tendency towards hydrolysis of cations with the highest oxidation state should continue to decrease within group 5 but is still expected to be quite rapid. Complexation of dubnium is expected to follow group 5 trends in its richness. Calculations for hydroxo-chlorido- complexes have shown a reversal in the trends of complex formation and extraction of group 5 elements, with dubnium being more prone to do so than tantalum.

Experimental chemistry
Experimental results of the chemistry of dubnium date back to 1974 and 1976. JINR researchers used a thermochromatographic system and concluded that the volatility of dubnium bromide was less than that of niobium bromide and about the same as that of hafnium bromide. It is not certain that the detected fission products confirmed that the parent was indeed element 105. These results may imply that dubnium behaves more like hafnium than niobium.

The next studies on the chemistry of dubnium were conducted in 1988, in Berkeley. They examined whether the most stable oxidation state of dubnium in aqueous solution was +5. Dubnium was fumed twice and washed with concentrated nitric acid; sorption of dubnium on glass cover slips was then compared with that of the group 5 elements niobium and tantalum and the group 4 elements zirconium and hafnium produced under similar conditions. The group 5 elements are known to sorb on glass surfaces; the group 4 elements do not. Dubnium was confirmed as a group 5 member. Surprisingly, the behavior on extraction from mixed nitric and hydrofluoric acid solution into methyl isobutyl ketone differed between dubnium, tantalum, and niobium. Dubnium did not extract and its behavior resembled niobium more closely than tantalum, indicating that complexing behavior could not be predicted purely from simple extrapolations of trends within a group in the periodic table.

This prompted further exploration of the chemical behavior of complexes of dubnium. Various labs jointly conducted thousands of repetitive chromatographic experiments between 1988 and 1993. All group 5 elements and protactinium were extracted from concentrated hydrochloric acid; after mixing with lower concentrations of hydrogen chloride, small amounts of hydrogen fluoride were added to start selective re-extraction. Dubnium showed behavior different from that of tantalum but similar to that of niobium and its pseudohomolog protactinium at concentrations of hydrogen chloride below 12 moles per liter. This similarity to the two elements suggested that the formed complex was either or. After extraction experiments of dubnium from hydrogen bromide into diisobutyl carbinol (2,6-dimethylheptan-4-ol), a specific extractant for protactinium, with subsequent elutions with the hydrogen chloride/hydrogen fluoride mix as well as hydrogen chloride, dubnium was found to be less prone to extraction than either protactinium or niobium. This was explained as an increasing tendency to form non‐extractable complexes of multiple negative charges. Further experiments in 1992 confirmed the stability of the +5 state: Db(V) was shown to be extractable from cation‐exchange columns with α‐hydroxyisobutyrate, like the group 5 elements and protactinium; Db(III) and Db(IV) were not. In 1998 and 1999, new predictions suggested that dubnium would extract nearly as well as niobium and better than tantalum from halide solutions, which was later confirmed.

The first isothermal gas chromatography experiments were performed in 1992 with 262Db (half-life 35 seconds). The volatilities for niobium and tantalum were similar within error limits, but dubnium appeared to be significantly less volatile. It was postulated that traces of oxygen in the system might have led to formation of, which was predicted to be less volatile than. Later experiments in 1996 showed that group 5 chlorides were more volatile than the corresponding bromides, with the exception of tantalum, presumably due to formation of. Later volatility studies of chlorides of dubnium and niobium as a function of controlled partial pressures of oxygen showed that formation of oxychlorides and general volatility are dependent on concentrations of oxygen. The oxychlorides were shown to be less volatile than the chlorides.

In 2004–05, researchers from Dubna and Livermore identified a new dubnium isotope, 268Db, as a fivefold alpha decay product of the newly created element 115. This new isotope proved to be long-lived enough to allow further chemical experimentation, with a half-life of over a day. In the 2004 experiment, a thin layer with dubnium was removed from the surface of the target and dissolved in aqua regia with tracers and a lanthanum carrier, from which various +3, +4, and +5 species were precipitated on adding ammonium hydroxide. The precipitate was washed and dissolved in hydrochloric acid, where it converted to nitrate form and was then dried on a film and counted. Mostly containing a +5 species, which was immediately assigned to dubnium, it also had a +4 species; based on that result, the team decided that additional chemical separation was needed. In 2005, the experiment was repeated, with the final product being hydroxide rather than nitrate precipitate, which was processed further in both Livermore (based on reverse phase chromatography) and Dubna (based on anion exchange chromatography). The +5 species was effectively isolated; dubnium appeared three times in tantalum-only fractions and never in niobium-only fractions. It was noted that these experiments were insufficient to draw conclusions about the general chemical profile of dubnium.

In 2009, at the JAEA tandem accelerator in Japan, dubnium was processed in nitric and hydrofluoric acid solution, at concentrations where niobium forms and tantalum forms. Dubnium's behavior was close to that of niobium but not tantalum; it was thus deduced that dubnium formed. From the available information, it was concluded that dubnium often behaved like niobium, sometimes like protactinium, but rarely like tantalum.

In 2021, the volatile heavy group 5 oxychlorides MOCl3 (M = Nb, Ta, Db) were experimentally studied at the JAEA tandem accelerator. The trend in volatilities was found to be NbOCl3 > TaOCl3 ≥ DbOCl3, so that dubnium behaves in line with periodic trends.

title: Dubnium


text:
Disaccharide

A disaccharide (also called a double sugar or biose) is the sugar formed when two monosaccharides are joined by glycosidic linkage. Like monosaccharides, disaccharides are simple sugars soluble in water. Three common examples are sucrose, lactose, and maltose.

