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Though so intimately associated with the Malay there is some ground for believing the word to have an Indian origin, and the act is certainly far from unknown in Indian history. Some notable cases have occurred among the Rajputs. Thus, in 1634, the eldest son of the raja of Jodhpur ran amuck at the court of Shah Jahan, failing in his attack on the emperor, but killing five of his officials. During the 18th century, again, at Hyderabad (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the prince and twenty-six of his suite before they themselves fell.
In Malabar there were certain professional assassins known to old travellers as Amouchi or Amuco. The nearest modern equivalent to these words would seem to be the Malayalim Amar-khan, "a warrior'' (from amar, "fight''). The Malayalim term chaver applied to these ruffians meant literally those "who devote themselves to death.'' In Malabar was a custom by which the zamorin or king of Calicut had to cut his throat in public when he had reigned twelve years. In the 17th century a variation in his fate was made. He had to take his seat, after a great feast lasting twelve days, at a national assembly, surrounded by his armed suite, and it was lawful for anyone to attack him, and if he succeeded in killing him the murderer himself became zamorin (see Alex. Hamilton, "A new Account of the East Indies,'' in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, viii. 374). In 1600 thirty would-be assassins were killed in their attempts. These men were called Amar-khan, and it has been suggested that their action was "running amuck'' in the true Malay sense. Another proposed derivation for amouchi is Sanskrit amokshya, "that cannot be loosed,'' suggesting that the murderer was bound by a vow, an explanation more than once advanced for the Malay amuck; but amokshya in such a sense is unknown in Malayalim.
See Sir F. A. Swettenham, Malay Sketches (1895); H. Clifford, Studies in Brown Humanity (1898).
AMULET (Late Lat. amuletum, origin unknown; falsely connected with the Arab. himalah, a cord used to suspend a small Koran from the neck), a charm, generally, but not invariably, hung from the neck, to protect the wearer against witchcraft, sickness, accidents, &c. Amulets have been of many different kinds, and formed of different substances,—stones, metals, and strips of parchment being the most common, with or without characters or legends engraved or written on them. Gems have often been employed and greatly prized, serving for ornaments as well as for charms. Certain herbs, too, and animal preparations have been used in the same way. In setting them apart to their use as amulets, great precautions have been taken that fitting times be selected, stellar and other magic influences propitious, and everything avoided that might be supposed to destroy or weaken the force of the charm. From the earliest ages the Oriental races have had a firm belief in the prevalence of occult evil influences, and a superstitious trust in amulets and similar preservatives against them. There are references to, and apparently correctives of, these customs in the Mosaic injunctions to bind portions of the law upon the hand and as frontlets between the eyes, as well as write them upon the door-posts and the gates; but, among the later Jews especially, the original design and meaning of these usages were lost sight of; and though it has been said that the phylacteries were not strictly amulets, there is no doubt that they were held in superstitious regard. Amulets were much used by the ancient Egyptians, and also among the Greeks and Romans. We find traces of them too in the early Christian church, in the emphatic protests of Chrysostom, Augustine and others against them. The fish was a favourite symbol on these charms, from the word ichthus being the initials of 'Iesous Christos Theou uios soter. A firm faith in amulets still prevails widely among Asiatic nations. Talisman, also from the Arabic, is a word of similar meaning and use, but some distinguish it as importing a more powerful charm. A talisman, whose "virtues are still applied to for stopping blood and in cases of canine madness,'' figures prominently in, and gives name to, one of Sir Walter Scott's novels.
See also Arpe, De Prodigiis Naturae et Artis Operibus Talismanes et Amuleta dictis (Hamburg, 1717); Ewele, Ueber Amulete (1827); and Koop's Palaeographica Critica, vols. iii. and iv. (1829).
AMUR (known also as the Sakhalin-ula.) a river of eastern Asia, formed by the confluence of the Argun and the Shilka, at Ust-Stryelka, in 53 deg. 19' N. lat. and 120 deg. 30' E. long. Both these rivers come from the south-west: the Argun, or Kerulen as it is called above Lake Kulun (Dalai-nor), through which it flows about half way between its source and Ust-Stryelka, rises in 49 deg. N. lat. and 109 deg. E. long.; the Shilka is formed by the union of the Onon and the Ingoda, both of which have their sources a little farther north-east than the Kerulen (Argun). The Amur proper flows at first in a south-easterly direction for about 800 m., as far as long. 132' E., separating Manchuria from the Amur government; it then turns to the north-east, cuts its way through the Little Khingan mountains in a gorge 2000 ft. wide and 140 m. long, and after a total course of over 1700 m. discharges into the Sea of Okhotsk, opposite to the island of Sakhalin. It is estimated to drain an area of 772,000 sq. m. Its principal tributaries from the south are the Sungari, which the Chinese consider to be the true head-river of the Amur, and the Usuri; from the north it receives the Oldoi, Zeya, Bureya, Kur, Gorin and Amgun. As the mouth is choked with sandbanks, goods are disembarked at Mariinsk and carried by train (9 m.) to Alexandrovsk at the head of the Gulf of Tartary. Navigation on the river is open from April to early in November.
See T. W. Atkinson, Travels in the Region of the Amoor (1860); Collins, Exploration of the Amoor (ed. 1864) and Voyage down the Amoor (1866); Andree, Das Amurgebiet (ed. 1876); and Grum- Grshimaylo, Accounit of the Amur (Russian, 1894).
AMUR, a government of East Siberia, stretching from the Stanovoi (Yablonoi) mountains southwards to the left bank of the Amur river. It includes the basins of the Oldoi, Zeya and Bureya, left-bank tributaries of the river Amur, and has the governments of Transbaikalia on the W., Irkutsk and Yakutsk on the N., the Maritime province on the E., and Manchuria on the S.W. and S. Area, 172,848 sq. m. Immense districts are quite uninhabited. All the north-western part is occupied by a high plateau, bordered by the Great Khingan range, whose exact position in the region is not yet definitely settled. Next comes a belt of fertile plateaus bounded on the east by the Little Khingan, or Dusse-alin, a picturesque well-wooded range, which stretches in a north-easterly direction from Kirin across Manchuria, is pierced by the Amur, and continues on its left bank, separating the Bureya from the Amgun. To the east of it stretches in the same direction a strip of marshy lowlands. In the ranges which rise above the high plateau in the north-west, in the vicinity of the Stanovoi watershed, gold mines of great richness are worked. Coal of inferior quality is known to exist on the Oldoi, Zeya and Bureya. The Russians are represented by the Amur Cossacks, whose villages, e.g. Albazin, Kumara, Ekaterino-Nikolsk and Mikhailo-Semenovsk, are strung at intervals of 17 to 20 m. along the whole course of the river; by peasant immigrants, chiefly nonconformists, who are the wealthiest part of the population; and by a floating population of gold miners. Nomadic Tungus (Orochons), Manegres and Golds hunt and fish along the rivers. Steamers ply regularly along the Amur for 6 1/2 months, from Khaharovsk to Stryetensk, on the Shilka terminus of the Trans-Siberian railway; but only light steamers with 2 to 3 ft. draught can navigate the upper Amur and Shilka. In the winter the frozen river is the usual highway. Rough roads and bridle-paths only are found in the interior. The great engineering difficulties in building a railway along the Amur induced the Russian government to obtain from China permission to build a railway through Manchuria, but the project for a railway from Khabarovsk to Stryetensk received imperial sanction in the summer of 1906. The Amur government has a continental climate, the yearly average at Blagovyeshchensk (50 deg. N. lat.) being 30 deg. Fahr. (January, 17 deg. ; July, 70 deg. ). It benefits from the influence of the monsoons. Cold north-west winds prevail from October to March, while in July and August torrential rains fall, resulting in a sudden and very considerable rise in the Amur and its right-bank tributaries. The only town is Blagovyeshchensk, but the centre of the administration is Khabarovsk in the Maritime province. The settled population in 1897 was 119,909, of whom 31,515 lived in towns.