Disaccharides are one of the four chemical groupings of carbohydrates (monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides). The most common types of disaccharides—sucrose, lactose, and maltose—have 12 carbon atoms, with the general formula C12H22O11. The differences in these disaccharides are due to atomic arrangements within the molecule.

The joining of monosaccharides into a double sugar happens by a condensation reaction, which involves the elimination of a water molecule from the functional groups only. Breaking apart a double sugar into its two monosaccharides is accomplished by hydrolysis with the help of a type of enzyme called a disaccharidase. As building the larger sugar ejects a water molecule, breaking it down consumes a water molecule. These reactions are vital in metabolism. Each disaccharide is broken down with the help of a corresponding disaccharidase (sucrase, lactase, and maltase).

Classification
There are two functionally different classes of disaccharides:
 * Reducing disaccharides, in which one monosaccharide, the reducing sugar of the pair, still has a free hemiacetal unit that can perform as a reducing aldehyde group; lactose, maltose and cellobiose are examples of reducing disaccharides, each with one hemiacetal unit, the other occupied by the glycosidic bond, which prevents it from acting as a reducing agent. They can easily be detected by the Woehlk test or Fearon's test on methylamine.
 * Non-reducing disaccharides, in which the component monosaccharides bond through an acetal linkage between their anomeric centers. This results in neither monosaccharide being left with a hemiacetal unit that is free to act as a reducing agent. Sucrose and trehalose are examples of non-reducing disaccharides because their glycosidic bond is between their respective hemiacetal carbon atoms. The reduced chemical reactivity of the non-reducing sugars, in comparison to reducing sugars, may be an advantage where stability in storage is important.

Formation
The formation of a disaccharide molecule from two monosaccharide molecules proceeds by displacing a hydroxy group from one molecule and a hydrogen nucleus (a proton) from the other, so that the new vacant bonds on the monosaccharides join the two monomers together. Because of the removal of the water molecule from the product, the term of convenience for such a process is "dehydration reaction" (also "condensation reaction" or "dehydration synthesis"). For example, milk sugar (lactose) is a disaccharide made by condensation of one molecule of each of the monosaccharides glucose and galactose, whereas the disaccharide sucrose in sugar cane and sugar beet, is a condensation product of glucose and fructose. Maltose, another common disaccharide, is condensed from two glucose molecules.

The dehydration reaction that bonds monosaccharides into disaccharides (and also bonds monosaccharides into more complex polysaccharides) forms what are called glycosidic bonds.

Properties
The glycosidic bond can be formed between any hydroxy group on the component monosaccharide. So, even if both component sugars are the same (e.g., glucose), different bond combinations (regiochemistry) and stereochemistry (alpha- or beta-) result in disaccharides that are diastereoisomers with different chemical and physical properties. Depending on the monosaccharide constituents, disaccharides are sometimes crystalline, sometimes water-soluble, and sometimes sweet-tasting and sticky-feeling. Disaccharides can serve as functional groups by forming glycosidic bonds with other organic compounds, forming glycosides.

Assimilation
Digestion of disaccharides involves breakdown into monosaccharides.

Common disaccharides

 * {| class="wikitable"

! Disaccharide ! Unit 1 ! Unit 2 ! Bond
 * Sucrose (table sugar, cane sugar, beet sugar, or saccharose)
 * Glucose || Fructose || α(1→2)β
 * Lactose (milk sugar)
 * Galactose || Glucose || β(1→4)
 * Maltose (malt sugar)
 * Glucose || Glucose || α(1→4)
 * Trehalose
 * Glucose || Glucose || α(1→1)α
 * Cellobiose
 * Glucose || Glucose || β(1→4)
 * Chitobiose
 * Glucosamine || Glucosamine || β(1→4)
 * }
 * Cellobiose
 * Glucose || Glucose || β(1→4)
 * Chitobiose
 * Glucosamine || Glucosamine || β(1→4)
 * }
 * }

Maltose, cellobiose, and chitobiose are hydrolysis products of the polysaccharides starch, cellulose, and chitin, respectively.

Less common disaccharides include:

 * {| class="wikitable"