The governor-generalship of Amur includes this government and the Maritime province, the total area being 888,830 sq. m., and the total population in 1897, 339,127. This region became known to the Russians in 1639. In 1649-1651 a party of Cossacks, under Khabarov, built a fort at Albazin on the Amur river, but in 1689 they withdrew in favour of the Chinese. From 1847 onwards they once more turned their attention to this region, and began to make settlements, especially after 1854, when a powerful flotilla sailed from Ust-Stryelka down to the mouth of the river. Four years later China ceded to Russia the whole left bank of the Amur, and also the right bank below the confluence of the Ussuri, and in 1860 all the territory between the Ussuri and the Eastern Sea. (P. A. K.)
AMYGDALIN (from the Gr. amugdale, almond), C20H27NO11, a glucoside isolated from bitter almonds by H. E. Robiquet and A. F. Boutron-Charlard in 1830, and subsequently investigated by Liebig and Wohler, and others. It is extracted from almond cake by boiling alcohol; on evaporation of the solution and the addition of ether, amygdalin is precipitated as white minute crystals. Sulphuric acid decomposes it into d-glucose, benzaldehyde and prussic acid; while hydrochloric acid gives mandelic acid, d-glucose and ammonia. The decomposition induced by enzymes may occur in two ways. Maltase partially decomposes it, giving d-glucose and mandelic nitrile glucoside, C6H5CH(CN)O.C6H11O5; this compound is isomeric with sambunigrin, a glucoside found by E. E. Bourquelot and Danjou in the berries of the common elder, Sambucus nigra. Emulsin, on the other hand, decomposes it into benzaldehyde, prussic acid, and two molecules of glucose; this enzyme occurs in the bitter almond, and consequently the seeds invariably contain free prussic acid and benzaldehyde. An "amorphous amygdalin'' is said to occur in the cherry-laurel. Closely related to these glucosides is dhurrin, C14H17O7N, isolated by W. Dunstan and T. A. Henry from the common sorghum or "great millet,'' Sorghum vulgare; this substance is decomposed by emulsin or hydrochloric acid into d-glucose, prussic acid, and p-hydroxybenzaldehyde.
AMYGDALOID, a term meaning "almond-shaped,'' used in anatomy and geology.
AMYL ALCOHOLS (C5H11OH). Eight amyl alcohols are known: normal amyl alcohol CH3.(CH2)4.OH, isobutyl carbinol or isoamyl alcohol (CH3)2.CH.CH2.CH2OH, active amyl alcohol (CH3)(C2H5):CH.CH2OH, tertiary butyl carbinol (CH3)3C.CH2OH, diethyl carbinol (C2H5)2CH.OH, methyl (n) propyl carbinol (CH3.CH2.CH2)(CH3):CH:OH, methyl isopropyl carbinol (CH3)2:CH(CH3):CHOH, and dimethyl ethyl carbinol (CH3)2.(C2H5).:C.OH. Of these alcohols, the first four are primary, the last one a tertiary, the other three secondary alcohols; three of them, viz. active amyl alcohol, methyl (n) propyl carbinol, and methyl isopropyl carbinol, contain an asymmetric carbon atom and can consequently each exist in two optically active, and one optically inactive form.
The most important is isobutyl carbinol, this being the chief constituent of fermentation amyl alcohol, and consequently a constituent of fusel (q.v.) oil. It may be separated from fusel oil by shaking with strong brine solution, separating the oily layer from the brine layer and distilling it, the portion boiling between 125 deg. and 140 deg. C. being collected. For further purification it may be shaken with hot milk of lime, the oily layer separated, dried with calcium chloride and fractionated, the fraction boiling between 128 deg. and 132 deg. C. only being collected. It may be synthetically prepared from isobutyl alcohol by conversion into isovaleryl-aldehyde, which is subsequently reduced to isobutyl carbinol by means of sodium amalgam.
It is a colourless liquid of specific gravity 0.8248 (0 deg. C.), boiling at 131.6 deg. C., slightly soluble in water, easily soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform and benzene. It possesses a characteristic strong smell and a sharp burning taste. When perfectly pure, it is not a poison, although the impure product is. On passing its vapour through a red-hot tube, it undergoes decomposition with production of acetylene, ethylene, propylene, &c. It is oxidized by chromic acid mixture to isovaleryl-aldehyde; and it forms crystalline addition compounds with calcium and stannic chlorides.
The other amyl alcohols may be obtained synthetically. Of these, tertiary butyl carbinol has been the most difficult to obtain, its synthesis having only been accomplished in 1891, by L. Tissier (Comptes Rendus, 1891, 112, p. 1065) by the reduction of a mixture of trimethyl acetic acid and trimethylacetyl chloride with sodium amalgam. It is a solid which melts at 48 deg. -50 deg. C. and boils at 112.3 deg. C.
AMYL NITRITE (isoamyl nitrite), C5H11.ONO, a liquid prepared by passing nitrous fumes (from starch and concentrated nitric acid) into warm isoamyl alcohol; or by distilling a mixture of 26 parts of potassium nitrite in 15 parts of water with 30 parts of isoamyl alcohol in 30 parts of sulphuric acid (Renard, Jahresb., 1874, p. 352). It is a yellow-coloured liquid of specific gravity 0.877, boiling at about 95 deg. -96 deg. C. It has a characteristic penetrating odour, and produces marked effects on the system when its vapour is inhaled. It is insoluble in water, but dissolves readily in alcohol, ether, glacial acetic acid, chloroform and benzene. On heating with methyl alcohol it is converted into isoamyl alcohol, methyl nitrite being produced at the same time; a similar reaction takes place with ethyl alcohol, but the change is less complete. It is readily decomposed by nascent hydrogen, with the formation of ammonia and isoamyl alcohol; and on hydrolysis with caustic potash it forms potassium nitrite and isoamyl alcohol. When the liquid is dropped on to fused caustic potash, it forms potassium valerate. Amyl nitrite finds application in medicine, and in the preparation of anhydrous diazonium salts (E. Knoevenagel, Berichte, 1890, 23, p. 2094).
AMYMONE, in ancient Greek legend, daughter of Danaus. With her sisters, she had been sent to look for water, the district of Argos being then parched through the anger of Poseidon. Amymone having thrown her spear at a stag, missed it, but hit a satyr asleep in the brake. The satyr pursued her, and she called for help on Poseidon, who appeared, and for love of her beauty caused a spring to well up, which received her name. Aeschylus wrote a satyric drama on the subject. By the god Amymone became the mother of Nauplius, the wrecker. Her meeting with Poseidon at the spring is frequently represented on ancient coins and gems.
Apollodorus ii. 1, 4; Hyginus, Fab. 169; Propertius ii. 26.
AMYNTAS I., king of Macedonia (c. 540-498 B.C.), was a tributary vassal of Darius Hystaspes. With him the history of Macedonia may be said to begin. He was the first of its rulers to have relations with other countries; he entered into an alliance with the Peisistratidae, and when Hippias was driven out of Athens he offered him the territory of Anthemus on the Thermaic Gulf, with the object of turning the Greek party feuds to his own advantage (Herodotus v. 17, 94; Justin vii. 2; Thucydides ii. 100; Pausanias ix. 40). See MACEDONIAN EMPIRE.
AMYNTAS II. (or III.), son of Arrhidaeus, great-grandson of Alexander I., king of Macedonia from 393 (or 389) to 369 B.C. He came to the throne after the ten years of confusion which followed the death of Archelaus, the patron of art and literature, and showed the same taste for Greek culture and its representatives. But he had many enemies at home; in 383 he was driven out by the Illyrians, but in the following year, with the aid of the Thessalians, he recovered his kingdom. He concluded a treaty with the Spartans, who assisted him to reduce Olynthus (379). He also entered into a league with Jason of Pherae, and assiduously cultivated the friendship of Athens. By his wife, Eurydice, he had three sons, the youngest of whom was the famous Philip of Macedon.
Diodorus xiv. 89, xv. 19, 60; Xenophon, Hellenica, v. 2; Justin vii. 4.
AMYOT, JACQUES (1513-1593), French writer, was born of poor parents, at Melun, on the 30th of October 1513. He found his way to the university of Paris, where he supported himself by serving some of the richer students. He was nineteen when he became M.A. at Paris, and later he graduated doctor of civil law at Bourges. Through Jacques Colure (or Colin), abbot of St Ambrose in Bourges, he obtained a tutorship in the family of a secretary of state. By the secretary he was recommended to Marguerite de Valois, and through her influence was made professor of Greek and Latin at Bourges. Here he translated Theagene et Chariclee from Heliodorus (1547 fol.), for which he was rewarded by Francis I. with the abbey of Bellozane. He was thus enabled to go to Italy to study the Vatican text of Plutarch, on the translation on whose Lives (1559; 1565) he had been some time engaged. On the way he turned aside on a mission to the council of Trent. Returning home, he was appointed tutor to the sons of Henry II., by one of whom (Charles IX.) he was afterwards made grand almoner (1561) and by the other (Henry III.) was appointed, in spite of his plebeian origin, commander of the order of the Holy Ghost. Pius I. promoted him to the bishopric of Auxerre, and here he continued to live in comparative quiet, repairing his cathedral and perfecting his translations, for the rest of his days, though troubled towards the close by the insubordination and revolts of his clergy. He was a devout and conscientious churchman, and had the courage to stand by his principles. It is said that he advised the chaplain of Henry III. to refuse absolution to the king after the murder of the Guise princes. He was, nevertheless, suspected of approving the crime. His house was plundered, and he was compelled to leave Auxerre for some time. He died on the 6th of February 1593, bequeathing, it is said, 1200 crowns to the hospital at Orleans for the twelve "deniers'' he received there when "poor and naked'' on his way to Paris. He translated seven books of Diodorus (1554), the Daphnis et Chloe of Longus (1559) and the Opera Moralia of Plutarch (1572). His vigorous and idiomatic version of Plutarch, Vies des hommes illustres, was translated into English by Sir Thomas North, and supplied Shakespeare with materials for his Roman plays. Montaigne said of him,"I give the palm to Jacques Amyot over all our French writers, not only for the simplicity and purity of his language in which he surpasses all others, nor for his constancy to so long an undertaking, nor for his profound learning . . . but I am grateful to him especially for his wisdom in choosing so valuable a work.'' It was indeed to Plutarch that Amyot devoted his attention. His other translations were subsidiary. The version of Diodorus he did not publish, although the manuscript had been discovered by himself. Amyot took great pains to find and interpret correctly the best authorities, but the interest of his books to-day lies in the style. His translation reads like an original work. The personal method of Plutarch appealed to a generation addicted to memoirs and incapable of any general theory of history. Amyot's book, therefore, obtained an immense popularity, and exercised great influence over successive generations of French writers.
There is a good edition of the works of Amyot from the firm of Didot (25 vols., 1818-1821) . See also Augnste de Blignieres, Essai sur Amyot et les traducteurs francais au xvie siecle (Paris, 1851).
AMYRAUT, MOSES (1596-1664), also known as AMYRALDUS, French Protestant theologian and metaphysician, was born at Bourgueil, in the valley of Anjou, in 1306. His father was a lawyer, and, designing Moses for his own profession, sent him on the completion of his study of the humanities at Orleans to the university of Poitiers. Here he took the degree of licentiate (B.A.) of laws. On his way home from the university he passed through Saumur, and, having visited the pastor of the Protestant church there, was introduced by him to Philippe de Mornay, governor of the city. Struck with young Amyraut's ability and culture, they both urged him to change from law to theology. His father advised him to revise his philological and philosophical studies, and read over Calvin's Institutions, before finally determining. He did so, and decided for theology. He thereupon removed to Saumur—destined to be for ever associated with his name—and studied under J. Cameron, who ultimately regarded him as his greatest scholar. He had a brilliant course, and was in due time licensed as a minister of the French Protestant Church. The contemporary civil wars and excitements hindered his advancement. His first church was in St Aignan, in the province of Maine. There he remained two years. The eminent theologian, Jean Daille, being then removed to Paris, advised the church at Saumur to secure Amyraut as his successor, praising him "as above himself.'' The university of Saumur at the same time had fixed its eyes on him as professor of theology. The great churches of Paris and Rouen also contended for him, and to win him sent their deputies to the provincial synod of Anjou. Amyraut had left the choice to the synod. He was appointed to Saumur in 1633, and to the professor's chair along with the pastorate. On the occasion of his inauguration he maintained for thesis De Sacerdotio Christi. His co-professors were Louis Cappel and Josue de la Place, who also were Cameron's pupils. Very beautiful was the lifelong friendship of these three remarkable men, who collaborated in the Theses Salmurienses, a collection of theses propounded by candidates in theology prefaced by the inaugural addresses of the three professors. Full of energy, Amyraut very speedily gave to French Protestantism a new force. In 1631 he published his Traite des religions, a book that still lives; and from this year onward he was a foremost man in the church. Chosen to represent the provincial synod of Anjou, Touraine and Maine at the national synod held in 1631 at Charenton, he was appointed as orator to present to the king "The Copy of their Complaints and Grievances for the Infractions and Violations of the Edict of Nantes.'' Previous deputies had addressed the king on their bended knees, whereas the representatives of the Catholics had been permitted to stand. Amyraut consented to be orator only if the assembly authorized him to stand. There was intense resistance. Cardinal Richelieu himself, preceded by lesser dignitaries, condescended to visit Amyraut privately, to persuade him to kneel; but Amyraut held resolutely to his point and carried it. His "oration'' on this occasion, which was immediately published in the French Mercury, remains a striking landmark in the history of French Protestantism. During his absence on this matter the assembly debated "Whether the Lutherans who desired it, might be admitted into communion with the Reformed Churches of France at the Lord's Table.'' It was decided in the affirmative previous to his return; but he approved with astonishing eloquence, and thereafter was ever in the front rank in maintaining intercommunication between all churches holding the main doctrines of the Reformation. P. Bayle recounts the title-pages of no fewer than thirty-two books of which Amyraut was the author. These show that he took part in all the great controversies on predestination and Arminianism which then so agitated and harassed all Europe. Substantially he held fast the Calvinism of his preceptor Cameron; but, like Richard Baxter in England, by his breadth and charity he exposed himself to all manner of misconstruction. In 1634 he published his Traite de la predestination, in which he tried to mitigate the harsh features of predestination by his "Universalismus hypotheticus.'' God, he taught, predestines all men to happiness on condition of their having faith. This gave rise to a charge of heresy, of which he was acquitted at the national synod held at Alencon in 1637, and presided over by Benjamin Basnage (1580-1652). The charge was brought up again at the national synod of Charenton in 1644, when he was again acquitted. A third attack at the synod of Loudun in 1659 met with no better success. The university of Saumur became the university of French Protestantism. Amyraut had as many as a hundred students in attendance upon his prelections. Another historic part filled by Amyraut was in the negotiations originated by Pierre le Gouz de la Berchere (1600-1653), first president of the parlement of Grenoble, when exiled to Saumur, for a reconciliation and reunion of the Catholics of France with the French Protestants. Very large were the concessions made by Richelieu in his personal interviews with Amyraut; but, as with the Worcester House negotiations in England between the Church of England and nonconformists, they inevitably fell through. On all sides the statesmanship and eloquence of Amyraut were conceded. His De l'elevation de la foy et de l'abaissement de la raison en la creance des mysteres de la religion (1641) gave him early a high place as a metaphysician. Exclusive of his controversial writings, he left behind him a very voluminous series of practical evangelical books, which have long remained the fireside favourites of the peasantry of French Protestantism. Amongst these are Estat Jes fideles apres la mort; Sur l'oraison dominicale; Du merite des oeuvres; Traite de la justification; and paraphrases of books of the Old and New Testament. His closing years were weakened by a severe fall he met with in 1657. He died on the 18th of January 1664.
See Edm. Saigey, Moses Amyraut, sa vie et ses ecrits (1849); Alex. Schweizer in Tub. theol. Jahrbb., 1852, pp. 41 ff. 155 ff., Protestant. Central-Dogmen (1854 ff.), ii. 225 ff., and in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie; Bayle, s.v.; Biog. Univ., s.v.; John Quick's Synod. in Gall. Reform. pp. 352-357; Ibid. MS. Icones Sacrae Gallicanae: Life of Cameron.