! Disaccharide ! Units ! Bond
 * Kojibiose || Two glucoses || α(1→2)
 * Nigerose || Two glucoses || α(1→3)
 * Isomaltose || Two glucoses || α(1→6)
 * β,β-Trehalose || Two glucoses || β(1→1)β
 * α,β-Trehalose || Two glucoses || α(1→1)β
 * Sophorose || Two glucoses || β(1→2)
 * Laminaribiose || Two glucoses || β(1→3)
 * Gentiobiose || Two glucoses || β(1→6)
 * Trehalulose
 * One glucose and one fructose
 * α(1→1)
 * Turanose || One glucose and one fructose || α(1→3)
 * Maltulose || One glucose and one fructose || α(1→4)
 * Leucrose || One glucose and one fructose || α(1→5)
 * Isomaltulose || One glucose and one fructose || α(1→6)
 * Gentiobiulose || One glucose and one fructose || β(1→6)
 * Mannobiose || Two mannoses || Either α(1→2), α(1→3), α(1→4), or α(1→6)
 * Melibiose || One galactose and one glucose || α(1→6)
 * Allolactose || One galactose and one glucose || β(1→6)
 * Melibiulose || One galactose and one fructose || α(1→6)
 * Lactulose || One galactose and one fructose || β(1→4)
 * Rutinose || One rhamnose and one glucose || α(1→6)
 * Rutinulose || One rhamnose and one fructose || β(1→6)
 * Xylobiose || Two xylopyranoses || β(1→4)
 * }
 * Leucrose || One glucose and one fructose || α(1→5)
 * Isomaltulose || One glucose and one fructose || α(1→6)
 * Gentiobiulose || One glucose and one fructose || β(1→6)
 * Mannobiose || Two mannoses || Either α(1→2), α(1→3), α(1→4), or α(1→6)
 * Melibiose || One galactose and one glucose || α(1→6)
 * Allolactose || One galactose and one glucose || β(1→6)
 * Melibiulose || One galactose and one fructose || α(1→6)
 * Lactulose || One galactose and one fructose || β(1→4)
 * Rutinose || One rhamnose and one glucose || α(1→6)
 * Rutinulose || One rhamnose and one fructose || β(1→6)
 * Xylobiose || Two xylopyranoses || β(1→4)
 * }
 * Melibiulose || One galactose and one fructose || α(1→6)
 * Lactulose || One galactose and one fructose || β(1→4)
 * Rutinose || One rhamnose and one glucose || α(1→6)
 * Rutinulose || One rhamnose and one fructose || β(1→6)
 * Xylobiose || Two xylopyranoses || β(1→4)
 * }
 * Rutinulose || One rhamnose and one fructose || β(1→6)
 * Xylobiose || Two xylopyranoses || β(1→4)
 * }
 * }

title: Disaccharide


text:
Dactylic hexameter

Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, u for a short, and u u for a position that may be a long or two shorts):

 * – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – –

Here, "|" (pipe symbol) marks the beginning of a foot in the line. Thus there are six feet, each of which is either a dactyl (– u u) or a spondee (– –). The first four feet can either be dactyls, spondees, or a mix. The fifth foot can also sometimes be a spondee, but this is rare, as it most often is a dactyl. The last foot is a spondee.

The hexameter is traditionally associated with classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin and was consequently considered to be the grand style of Western classical poetry. Some well known examples of its use are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica, Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lucan's Pharsalia (an epic on Caesar's civil war), Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica, and Statius's Thebaid.

However, hexameters had a wide use outside of epic. Greek works in hexameters include Hesiod's Works and Days and Theogony, Theocritus's Idylls, and Callimachus's hymns. In Latin famous works include Lucretius's philosophical De rerum natura, Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, book 10 of Columella's manual on agriculture, as well as Latin satirical poems by the poets Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. The hexameter continued to be used in Christian times, for example in the Carmen paschale of the 5th-century Irish poet Sedulius and Bernard of Cluny's 12th-century satire De contemptu mundi among many others.

Hexameters also form part of elegiac poetry in both languages, the elegiac couplet being a dactylic hexameter line paired with a dactylic pentameter line. This form of verse was used for love poetry by Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, for Ovid's letters from exile, and for many of the epigrams of Martial.

Syllables
Ancient Greek and Latin poetry is made up of long and short syllables arranged in various patterns. In Greek, a long syllable is συλλαβὴ μακρά and a short syllable is συλλαβὴ βραχεῖα. In Latin the terms are syllaba longa and syllaba brevis. The process of deciding which syllables are long and which are short is known as scansion.

A syllable is long if it contains a long vowel or a diphthong: Ae-nē-ās, au-rō. It is also long (with certain exceptions) if it has a short vowel followed by two consonants, even if these are in different words: con - dunt, et ter rīs, tot vol -ve-re. In this case a syllable like et is said to be long by position.

There are some exceptions to the above rules, however. For example, tr, cr, pr, gr, and pl (and other combinations of a consonant with r or l) can count as a single consonant, so that the word patrem could be pronounced either pa-trem with the first syllable short or pat-rem with the first syllable long. Also the letter h is ignored in scansion, so that in the phrase et horret the syllable et remains short. qu counts as a single consonant, so that in the word aqua "water" the first syllable is short, not like the Italian acqua.

In certain words like Iuppiter, Iovem, iam, iussit, and iēcit, i is a consonant, pronounced like the English y, so Iup-pi-ter has three syllables and iē-cit "he threw" has two. But in I-ū-lus, the name of Aeneas's son, I is a vowel and forms a separate syllable. Tro-i-us "Trojan" has three syllables, but Tro-iae "of Troy" has two.

In some editions of Latin texts the consonant v is written as u, in which case u is also often consonantal. This can sometimes cause ambiguity; e.g., in the word uoluit (= vol-vit) "he rolls" the second u is a consonant, but in uoluit (= vo-lu-it) "he wanted" the second u is a vowel.

Feet
A hexameter line can be divided into six feet (Greek ἕξ hex = "six"). In strict dactylic hexameter, each foot would be a dactyl (a long and two short syllables, i.e. – u u), but classical meter allows for the substitution of a spondee (two long syllables, i.e. – –) in place of a dactyl in most positions. Specifically, the first four feet can either be dactyls or spondees more or less freely. The fifth foot is usually a dactyl (around 95% of the lines in Homer).

The sixth foot can be filled by either a trochee (a long then short syllable) or a spondee. Thus the dactylic line most normally is scanned as follows:
 * – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – x |

(Here "–" = a long syllable, "u" = a short syllable, " u u " = either one long or two shorts, and "x" = an anceps syllable, which can be long or short.)

An example of this in Latin is the first line of Virgil's Aeneid:

 * arma virumque canō, Troiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs
 * "I sing of arms, and of the man who first from the shores of Troy ..."