ANA, a Latin neuter plural termination appropriated to various collections of the observations and criticisms of eminent men, delivered in conversation and recorded by their friends, or discovered among their papers after their decease. Though the term Ana is of comparatively modern origin, the introduction of this species of composition is not of recent date. It appears, from d'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale, that from the earliest periods the Eastern nations were in the habit of preserving the maxims of their sages. From them the practice passed to the Greeks and Romans. Plato and Xenophon treasured up and recorded the sayings of their master Socrates; and Arrian, in the concluding books of his Enchiridion, now lost, collected the casual observations of Epictetus. The numerous apophthegms scattered in Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius and other writers, show that it was customary in Greece to preserve the colloquially expressed ideas of illustrious men. It appears that Julius Caesar compiled a book of apophthegms, in which he related the bons mots of Cicero; and Quintilian informs us that a freedman of that celebrated wit and orator composed three books of a work entitled De Jocis Ciceronis. We are told by Suetonius that Caius Melissus, originally the slave but afterwards the freedman and librarian of Maecenas, collected the sayings of his master; and Aulus Gellius has filled his Noctes Atticae with anecdotes which he heard from the eminent scholars and critics whose society he frequented in Rome.
But though vestiges of Ana may be traced in the classical ages, it is only in modern times that they have come to be regarded as constituting a distinct species of composition, comprising literary anecdotes, critical reflexions, and historical incidents, mingled with the detail of bons mots and ludicrous tales. The term Ana seems to have been applied to such collections as far back as the beginning of the 15th century. Francesco Barbaro, in a letter to Poggio, says that the information and anecdotes which Poggio and Bartolommeo of Montepulciano had picked up during a literary excursion through Germany will be called Ana: "Quemadmodum mala ab Appio e Claudia gente Appiana, et pira a Mallio Malliana cognominata sunt, sic haec literarum quae vestra ope et opera Germania in Italiam deferentur, aliquando et Poggiana et Montepolitiana vocabuntur.''
Poggio Bracciolini, to whom this letter is addressed, and to whom the world is indebted for the preservation of so many classical remains, is the first eminent person of modern times whose jests and opinions have been transmitted to posterity. Poggio was secretary to five successive popes. During the pontificate of Martin V., who was chosen in 1417, Poggio and other members of the Roman chancery were in the habit of assembling in a common hall adjoining the Vatican, in order to converse freely on all subjects. Being more studious of wit than of truth, they termed this apartment Buggiale, a word which Poggio himself interprets Mendaciorum Officina. Here Poggio and his friends discussed the news and scandal of the day; communicated entertaining anecdotes; attacked what they did not approve (and they approved of little); and indulged in the utmost latitude of satiric remark, not sparing even the pope and cardinals. The jests and stories which occurred in these unrestrained conversations were collected by Poggio, and formed the chief materials of his Facetiae, first printed, according to de Bure, in 1470. This collection, which forms a principal part of the Poggiana, is chiefly valuable as recording interesting anecdotes of eminent men of the 14th and 15th centuries. It also contains a number of quibbles or jeux de mots, and a still greater number of facetiae, idle and licentious stories. These Facetiae form, upon the whole, the most amusing and interesting part of the Poggiana printed at Amsterdam in 1720; but this collection also comprehends additional anecdotes of Poggio's life, and a few extracts from his graver compositions.
Though Poggio was the first person whose remarks and bons mots were collected under the name of Ana, the Scaligerana, which contains the opinions of Joseph Scaliger, was the first worked published under that appellation, and accordingly may be regarded as having led the way to that class of publications. There are two collections of Scaligerana—the Prima and Secunda. The first was compiled by a physician named Francois Vertunien, sieur de Lavau, who attended a family with whom Joseph Scaliger resided. He, in consequence, had frequent opportunities of meeting the celebrated critic, and was in the custom of committing to writing the observations which dropped from him in the course of conversation, to which he occasionally added remarks of his own. This collection, which was chiefly Latin, remained in manuscript many years after the death of the compiler. It was at length purchased by M. de Sigogne, who published it in 1669, under the title of Prima Scaligerana, nusquam antehac edita, calling it prima in order to preserve its claim of priority over another Scaligerana, which, though published three years before, had been more recently compiled. This second work, known as Secunda Scaligerana, was collected by two brothers of the name of Vassan, students of the university of Leiden, of which Scaliger was one of the professors. Being particularly recommended to Scaliger, they were received in his house, and enjoyed his conversation. Writing down what they had heard, particularly on historical and critical subjects, they soon made up a large manuscript volume, in which, however, there was neither connexion nor arrangement of any description. After passing through various hands this manuscript came into the possession of M. Daille, who for his own use arranged in alphabetical order the articles which it contained. Isaac Vossius, obtaining the manuscript in loan from M. Daille, transcribed it, and afterwards published it at the Hague, under the title of Scaligerana, sive Excerpta ex Ore Josephi Scaligeri. This edition was full of inaccuracies and blunders, and a more correct impression was afterwards published by M. Daille, with a preface complaining of the use that Vossius had made of the manuscript, which he declares was never intended for publication, and was not of a nature to be given to the world. Indeed, most literary men in that age conceived that the Scaligerana, particularly the second, detracted considerably from the reputation of the great scholar. Joseph Scaliger, with more extensive erudition, but, as some think, less genius than his father Julius Caesar Scaliger, had inherited his vanity and dogmatical spirit. Conversing with two young students, he would probably be but little cautious in the opinions he expressed, as his literary errors could not be detected or exposed. Unfortunately the blind admiration of his pupils led them to regard his opinions as the responses of an oracle, and his most unmerited censures as just condemnations. The Scaligerana, accordingly, contains many falsehoods, with much unworthy personal abuse of the most distinguished characters of the age.
In imitation of the Scaligerana, a prodigious number of similar works appeared in France towards the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century. At first these collections were confined to what had fallen from eminent men in conversation; but they were afterwards made to embrace fragments found among their papers, and even passages extracted from their works and correspondence. Of those which merely record the conversations of eminent men, the best known and most valuable is the Menagiana. Gilles Menage was a person of good sense, of various and extensive information and of a most communicative disposition. A collection of his oral opinions was published in 1693, soon after his death; and this collection, which was entitled Menagiana, was afterwards corrected and enlarged by Bernard de la Monnoye, in an edition published by him in 1715.
The Perroniana, which exhibits the opinions of Cardinal du Perron, was compiled from his conversation by C. Dupuy, and published by Vossius in 1666, by the same contrivance which put him in possession of the Scaligerana. The Thuana, or observations of the president de Thou, have usually been published along with the Perroniana, but first appeared in 1669.
The Valesiana is a collection of the literary opinions of the historiographer Adrien de Valois, published by his son. M. de Valois was a great student of history, and the Valesiana accordingly comprehends many valuable historical observations, particularly on the works of du Cange.
The Fureteriana (1696) contains the bone mots of Antoine Furetiere, the Academician, the stories which he was in the habit of telling, and a number of anecdotes and remarks found in his papers after his decease.
The chevraeana (1697), so called from Urbain Chevreau, is more scholarly than most works of a similar description, and probably more accurate, as it differs from the Ana proper, of which the works described above are instances, in having been published during the life of the author and revised by himself.
Parrhasiana (1699-1701) is the work of Jean le Clerc, a professor of Amsterdam, who bestowed this appellation on his miscellaneous productions with the view of discussing various topics of philosophy and politics with more freedom than he could have employed under his own name.
The Huetiana contains the detached thoughts and criticisms of P. D. Huet. bishop of Avranches, which he himself committed to writing when he was far advanced in life. Huet was born in 1630, and in 1712 he was attacked by a malady which impaired his memory, and rendered him incapable of the sustained attention necessary for the completion of a long or laborious work. In this situation he employed himself in putting his detached observations on paper. These were published by the Abbe d'Olivet the year after his death (1722).
The Casauboniana presents us with the miscellaneous observations, chiefly philological, of the celebrated Isaac Casaubon. During the course of a long life that eminent commentator was in the daily practice of committing to paper anything remarkable which he heard in conversation with his friends, especially if it bore on the studies in which he was engaged. He also made annotations from day to day on the works he read, with which he connected his judgments concerning the authors and their writings. This compilation was styled Ephemerides. His Adversaria, and materials amassed for a refutation of the Ecclesiastical Annals of Baronius, were bequeathed by his son Meric Casaubon to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. These were shown to J. C. Wolf during a visit which he paid to that university; and having been transcribed by him, were published in 1710 under the title of Casauboniana.