The scansion is generally marked as follows, by placing long and short marks above the central vowel of each syllable:

– u  u  |  –   u  u  |  –   –  |  –    – |   – u  u  | – – ar ma vi | rum que ca | nō Troj | jae quī | prī mu sa | bō rīs dactyl |   dactyl   | spondee | spondee |  dactyl   | spondee

(Spaces mark syllable breaks)

In dactylic verse, short syllables always come in pairs, so words such as mīlitēs "soldiers" or facilius "more easily" cannot be used in a hexameter.

Elision
In Latin, when a word ends in a vowel or -m and is followed by a word starting with a vowel, the last vowel is usually elided (i.e. removed or pronounced quickly enough not to add to the length of the syllable), for example, Iun(ō) aeternum; poss(e) Ītalia; Teucrōr(um) āvertere, iamqu(e) eadem. Again, "h" is ignored and does not prevent elision: monstr(um) (h)orrendum.

In Greek, short vowels elide freely, and the elision is shown by an apostrophe, for example in line 2 of the Iliad: ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε "which caused countless sufferings for the Achaeans". However, a long vowel is not elided: Πηληϊά δεω Ἀχιλῆος. This feature is sometimes imitated in Latin for special effect, for example, fēmine ō u lulātu "with womanly wailing" (Aen. 9.477).

When a vowel is elided, it does not count in the scansion; so for the purposes of scansion, Iu-n(o) ae-ter-num has four syllables.

Caesura
Almost every hexameter has a word break, known as a caesura, in the middle of the 3rd foot, sometimes (but not always) coinciding with a break in sense. In most cases (85% of lines in Virgil) this comes after the first syllable of the 3rd foot, as in ca/no in the above example. This is known as a strong or masculine caesura.

When the 3rd foot is a dactyl, the caesura can come after the second syllable of the 3rd foot; this is known as a weak or feminine caesura. It is more common in Greek than in Latin. An example is the first line of Homer's Odyssey:

 * ἄνδρα μοι / ἔννεπε, / μοῦσα, πο/λύτροπον, / ὃς μάλα / πολλὰ
 * "Tell me, Muse, of the man of many wiles, who very much ..."
 * "Tell me, Muse, of the man of many wiles, who very much ..."

In Latin (but not in Greek, as the above example shows), whenever a feminine caesura is used in the 3rd foot, it is usually accompanied by masculine caesuras in the 2nd and 4th feet also:

 * infan/dum, re/ gina, iu/bes reno/vare do/lorem
 * "You are bidding me, o queen, to renew an unspeakable sorrow"

Sometimes a line is found without a 3rd foot caesura, such as the following. In this case the 2nd and 4th foot caesuras are obligatory:

 * inde to/ro pater / Aene/as sic / orsus ab / alto
 * "then from his high couch Father Aeneas began as follows"

In Greek
The hexameter was first used by early Greek poets of the oral tradition, and the most complete extant examples of their works are the Iliad and the Odyssey, which influenced the authors of all later classical epics that survive today. Early epic poetry was also accompanied by music, and pitch changes associated with the accented Greek must have highlighted the melody, though the exact mechanism is still a topic of discussion.

The first line of Homer’s Iliad provides an example:

 * μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
 * "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilles"
 * "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilles"

Dividing the line into metrical units or feet it can be scanned as follows:

 * μῆ-νιν ἄ / ει-δε, θε / ά, Πη / λη-ϊ-ά / δεω Ἀ-χι / λῆ-ος
 * (-deō is one syllable)
 * dactyl, dactyl, spondee, dactyl, dactyl, spondee
 * | – u u | – u u | –, – | – u u | – u u | – – |

This line also includes a masculine caesura after θεά, a break that separates the line into two parts. Homer employs a feminine caesura more commonly than later writers. An example occurs in Iliad 1.5:

 * οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή
 * "... and every bird; and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled"

 * οἰ-ω / νοῖ-σί τε / πᾶ-σι, Δι / ὸς δ’ ἐ-τε / λεί-ε-το / βου-λή,
 * – – | – u u | – u, u | – u u | – u u | – – |
 * – – | – u u | – u, u | – u u | – u u | – – |

Homer’s hexameters contain a higher proportion of dactyls than later hexameter poetry. They are also characterised by a laxer following of verse principles than later epicists almost invariably adhered to. For example, Homer allows spondaic fifth feet (albeit not often), whereas many later authors do not.

Homer also altered the forms of words to allow them to fit the hexameter, typically by using a dialectal form: ptolis is an epic form used instead of the Attic polis as necessary for the meter. Proper names sometimes take forms to fit the meter, for example Pouludamas instead of the metrically unviable Poludamas.

Some lines require a knowledge of the digamma for their scansion, e.g. Iliad 1.108:
 * ἐσθλὸν δ’ οὐτέ τί πω εἶπας ἔπος οὔτ’ ἐτέλεσσας
 * "you have not yet spoken a good word nor brought one to pass"
 * "you have not yet spoken a good word nor brought one to pass"

 * ἐσ-θλὸν / δ’ οὐ-τέ τί / πω εἶ/πας ἔ-πος / οὔτ’ ἐ-τέ / λεσ-σας
 * | – – | – u u | – – | – u u | – u u | – – |
 * | – – | – u u | – – | – u u | – u u | – – |

Here the word ἔπος (epos) was originally ϝέπος (wepos) in Ionian; the digamma, later lost, lengthened the last syllable of the preceding εἶπας (eipas) and removed the apparent defect in the meter. A digamma also saved the hiatus in the third foot. This example demonstrates the oral tradition of the Homeric epics that flourished before they were written down sometime in the 7th century BC.