Besides the above a great many works under the title of Ana appeared in France about the same period. Thus, the opinions and conversation of Charpentier, Colomesius and St Evremond were recorded in the Carpenteriana, Colomesiana and St Evremoniana; and those of Segrais in the Segraisiana,—a collection formed by a person stationed behind the tapestry in a house where Segrais was accustomed to visit, of which Voltaire declared, "que de tous les Ana c'est celui qui merite le plus d'etre mis au rang des mensonges imprimes, et surtout des mensonges insipides.'' The Ana, indeed, from the popularity which they now enjoyed, were compiled in such numbers and with so little care that they became almost proverbial for inaccuracy.
In 1743 the Abbe d'Olivet spoke indignantly of "ces ana, dont le nombre se multiple impunement tous les jours a la honte de notre siecle.'' About the middle of the 18th century, too, they were sometimes made the vehicles of revolutionary and heretical opinions. Thus the evil naturally began to cure itself, and by a reaction the French Ana sank in public esteem as much below their intrinsic value as they had formerly been exalted above it.
Of the examples England has produced of this species of composition, perhaps the most interesting is the Walpoliana, a transcript of the literary conversation of Horace Walpole, earl of Orford. Most other works which in England have been published under the name of Ana, as Baconiana, Atterburyana, &c., are rather extracts from the writings and correspondence of eminent men than memorials of their conversation.
There are some works which, though they do not bear the title, belong more strictly to the class of Ana than many of the collections which are known under that appellation. Such are the Melanges d'histoire et de litterature, published under the name of Vigneul Marville, though the work of a Benedictine, d'Argonne; and the Locorum Communium Collectanea, ex Lectionibus Philippi Melanchthonis,—a work of considerable reputation on account of its theological learning, and the information it communicates concerning the early state of the Reformed Church. But of those productions which belong to the class, though they do not bear the name, of Ana, the most celebrated are the Colloquia Mensalia of Luther and Selden's Table-Talk. The former, which comprehends the conversation of Luther with his friends and coadjutors in the great work of the Reformation, was first published in 1566. Captain H. Bell, who translated it into English in the time of the Commonwealth, informs us that, an edict having been promulgated commanding the works of Luther to be destroyed, it was for some time supposed that all the copies of the Colloquia Mensalia had been burned; but in 1626, on the foundation of a house being removed, a printed copy was found lying in a deep hole and wrapped up in a linen cloth. The book, translated by Bell, and again by the younger Hazlitt in 1847, was originally collected by Dr Anton Lauterbach (1502-1569) "out of the holy mouth of Luther.'' It consists chiefly of observations and discussions on idolatry, auricular confession, the mass, excommunication, clerical jurisdiction, general councils, and all the points agitated by the reformed church in those early periods. The Table-Talk of Selden contains a more genuine and undisguised expression of the sentiments of that eminent man than we find in his more studied productions. It was published after his death by Richard Milward, his amanuensis, who affirms that for twenty years he enjoyed the opportunity of daily hearing his discourse, and made it his practice faithfully to commit to writing "the excellent things that usually fell from him.''
The most remarkable collection of Ana in the English language—and, indeed, in any language—is to be found in a work which does not correspond to the normal type either in name or in form. In his Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., Boswell relates that to his remark, a propos of French literature, "Their Ana are good,'' Johnson replied, "A few of them are good; but we have one book of that kind better than any of them—Selden's Table-Talk.'' Boswell's own work, however, is incomparably superior to all.
J. C. Wolf has given a history of the Ana in a preliminary discourse to his edition of the Casauboniana, published in 1710. In the Repertoire de bibliographies speciales, curieuses, et instructives, by Peignot, there is a Notice bibliographique of these collections; but many of the books there enumerated consist of mere extracts from the writings of popular authors.
ANABAPTISTS ("re-baptizers,'' from Gr. ana and baptizo), a name given by their enemies to various sects which on the occasion of Luther's revolt from Romanism denied the validity of infant baptism, and therefore baptized those whom they quite logically regarded as not having received any Christian initiation at all.
On the 27th of December 1521 three "prophets'' appeared in Wittenberg from Zwickau, Thomas Munzer, Nicolas Storch and Mark Thomas Stubner. Luther's reform was not thorough enough for them. He professed to rest all upon Scripture, yet accepted from the Babylon of Rome a baptism neither scriptural nor primitive, nor fulfilling the chief conditions of admission into a visible brotherhood of saints, to wit, repentance, faith, spiritual illumination and free surrender of self to Christ. Melanchthon, powerless against the enthusiasts with whom his co-reformer Carlstadt sympathized, appealed to Luther, still concealed in the Wartburg. He had written to the Waldenses that it is better not to baptize at all than to baptize little children; now he was cautious, would not condemn the new prophecy off-hand; but advised Melanchthon to treat them gently and to prove their spirits, less they be of God. There was confusion in Wittenberg, where schools and university sided with the "prophets'' and were closed. Hence the charge that Anabaptists were enemies of learning, which is sufficiently rebutted by the fact that the first German translation of the Hebrew prophets was made and printed by two of them, Hetzer and Denk, in 1527. The first leaders of the movement in Zurich—Grebel, Manz, Blaurock, Hubmaier—were men learned in Greek, Latin and Hebrew. On the 6th of March Luther returned, interviewed the prophets, scorned their "spirits,'' forbade them the city, and had their adherents ejected from Zwickau and Erfurt. Denied access to the churches, the latter preached and celebrated the sacrament in private houses. Driven from the cities they swarmed over the countryside. Compelled to leave Zwickau, Munzer visited Bohemia, resided two years at Alltstedt in Thuringia, and in 1524 spent some time in Switzerland. During this period he proclaimed his revolutionary doctrines in religion and politics with growing vehemence, and, so far as the lower orders were concerned, with growing success. The crisis came in the so-called Peasants' War in South Germany in 1525. In its origin a revolt against feudal oppression, it became, under the leadership of Munzer, a war against all constituted authorities, and an attempt to establish by force his ideal Christian commonwealth, with absolute equality and the community of goods. The total defeat of the insurgents at Frankenhausen (May 15, 1525), followed as it was by the execution of Munzer and several other leaders, proved only a temporary check to the Anabaptist movement. Here and there throughout Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands there were zealous propagandists, through whose teaching many were prepared to follow as soon as another leader should arise. A second and more determined attempt to establish a theocracy was made at Munster, in Westphalia (1532-1535). Here the sect had gained considerable influence, through the adhesion of Rothmann, the Lutheran pastor, and several prominent citizens; and the leaders, Johann Matthyszoon or Matthiesen, a baker of Haarlem, and Johann Bockholdt, a tailor of Leiden, had little difficulty in obtaining possession of the town and deposing the magistrates. Vigorous preparations were at once made, not only to hold what had been gained, but to proceed from Munster as a centre to the conquest of the world. The town being besieged by Francis of Waldeck, its expelled bishop (April 1534), Matthiesen, who was first in command, made a sally with only thirty followers, under the fanatical idea that he was a second Gideon, and was cut off with his entire band. Bockholdt, better known in history as John of Leiden, was now supreme. Giving himself out as the successor of David, he claimed royal honours and absolute power in the new "Zion.'' He justified the most arbitrary and extravagant measures by the authority of visions from heaven, as others have done in similar circumstances. With this pretended sanction he legalized polygamy, and himself took four wives, one of whom he beheaded with his own hand in the market-place in a fit of frenzy. As a natural consequence of such licence, Munster was for twelve months a scene of unbridled profligacy. After an obstinate resistance the town was taken by the besiegers on the 24th of June 1535, and in January 1536 Bockholdt and some of his more prominent followers, after being cruelly tortured, were executed in the market-place. The outbreak at Munster was the crisis of the Anabaptist movement. It never again had the opportunity of assuming political importance, the civil powers naturally adopting the most stringent measures to suppress an agitation whose avowed object was to suppress them. It is difficult to trace the subsequent history of the sect as a religious body. The fact that, after the Munster insurrection the very name Anabaptist was proscribed in Europe, is a source of twofold confusion. The enforced adoption of new names makes it easy to lose the historical identity of many who really belonged to the Munster Anabaptists, and, on the other hand, has led to the classification of many with the Munster sect who had no real connexion with it. The latter mistake, it is to be noted, has been much more common than the former. The Mennonites, for example, have been identified with the earlier Anabaptists, on the ground that they included among their number many of the fanatics of Munster. But the continuity of a sect is to be traced in its principles, and not in its adherents, and it must be remembered that Menno and his followers expressly repudiated the distinctive doctrines of the Munster Anabaptists. They have never aimed at any social or political revolution, and have been as remarkable for sobriety of conduct as the Munster sect was for its fanaticism (see MENNONITES.) In English history frequent reference is made to the Anabaptists during the 16th and 17th centuries, but there is no evidence that any considerable number of native Englishmen ever adopted the principles of the Munster sect. Many of the followers of Munzer and Bockholdt seem to have fled from persecution in Germany and the Netherlands to be subjected to a persecution scarcely less severe in England. The mildest measure adopted towards these refugees was banishment from the kingdom, and a large number suffered at the stake. It was easier to burn Anabaptists than to refute their arguments, and contemporary writers were struck with the intrepidity and number of their martyrs. Thus Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579), a Polish cardinal and bishop of Warmie, wrote (Opera, Venice, 1573, p. 202):—
"They are far readier than followers of Luther and Zwingli to meet death, and bear the harshest tortures for their faith. For they run to suffer punishments, no matter how horrible, as if to a banquet; so that if you take that as a test either of the truth of doctrine or of their certitude of grace, you would easily conclude that in no other sect is to be found a faith so true or grace so certain. But as Paul wrote: "Even if I give my body to to be burned and have not charity, it avails me naught. But he has not charity who divides the unity. . . . He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church.''