Most of the later rules of hexameter composition have their origins in the methods and practices of Homer.

In Latin
The hexameter came into Latin as an adaptation from Greek long after the practice of singing the epics had faded. Consequentially, the properties of the meter were learned as specific rules rather than as a natural result of musical expression. Also, because the Latin language generally has a higher proportion of long syllables than Greek, it is by nature more spondaic. Thus the Latin hexameter took on characteristics of its own.

Ennius
The earliest example of hexameter in Latin poetry is the Annales of Ennius (now mostly lost except for about 600 lines), which established it as the standard for later Latin epics; it was written towards the end of Ennius's life about 172 BC. Ennius experimented with different kinds of lines, for example, lines with five dactyls:

 * tum tuba / terribi/li soni/tu tara/tantara / dixit
 * "Then the trumpet with terrifying sound went 'taratantara!'"

or lines consisting entirely of spondees:

 * olli / respon/dit rex / Alba/i Lon/gai
 * "To him replied the king of Alba Longa"

lines without a caesura:

 * sparsis / hastis / longis / campus / splendet et / horret
 * "With scattered long spears the plain gleams and bristles"

lines ending in a one-syllable word or in words of more than three syllables:

 * unus ho/mo no/bis cunc/tando / restitu/it rem
 * "A single man, by delaying, restored the situation for us."

 * nec m(i) au/rum pos/co nec /mi preti/um dede/ritis
 * non cau/ponan/tes bel/lum sed / bellige/rantes
 * "I do not demand gold for myself nor should you give me a price:
 * not buying and selling war, but waging it"

or even lines starting with two short syllables:
 * melanu/rum, tur/dum, meru/lamqu(e) um/bramque ma/rinam
 * | u u – | – – | –, u u | – – | – u u | – –
 * "the blacktail, the rainbow wrasse, the bird wrasse, and the maigre" (kinds of fish)

However, most of these features were abandoned by later writers or used only occasionally for special effect.

Later writers
Later Republican writers, such as Lucretius, Catullus, and even Cicero, wrote hexameter compositions, and it was at this time that the principles of Latin hexameter were firmly established and followed by later writers such as Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, and Juvenal. Virgil's opening line for the Aeneid is a classic example:

 * Arma vi/rumque ca/nō, Trō/iae quī/ prīmus ab/ ōrīs
 * "I sing of arms and of the man who first from the shores of Troy ..."

In Latin, lines were arranged so that the metrically long syllables—those occurring at the beginning of a foot—often avoided the natural stress of a word. In the earlier feet of a line, meter and stress were expected to clash, while in the last two feet they were expected to coincide, as in prímus ab/ óris above. The coincidence of word accent and meter in the last two feet could be achieved by restricting the last word to one of two or three syllables.

Most lines (about 85% in Virgil) have a caesura or word division after the first syllable of the 3rd foot, as above ca/nō. This is known as a strong or masculine caesura. Because of the penultimate accent in Latin, this ensures that the word accent and meter will not coincide in the 3rd foot. But in those lines with a feminine or weak caesura, such as the following, there is inevitably a coincidence of meter and accent in the 3rd foot:

 * insequi/tur cla/ mórque vi/rum stri/dórque ru/déntum
 * "there follows shouting of men and rattling of ropes"

To offset this, whenever there was a feminine caesura in the 3rd foot, there was usually also a masculine caesura in the 2nd and 4th feet, to ensure that in those feet at least, the word accent and meter did not coincide.

Metrical effects
By the age of Augustus, poets like Virgil closely followed the rules of the meter and approached it in a highly rhetorical way, looking for effects that can be exploited in skilled recitation. For example, the following line from the Aeneid (8.596) describes the movement and sound of galloping horses:

 * quadrupe/dante pu/trem soni/tū quatit/ ungula/ campum
 * "with four-footed sound the hoof shakes the crumbling plain"

This line is made up of five dactyls and a closing spondee, an unusual rhythmic arrangement that imitates the described action. A different effect is found in 8.452, where Virgil describes how the blacksmith sons of Vulcan forged Aeneas' shield. The five spondees and the word accents cutting across the verse rhythm give an impression of huge effort:

 * ill(ī) in/ter sē/sē mul/tā vī / bracchia / tollunt
 * "They with much force raise their arms one after another"

A slightly different effect is found in the following line (3.658), describing the terrifying one-eyed giant Polyphemus, blinded by Ulysses. Here again there are five spondees but there are also three elisions, which cause the word accent of all the words but ingens to coincide with the beginning of each foot:

 * monstr(um) hor/rend(um), in/form(e), in/gens, cui / lumen a/demptum
 * "A horrendous huge shapeless monster, whose eye (lit. light) had been removed"

A succession of long syllables in some lines indicates slow movement, as in the following example where Aeneas and his companion the Sibyl (a priestess of Apollo) were entering the darkness of the world of the dead:

 * ibant / obscu/ri so/la sub / nocte per / umbram
 * "they were going in the darkness beneath the lonely night through the shadow"

The following example (Aeneid 2.9) describes how Aeneas is reluctant to begin his narrative, since it is already past midnight. The feminine caesura after suadentque without a following 4th-foot caesura ensures that all the last four feet have word accent at the beginning, which is unusual. The monotonous effect is reinforced by the assonance of dent ... dent and the alliteration of S ... S:

 * ... Et / iam nox / umida / caelo
 * praecipi/tat, sua/déntque ca/déntia / sídera / sómnos.
 * "And already the moist night is falling from the sky
 * and the setting constellations are inviting sleep"

Dactyls are associated with sleep again in the following unusual line, which describes the activity of a priestess who is feeding a magic serpent (Aen. 4.486). In this line, there are five dactyls, and every one is accented on the first syllable:

 * spárgens / úmida / mélla so/pórife/rúmque pa/páver
 * "sprinkling moist honey and sleep-inducing poppy"

A different technique, at 1.105, is used when describing a ship at sea during a storm. Here Virgil places a single-syllable word at the end of the line. This produces a jarring rhythm that echoes the crash of a large wave against the side of the ship:

 * ... et undīs
 * dat latus;/ insequi/tur cumu/lo prae/ruptus a/quae mōns.
 * "(The boat) gives its side to the waves; there immediately follows in a heap a steep mountain of water."

The Roman poet Horace uses a similar trick to highlight the comedic irony in this famous line from his Ars Poetica (line 139):

 * Parturi/ent mon/tes, nas/cetur/ rīdicu/lus mūs
 * "The mountains will be in labor, but all that will be born is a ridiculous ... mouse"

Usually in Latin the 5th foot of a hexameter is a dactyl. However, in his poem 64, Catullus several times uses a 5th foot spondee, which gives a Greek flavour to his verse, as in this line describing the forested Vale of Tempe in northern Greece:

 * Tempe, / quae sil/vae cin/gunt super / impen /dentes,
 * "Tempe, which woods surround, hanging over it"

Virgil also occasionally imitates Greek practice, for example, in the first line of his 3rd Eclogue:

 * dīc mihi, / Dāmoe/tā, cu/ium pecus? // an Meli/boei?
 * "Tell me, Damoetas, whose cattle are these? Are they Meliboeus's?"

Here there is a break in sense after a 4th-foot dactyl, a feature known as a bucolic diaeresis, because it is frequently used in Greek pastoral poetry. In fact it is common in Homer too (as in the first line of the Odyssey quoted above), but rare in Latin epic.

Stylistic features of epic
Certain stylistic features are characteristic of epic hexameter poetry, especially as written by Virgil.

Enjambment
Hexameters are frequently enjambed—the meaning runs over from one line to the next, without terminal punctuation—which helps to create the long, flowing narrative of epic. Sentences can also end in different places in the line, for example, after the first foot. In this, classical epic differs from medieval Latin, where the lines are often composed individually, with a break in sense at the end of each one.

Poetic vocabulary
Often in poetry ordinary words are replaced by poetic ones, for example unda or lympha for water, aequora for sea, puppis for ship, amnis for river, and so on. Some ordinary Latin words are avoided, e.g. audiunt, mīlitēs, hominibus, facilius, mulierēs, familiae, voluptātibus etc., simply because they cannot be fitted into a hexameter verse.

Hyperbaton
It is common in poetry for adjectives to be widely separated from their nouns, and quite often one adjective–noun pair is interleaved with another. This feature is known as hyperbaton "stepping over". An example is the opening line of Lucan's epic on the Civil War:

 * bella per Emathios – plus quam civilia – campos
 * "Wars through the Emathian – more than civil – plains"

Another example is the opening of Ovid's mythological poem Metamorphoses where the word nova "new" is in a different line from corpora "bodies" which it describes:

 * in nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas / corpora (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.1)
 * "My spirit leads me to tell of forms transformed into new bodies."

One particular arrangement of words that seems to have been particularly admired is the golden line, a line which contains two adjectives, a verb, and two nouns, with the first adjective corresponding to the first noun such as:

 * barbara qu(e) horribili stridebat tibia cantu
 * "and the barbarian pipe was strident with horrible music"

Catullus was the first to use this kind of line, as in the above example. Later authors used it rarely (1% of lines in Ovid), but in silver Latin it became increasingly popular.

Alliteration and assonance
Virgil in particular used alliteration and assonance frequently, although it is much less common in Ovid. Often more than one consonant was alliterated and not necessarily at the beginning of words, for example:
 * at ReGina GRavi iamdudum sauCia Cura
 * VuLNus aLit VeNis et CaeCo Carpitur igni.
 * "But the queen, now long wounded by grave anxiety,
 * feeds the wound in her veins and is tormented by an unseen fire"

Also in Virgil:
 * LoCa NoCTe TaCeNTia LaTe "places silent with night everywhere"
 * iLLae Remis VaDa LiViDa VeRRunt "those ones with oars sweep the dark shallows"

Sometimes the same vowel is repeated:
 * m ē, m ē, adsum qui f ē ci, in m ē conv er tite f er rum
 * "on me, me, I who did it am here, turn your swords on me!"

 * n e c fr e na r e mittit, / n e c r e tiN e re val e t, N e c N o mina N o vit equ o rum
 * "he does not let go of the reins, but he is not strong enough to hold them back, and he does not know the names of the horses"

Rhetorical techniques
Rhetorical devices such as anaphora, antithesis, and rhetorical questions are frequently used in epic poetry. Tricolon is also common:
 * haec omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est;
 * portitor ille Charon; hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti.
 * "All this crowd that you see, are the poor and unburied;
 * that ferryman is Charon; these, that the wave is carrying, are the buried."