The excesses of John of Leiden, the Brigham Young of that age, cast an unjust stigma on the Baptists, of whom the vast majority were good, quiet people who merely carried out in, practice the early Christian ideals of which their persecutors prated. They have been reckoned an extreme left wing of the Reformation, because for a time they followed Luther and Zwingli. Yet their Christology and negative attitude towards the state rather indicate, as in the case of Wicklif, Hus and the Fraticelli, an affinity to the Cathari and other medieval sects. But this affiliation is hard to establish. The earliest Anabaptists of Zurich allowed that the Picardi or Waldensians had, in contrast with Rome and the Reformers, truth on their side, yet did not claim to be in their succession; nor can it be shown that their adult baptism derived from any of the older Baptist sects, which undoubtedly lingered in parts of Europe. Later on Hermann Schyn claimed descent for the peaceful Baptists from the Waldensians, who certainly, as the records of the Flemish inquisition, collected by P. Fredericq, prove, were wide-spread during the 15th century over north France and Flanders. It would appear from the way in which Anabaptism sprang up everywhere independently, as if more than one ancient sect took in and through it a new lease of life. Ritschl discerned in it the leaven of the Fraticelli or Franciscan Tertiaries. In Moravia, if what Alex. Rost related be true, namely that they called themselves Apostolici, and went barefooted healing the sick, they must have at least absorbed into themselves a sect of whom we hear in the 12th century in the north of Europe as deferring baptism to the age of 30, and rejecting oaths, prayers for the dead, relics and invocation of saints. The Moravian Anabaptists, says Rost, went bare-footed, washed each other's feet (like the Fraticelli), had all goods in common, worked everyone at a handicraft, had a spiritual father who prayed with them every morning and taught them, dressed in black and had long graces before and after meals. Zeiler also in his German Itinerary (1618) describes their way of life. The Lord's Supper, or bread-breaking, was a commemoration of the Passion, held once a year. They sat at long tables, the elders read the words of institution and prayed, and passed a loaf round from which each broke off a bit and ate, the wine being handed round in flagons. Children in their colonies were separated from the parents, and lived in the school, each having his bed and blanket. They were taught reading, writing and summing, cleanliness, truthfulness and industry, and the girls married the men chosen for them. In the following points Anabaptists resembled the medieval dissenters:—(1) They taught that Jesus did not take the flesh from his mother, but either brought his body from heaven or had one made for him by the Word. Some even said that he passed through his mother, as water through a pipe, into the world. In pictures and sculptures of the 15th century and earlier, we often find represented this idea, originated by Marcion in the 2nd century. The Anabaptists were accused of denying the Incarnation of Christ: they did, but not in the sense that he was not divine; they rather denied him to be human. (2) They condemned oaths, and also the reference of disputes between believers to law-courts. (3) The believer must not bear arms or offer forcible resistance to wrongdoers, nor wield the sword. No Christian has the jus gladii. (4) Civil government belongs to the world, is Caesar. The believer who belongs to God's kingdom must not fill any office, nor hold any rank under government, which is to be passively obeyed. (5) Sinners or unfaithful ones are to be excommunicated, and excluded from the sacraments and from intercourse with believers unless they repent, according to Matt. xviii. 15 seq. But no force is to be used towards them.
Some sects calling themselves Spirituales or Perfecti also held that the baptized cannot sin, a very ancient tenet.
They seem to have preserved among them the primitive manual called the Teaching of the Apostles, for Bishop Longland in England condemned an Anabaptist for repeating one of its maxims "that alms should not be given before they did sweat in a man's hand.'' This was between 1518 and 1521.
On the 12th of April 1549, certain London Anabaptists brought before a commission of bishops asserted7—
"That a man regenerate could not sin; that though the outward man sinned, the inward man sinned not; that there was no Trinity of Persons; that Christ was only a holy prophet and not at all God; that all we had by Christ was that he taught us the way to heaven; that he took no flesh of the Virgin, and that the baptism of infants was not profitable.''
The Anabaptists were great readers of Revelation and of the Epistle of James, the latter perhaps by way of counteracting Luther's one-sided teaching of justification by faith alone. Luther feebly rejected this scripture as "a right strawy epistle.'' English Anabaptists often knew it by heart. Excessive reading of Revelation seems to have been the chief cause of the aberrations of the Munster fanatics.
In Poland and Holland certain of the Baptists denied the Trinity, hence the saying that a Socinian was a learned Baptist (see SOCINUS.) With these Menno and his followers refused to hold communion.
One of the most notable features of the early Anabaptists is that they regarded any true religious reform as involving social amelioration. The socialism of the 16th century was necessarily Christian and Anabaptist. Lutheranism was more attractive to grand-ducal patriots and well-to-do burghers than to the poor and oppressed and disinherited. The Lutherans and Zwinglians never converted the Anabaptists. Those who yielded to stress of persecution fell back into Papalism and went to swell the tide of the Catholic reaction.
AUTHORITIES.—Fussli, Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie der mittlern Zeit (contains Bullinger); Zwinglius, In catabaptistarum strophas elenchus (1527) (Opera iii. 351); Bullinger, Der Wiedertaafsr Ursprung (1560); Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History, Engl. tr. v. 344; Spanheim, De origine Anabapt. (Lugd. 1643); Ranke's History of the, Reformation; Melanchthon, Die Historic von Th. Muntzer (1525) (in Luthers Werke, ed. Walch, xvi. 199); Strobel, Leben Th. Muntzers (1795); C. A. Cornelius, Die niederlandischen Wiedertaufer, in publications of Bavarian Academy (1869); J. G. Walch, Hist. u. theolog. Einleitung (Jena, 1733); Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History; Gerbert, Gesch. d. Strassb. Sektenbewegung (Strassburg, 1889); W. Moeller, History of the Christian Church, tr. by Freese, 1900; Jos. v. Beck, Die Geschichtsbucher der Wiedertaufer in Osterr.-Ung. (Wien, 1883), (Fontes rerum Austr. II. xliii., a valuable history of the sect from their own early documents); Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, vol. i. (Bonn, 1880); Loserth, B. Hubmaier und die Anfange der Wiedertaufer in Mahren (Brunn, 1893); Kolde, in Kirchengesch. Studien (Leipzig, 1888); Kessler, Sabbata; Leendertz and Zur Linden, M.. Hofmann (Haarlem, 1883-1885); Erbkam, Gesch. der prot. Sekten der Reform. (1848); Justus Menius, Der Weidertaufer Lehre (Wittenberg, 1534); Johann Cloppenburg and Fred. Spanheim, Gangraena theologiae Anabaptisticae (Franekerd, 1656); Balthasar Lydius, Waldensia, id est conservatio verae Ecclesiae (Rotterdam, 1616); Herman Schyn, Historiae Mennonitarum (Amsterdam, 1729); John. Henr. Ottius, Annales Anabaptistici (Basileae. 1772); Karl Rembert, Die Wiedertaufer in Herzogtum Julich (Munster, 1873); Universal Lexicon, art. "Wiedertaufer'' (Leipzig. 1748); Tielmann Janssen van Bracht, Martyrologia Mennonitarum (Haarlem. 1615-1631); John. Gastii, Tractat. de Anabapt. Exordio (Basel, 1545); Jehring, History of the Baptists; Auss Bundt, or hymns written by and of the Baptist martyrs from 1526-1620, first printed without date or place, reprinted Basel, 1838. (F. C. C.)