Genre of subject matter
The poems of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid often vary their narrative with speeches. Well known examples are the speech of Queen Dido cursing Aeneas in book 4 of the Aeneid, the lament of the nymph Juturna when she is unable to save her brother Turnus in book 12 of the Aeneid, and the quarrel between Ajax and Ulysses over the arms of Achilles in book 13 of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Some speeches are themselves narratives, as when Aeneas tells Queen Dido about the fall of Troy and his voyage to Africa in books 2 and 3 of the Aeneid. Other styles of writing include vivid descriptions, such as Virgil's description of the god Charon in Aeneid 6, or Ovid's description of Daedalus's labyrinth in book 8 of the Metamorphoses; similes, such as Virgil's comparison of the souls of the dead to autumn leaves or clouds of migrating birds in Aeneid 6; and lists of names, such as when Ovid names 36 of the dogs who tore their master Actaeon to pieces in book 3 of the Metamorphoses.

Conversational style
Raven divides the various styles of the hexameter in classical Latin into three types: the early stage (Ennius), the fully developed type (Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid, with Lucretius about midway between Ennius and Cicero), and the conversational type, especially Horace, but also to an extent Persius and Juvenal. One feature which marks these off is their often irregular line endings (for example, words of one syllable) and also the very conversational, un-epic style. Horace in fact called his satires sermones ("conversations"). The word order and vocabulary is much as might be expected in prose. An example is the opening of the 9th satire of book 1:

 * Ibam forte Via Sacra, sicut meus est mos,
 * nescio quid meditans nugarum, totus in illis:
 * accurrit quidam notus mihi nomine tantum:
 * arreptaque manu, 'quid agis, dulcissime rerum?'

 * "I was walking by chance along the Sacred Way, as is my custom,
 * meditating on some trifle or other, completely absorbed in it,
 * when suddenly up ran a certain person known to me by name only.
 * He grabbed my hand and said 'How are you, sweetest of things?'"

Silver Age and Late Empire
The verse innovations of the Augustan writers were carefully imitated by their successors in the Silver Age of Latin literature. The verse form itself then was little changed as the quality of a poet's hexameter was judged against the standard set by Virgil and the other Augustan poets, a respect for literary precedent encompassed by the Latin word aemulātiō. Deviations were generally regarded as idiosyncrasies or hallmarks of personal style and were not imitated by later poets. Juvenal, for example, was fond of occasionally creating verses that placed a sense break between the fourth and fifth foot (instead of in the usual caesura positions), but this technique—known as the bucolic diaeresis—did not catch on with other poets.

In the late empire, writers experimented again by adding unusual restrictions to the standard hexameter. The rhopalic verse of Ausonius is a good example; besides following the standard hexameter pattern, each word in the line is one syllable longer than the previous, e.g.:

 * Spēs, deus, / aeter/nae stati/ōnis / concili/ātor,
 * sī cas/tīs preci/bus veni/ālēs / invigi/lāmus,
 * hīs, pater, / ōrā/tis plā/cābili/s adstipu/lāre.

 * "O God, Hope of Eternal Life, Conciliator,
 * if, with chaste entreaties, hoping for pardon, we keep vigil,
 * look kindly on us and grant these prayers."

Also notable is the tendency among late grammarians to thoroughly dissect the hexameters of Virgil and earlier poets. A treatise on poetry by Diomedes Grammaticus is a good example, as this work categorizes dactylic hexameter verses in ways that were later interpreted under the golden line rubric. Independently, these two trends show the form becoming highly artificial—more like a puzzle to solve than a medium for personal poetic expression.

Middle Ages
By the Middle Ages, some writers adopted more relaxed versions of the meter. Bernard of Cluny, in the 12th century, for example, employs it in his De Contemptu Mundi, but ignores classical conventions in favor of accentual effects and predictable rhyme both within and between verses, e.g.:

 * Hora no/vissima, / tempora / pessima / sunt: vigi/lemus.
 * Ecce mi/naciter / imminet / arbiter / ille su/premus.
 * Imminet / imminet / ut mala / terminet, / aequa co/ronet,
 * Recta re/muneret, / anxia / liberet, / aethera / donet.

 * "These are the last days, the worst of times: let us keep watch.
 * Behold the menacing arrival of the supreme Judge.
 * He is coming, he is coming to end evil, to crown just actions,
 * Reward what is right, free us from anxieties, and give the heavens."

Not all medieval writers are so at odds with the Virgilian standard, and with the rediscovery of classical literature, later Medieval and Renaissance writers are far more orthodox, but by then the form had become an academic exercise. Petrarch, for example, devoted much time to his Africa, a dactylic hexameter epic on Scipio Africanus, completed in 1341, but this work was unappreciated in his time and remains little read today. It begins as follows:

 * Et michi / conspicu/um meri/tis bel/loque tre/mendum,
 * Musa, vi/rum refe/res, Ita/lis cui / fracta sub / armis
 * Nobilis / eter/num prius / attulit / Africa / nomen.

 * "To me also, o Muse, tell of the man,
 * conspicuous for his merits and fearsome in war,
 * to whom noble Africa, broken beneath Italian arms,
 * first gave its eternal name."

In contrast, Dante decided to write his epic, the Divine Comedy in Italian—a choice that defied the traditional epic choice of Latin dactylic hexameters—and produced a masterpiece beloved both then and now.

With the Neo-Latin period, the language itself came to be regarded as a medium only for serious and learned expression, a view that left little room for Latin poetry. The emergence of Recent Latin in the 20th century restored classical orthodoxy among Latinists and sparked a general (if still academic) interest in the beauty of Latin poetry. Today, the modern Latin poets who use the dactylic hexameter are generally as faithful to Virgil as Rome's Silver Age poets.