ANABASIS (anabasis, a march up country), the title given by Xenophon (q.v.) to his narrative of the expedition of Cyrus the younger against his brother, Artaxerxes of Persia, 401 B.C., and adopted by Arrian for his history of the expedition of Alexander the Great.
ANABOLISM (Gr. ana, up, bole, a throw), the biological term for the building up in an organism of more complex from simpler substances, constructive metabolism. (See PHYSIOLOGY.)
ANACHARSIS, a Scythian philosopher, who lived about 600 B.C. He was the son of Gnurus, chief of a nomadic tribe of the Euxine shores, and a Greek woman. Instructed in the Greek language by his mother, he prevailed upon the king to entrust him with an embassy to Athens about 589 B.C. He became acquainted with Solon, from whom he rapidly acquired a knowledge of the wisdom and learning of Greece, and by whose influence he was introduced to the principal persons in Athens. He was the first stranger who received the privileges of citizenship. He was reckoned one of the Seven Sages, and it is said that he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. After he had resided several years at Athens, he travelled through different countries in quest of knowledge, and returned home filled with the desire of instructing his countrymen in the laws and the religion of the Greeks. According to Herodotus he was killed by his brother Saulius while he was performing sacrifice to the goddess Cybele. It was he who compared laws to spiders' webs, which catch small flies and allow bigger ones to escape. His simple and forcible mode of expressing himself gave birth to the proverbial expression "Scythian eloquence,'' but his epigrams are as unauthentic as the letters which are often attributed to him. According to Strabo he was the first to invent an anchor with two flukes. Barthelemy borrows his name as the title for his Anacharsis en Grece.
Herodotus iv. 76; Lucian, Scytha; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 32; Diog. Laert. i. 101.
ANACHRONISM (from ana, back, and chronos, time), a neglect or falsification, whether wilful or undesigned, of chronological relation. Its commonest use restricts it to the ante-dating of events, circumstances or customs; in other words, to the introduction, especially in works of imagination that rest on a historical basis, of details borrowed from a later age. Anachronisms may be committed in many ways, originating, for instance, in disregard of the different modes of life and thought that characterize different periods, or in ignorance of the progress of the arts and sciences and the other ascertained facts of history, and may vary from glaring inconsistency to scarcely perceptible misrepresentation. Much of the thought entertained about the past is so deficient in historical perspective as to be little better than a continuous anachronism. It is only since the close of the 18th century that this kind of untruthfulness has jarred on the general intelligence. Anachronisms abound in the works of Raphael and Shakespeare, as well as in those of the meanest daubers and playwrights of earlier times. In particular, the artists, on the stage and on the canvas, in story and in song, assimilated their dramatis personae to their own nationality and their own time. The Virgin was represented here as an Italian contadina, and there as a Flemish frow; Alexander the Great appeared on the French stage in the full costume of Louis XIV. down to the time of Voltaire; and in England the contemporaries of Addison could behold, without any suspicion of burlesque,
"Cato's long wig, flower'd gown, and lacquer'd chair.''
Modern realism, the progress of archaeological research, and the more scientific spirit of history, have made an anachronism an offence, where our ancestors saw none.
ANACOLUTHON (Gr. for "not following on''), a grammatical term, given to a defectively constructed sentence which does not run on as a continuous whole; this may occur either, in a text, by some corruption, or, in the case of a writer or speaker, simply through his forgetting the way in which he started. In the case of a man who is full of his subject, or who is carried along by the passion of the moment, such inconsequents are very apt to occur. Of Niebuhr it is told that his oral lectures consisted almost entirely of anacoluthic constructions. To this kind of licence some languages, as Greek and English, readily lend themselves; while the grammatical rigidity of others, as Latin and French, admits of it but sparingly. In Herodotus, Thucydides, Aeschylus, Pindar and Plato, abundant specimens are to be found; and the same is true of the writers of the Elizabethan age in English. The following is an example:—"And he charged him to tell no man; but go show thyself,'' &c. (Luke v. 14).
ANACONDA, a city and the county-seat of Deer Lodge county, Montana, U.S.A., situated in the mountains on the W. side of Deer Lodge Valley, in the S.W. part of the state, about 26 m. N.W. of Butte, and at an altitude of about 5300 ft. Pop. (1890) 3075; (1900) 9453, of whom 3478 were foreign-born; (1910, census) 10,134. It is connected with Butte by the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific railroad. Among its public buildings are the county court-house and the Hearst free public library (1898). Industrially, Anaconda is essentially a smelting camp for the copper ores from the Butte mines, probably the largest copper- smelter in the world being located here; the principal copper-mine at Butte—one of the most famous copper-mines in the world—is called the Anaconda. In 1905 the capital invested in manufacturing was $13,728,456, and the factory product was valued at $28,581,530. Electric power generated at the Helena Power Transmission Company's plant on the Missouri river, 18 m. from Helena, comes to Anaconda over 110 m. of wire at 70,000 voltage. Anaconda is to a large degree the market and trading-place of the Big Hole Basin cattle country in the north-western part of Beaverhead county; with Wisdom, in the Big Hole Basin, it was connected in 1905 by a 65 m. telephone line. Anaconda was first settled in 1884 and was chartered as a city in 1888.
ANACONDA, an aquatic boa, inhabiting the swamps and rivers of the dense forests of tropical South America. It is the largest of all modern snakes, said to attain over 30 ft. in length. The Eunectes murinus (formerly called Boa murina) differs from Boa by the snout being covered with shields instead of small scales, the inner of the three nasal shields being in contact with that of the other side. The general colour is dark olive-brown, with large oval black spots arranged in two alternating rows along the back, and with smaller white-eyed spots along the sides. The belly is whitish, spotted with black. The anaconda combines an arboreal with an aquatic life, and feeds chiefly upon birds and mammals, mostly during the night. It lies submerged in the water, with only a small part of its head above the surface, waiting for any suitable prey, or it establishes itself upon the branches of a tree which overhangs the water or the track of game. Being eminently aquatic this snake is viviparous. It is the only large boa which is decidedly ill-tempered.