In English
Many poets have attempted to write dactylic hexameters in English, though few works composed in the meter have stood the test of time. Most such works are accentual rather than quantitative. Perhaps the most famous is Longfellow's "Evangeline", whose first lines are as follows:

 * "This is the / forest pri/meval. The / murmuring / pines and the / hemlocks
 * Bearded with / moss, and in / garments / green, indis/tinct in the / twilight,
 * Stand like / Druids of / eld, with / voices / sad and pro/phetic..."

Contemporary poet Annie Finch wrote her epic libretto Among the Goddesses in dactylic tetrameter, which she claims is the most accurate English accentual equivalent of dactylic hexameter. Poets who have written quantitative hexameters in English include Robert Bridges and Rodney Merrill, whose translation of part of the Iliad begins as follows (see External links below):

 * "Sing now, / goddess, the / wrath of A/chilles the / scion of / Peleus,
 * Ruinous / rage, which / brought the A/chaeans un/counted af/flictions;
 * Many the / powerful / souls it / sent to the / dwelling of / Hades..."

Although the rules seem simple, it is hard to use classical hexameter in English, because English is a stress-timed language that condenses vowels and consonants between stressed syllables, while hexameter relies on the regular timing of the phonetic sounds. Languages having the latter properties (i.e., languages that are not stress timed) include Ancient Greek, Latin, Lithuanian and Hungarian.

In German
Dactylic hexameter has proved more successful in German than in most modern languages. Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's epic Der Messias popularized accentual dactylic hexameter in German. Subsequent German poets to employ the form include Goethe (notably in his Reineke Fuchs) and Schiller.

The opening lines of Goethe's Reineke Fuchs ("Reynard the Fox"), written in 1793–1794 are these:

 * Pfingsten, das / liebliche / Fest, war ge/kommen; es / grünten und / blühten
 * Feld und / Wald; auf / Hügeln und / Höhn, in / Büschen und / Hecken
 * Übten ein / fröhliches / Lied die / neuer/munterten / Vögel;
 * Jede / Wiese / sproßte von / Blumen in / duftenden / Gründen,
 * Festlich / heiter / glänzte der / Himmel und / farbig die / Erde.

 * "Pentecost, the lovely festival, had come; field and forest
 * grew green and bloomed; on hills and ridges, in bushes and hedges
 * The newly encouraged birds practised a merry song;
 * Every meadow sprouted with flowers in fragrant grounds,
 * The sky shone festively cheerfully and the earth was colourful."

In French
Jean-Antoine de Baïf (1532–1589) wrote poems regulated by quantity on the Greco–Roman model, a system which came to be known as vers mesurés, or vers mesurés à l'antique, which the French language of the Renaissance permitted. To do this, he invented a special phonetic alphabet. In works like his Étrénes de poézie Franzoęze an vęrs mezurés (1574) or Chansonnettes he used the dactylic hexameter, and other meters, in a quantitative way.

An example of one of his elegiac couplets is as follows. The final -e of vienne, autre, and regarde is sounded, and the word il is pronounced /i/:

 * Vienne le / beau Nar/cis, qui ja/mais n'aima / autre si/non soi,
 * Et qu'il re/garde te/s yeux, // Et, qu'il se / garde d'ai/mer.
 * – u u | – – | – u u | – – | – u u | – –
 * – u u | – u u | – || – u u | – u u | –
 * "Let the handsome Narcissus come, who never loved another except himself,
 * and let him look at your eyes, and let him try not to love you."

A modern attempt at reproducing the dactylic hexameter in French is this one, by André Markowicz (1985), translating Catullus's poem 63. Again the final -e and -es of pères, perfide, and désertes are sounded:

 * C'est ain/si que tu / m'as arra/chée aux au/tels de mes / pères,
 * Pour me lais/ser, per/fide Thé/sée, sur ces / rives dé/sertes ...
 * – – | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – |
 * – u u | – – | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – |
 * "Is it for this that you have snatched me from the altars of my ancestors,
 * to abandon me, traitorous Theseus, on these deserted shores?"

In Hungarian
Hungarian is extremely suitable to hexameter (and other forms of poetry based on quantitative meter). It has been applied to Hungarian since 1541, introduced by the grammarian János Sylvester.

A hexameter can even occur spontaneously. For example, a student may extricate themselves from failing to remember a poem by saying the following, which is a hexameter in Hungarian:

 * Itt ela/kadtam, / sajnos / nem jut e/szembe a / többi.
 * "I'm stuck here, unfortunately the rest won't come into my mind."

Sándor Weöres included an ordinary nameplate text in one of his poems (this time, a pentameter):

 * Tóth Gyula / bádogos / és // vízveze/ték-szere/lő.
 * "Gyula Tóth tinsmith and plumber"

A label on a bar of chocolate went as follows, another hexameter, noticed by the poet Dániel Varró:

 * Tejcsoko/ládé / sárgaba/rack- és / kekszdara/bokkal
 * "Milk chocolate with apricot and biscuit bits"

Due to this feature, the hexameter has been widely used both in translated (Greek and Roman) and in original Hungarian poetry up to the twentieth century (e.g. by Miklós Radnóti).

In Lithuanian
The Seasons (Metai) by Kristijonas Donelaitis is a famous Lithuanian poem in quantitative dactylic hexameters. Because of the nature of Lithuanian, more than half of the lines of the poem are entirely spondaic save for the mandatory dactyl in the fifth foot.

title: Dactylic hexameter