ANACREON, Greek lyric poet, was born about 560 B.C., at Teos, an Ionian city on the coast of Asia Minor. Little is known of his life, except a few scattered notices, not in all cases certainly authentic. He probably shared the voluntary exile of the mass of his fellow-townsmen, who, when Cyrus the Great was besieging the Greek cities of Asia (545), rather than surrender their city to his general Harpagus, sailed to Abdera in Thrace, where they founded a colony. Anacreon seems to have taken part in the fighting, in which, on his own admission, he did not distinguish himself, but, like Alcaeus and Horace, threw away his shield and fled. From Thrace he removed to the court of Polycrates of Samos, one of the best of those old "tyrants''' who by no means deserved the name in its worst sense. He is said to have acted as tutor to Polycrates; that he enjoyed the tyrant's confidence we learn on the authority of Herodotus (iii. 121), who represents the poet as sitting in the royal chamber when audience was given to the Persian herald. In return for his favour and protection, Anacreon wrote many complimentary odes upon his patron. Like his fellow-lyrist, Horace, who was one of his great admirers, and in many respects of a kindred spirit, Anacreon seems to have been made for the society of courts. On the death of Polycrates, Hipparchus, who was then in power at Athens and inherited the literary tastes of his father Peisistratus, sent a special embassy to fetch the popular poet to Athens in a galley of fifty oars. Here he became acquainted with the poet Simonides, and other members of the brilliant circle which had gathered round Hipparchus. When this circle was broken up by the assassination of Hipparchus, Anacreon seems to have returned to his native town of Teos, where, according to a metrical epitaph ascribed to his friend Simonides, he died and was buried. According to others, before returning to Teos, he accompanied Simonides to the court of Echecrates, a Thessalian dynast of the house of the Aleuadae. Lucian mentions Anacreon amongst his instances of the longevity of eminent men, as having completed eighty-five years. If an anecdote given by Pliny (Nat. Hist. vii. 7) is to be trusted, he was choked at last by a grape-stone, but the story has an air of mythical adaptation to the poet's habits, which makes it somewhat apocryphal. Anacreon was for a long time popular at Athens, where his statue was to be seen on the Acropolis, together with that of his friend Xanthippus, the father of Pericles. On several coins of Teos he is represented, holding a lyre in his hand, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing. A marble statue found in 1835 in the Sabine district, and now in the Villa Borghese, is said to represent Anacreon. Anacreon had a reputation as a composer of hymns, as well as of those bacchanalian and amatory lyrics which are commonly associated with his name. Two short hymns to Artemis and Dionysus, consisting of eight and eleven lines respectively, stand first amongst his few undisputed remains, as printed by recent editors. But pagan hymns, especially when addressed to such deities as Aphrodite, Eros and Dionysus, are not so very unlike what we call "Anacreontic'' poetry as to make the contrast of style as great as the word might seem to imply. The tone of Anacreon's lyric effusions has probably led to an unjust estimate, by both ancients and moderns, of the poet's personal character. The "triple worship'' of the Muses, Wine and Love, ascribed to him as his religion in an old Greek epigram (Anthol. iii. 25, 51), may have been as purely professional in the two last cases as in the first, and his private character on such points was probably neither much better nor worse than that of his contemporaries. Athenaeus remarks acutely that he seems at least to have been sober when he wrote; and he himself strongly repudiates, as Horace does, the brutal characteristics of intoxication as fit only for barbarians and Scythians (Fr. 64). Of the five books of lyrical pieces by Anacreon which Suidas and Athenaeus mention as extant in their time, we have now but the merest fragments, collected from the citations of later writers. Those graceful little poems (most of them first printed from the MSS. by Henry Stephens in 1554), which long passed among the learned for the songs of Anacreon, and which are well-known to many English readers in the translations of Cowley and Moore, are really of much later date, though possibly here and there genuine fragments of the poet are included. Modern critics, however, regard the entire collection as imitations belonging to different periods—the oldest probably to Alexandrian times, the most recent to the last days of paganism. They will always retain a certain popularity from their lightness and elegance, and some of them are fair copies of Anacreon's style, which would lend itself readily enough to a clever imitator. A strong argument against their genuineness lies in the fact that the peculiar forms of the Ionic Greek, in which Anacreon wrote, are not to be found in these reputed odes, while the fragments of his poems quoted by ancient writers are full of Ionicisms. Again, only one of the quotations from Anacreon in ancient writers is to be found in these poems, which further contain no references to contemporaries, whereas Strabo (xiv. p. 638) expressly states that Anacreon's poems included numerous allusions to Polycrates. The character of Love as a mischievous little boy is quite different from that given by Anacreon, who describes him as "striking with a mighty axe, like a smith,'' and is more akin to the conceptions of later literature.
The best edition of the genuine fragments of Anacreon, as well as of the Anacreontea, is by Bergk (Poetae lyrici graeci, 1882). He includes in an appendix a similar collection of imitations from the Anecdota graeca of P. Matranga (1850), which had their origin in the beginning of the middle ages, and resemble the Christian anacreontics of Sophronius.
ANACREONTICS (from the name of the Greek poet Anacreon), the title given to short lyrical pieces, of an easy kind, dealing with love and wine. The English word appears to have been first used in 1656 by Abraham Cowley, who called a section of his poems "anacreontiques,'' because they were paraphrased out of the so-called writings of Anacreon into a familiar measure which was supposed to represent the metre of the Greek. Half a century later, when the form had been much cultivated, John Phillips (1631-1706) laid down the arbitrary rule that an anacreontic line "consists of seven syllables, without being tied to any certain law of quantity.'' In the 18th century, the antiquary William Oldys (1696-1761) was the author of a little piece which is the perfect type of an anacreontic: this begins:—
"Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I; Freely welcome to my cup, Could'st thou sip and sip it up. Make the most of life you may; Life is short and wears away.''
In 1800 Tom Moore published a collection of erotic anacreontics which are also typical in form; Moore speaks of the necessity of catching "the careless facility with which Anacreon appears to have trifled,'' as a reason why anacreontics are often tame and worthless. He dwells, moreover, on the absurdity of writing "pious anacreontics,'' a feat, however, which was performed by several of the Greek Christian poets, and in particular by Gregory of Nazianzus and John of Damascus. (E. G.)
ANADYOMENE ('Anaduoene), an epithet of Aphrodite (Venus), expressive of her having sprung from the foam of the sea. In a famous picture by Apelles she was represented under this title as if just emerged from the sea and in the act of wringing her tresses. This painting was executed for the temple of Asclepius at Cos, from which it was taken to Rome by Augustus in part payment of tribute, and set up in the temple of Caesar. In the time of Nero, owing to its dilapidated condition, it was replaced by a copy made by the painter Dorotheus (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxv. 36). There are several epigrams on it in the Greek anthology.
ANADYR, (1) a gulf, and (2) a river, in the extreme N.E. of Siberia, in the Maritime Province. The gulf extends from Cape Chukchi on the north to Cape Navarin on the south, forming part of the Bering Sea. The river, taking its rise in the Stanovoi mountains as the Ivashki or Ivachno, about 67 deg. N. lat. and 173 deg. E. long., flows through the Chukchi country, at first south-west and then east, and enters the Gulf of Anadyr after a course of about 500 m. The country through which it passes is thinly populated, barren and desolate. For nine months of the year the ground is covered with snow. Reindeer, upon which the inhabitants subsist, are found in considerable numbers.
ANAEMIA (from Gr. an-, privative, and aima, blood), literally "want of blood,'' a word used as a generic term for various forms of disease characterized by a defective constitution of the blood. For different types of anaemia see the article BLOOD, section Pathology.
ANAESTHESIA and ANAESTHETICS (Gr. anaisthesia, from an-, privative, and aisthesis, sensation), terms used in medicine to describe a state of local or general insensibility to external impressions, and the substances used for inducing this state. In diseases of the brain or spinal cord anaesthesia is an occasional symptom, but in such cases it is usually limited in extent, involving a limb or a definite area of the body's surface. Complete anaesthesia occurs in a state of catalepsy or trance— conditions associated with no definite lesion of the nervous system.
The artificial induction of anaesthesia has come to occupy a foremost place in modern medicine, but there is abundant evidence to show that it is a practice of great antiquity. Besides the mention by Homer of the anaesthetic effects of nepenthe, and the reference by Herodotus to the practice of the Scythians of inhaling the vapours of a certain kind of hemp to produce intoxication, the employment of anaesthetics in surgery by the use of mandragora is particularly alluded to by Dioscorides and Pliny. It also appears, from an old Chinese manuscript laid before the French Academy by Stanislas Julien, that a physician named Hoa-tho, who lived in the 3rd century, gave his patients a preparation of hemp, whereby they were rendered insensible during the performance of surgical operations. Mandragora was extensively used as an anaesthetic by Hugo de Lucca, who practised in the 13th century. The soporific effects of mandrake are alluded to by Shakespeare, who also makes frequent mention of anaesthetizing draughts, the composition of which is not specified.
In the Medical Gazette, vol. xii. p. 515, Dr Sylvester, quoting from a German work by Meissner, published in 1782, mentions the case of Augustus, king of Poland, who underwent amputation while rendered insensible by a narcotic. But the practice of anaesthesia never became general, and surgeons appear to have usually regarded it with disfavour. When, towards the close of the 18th century, the discoveries of Priestley gave an impetus to chemical research, the properties of gases and vapours began to be more closely investigated, and the belief was then entertained that many of them would become of great medicinal value. In 1800, Sir Humphry Davy, experimenting on nitrous oxide (the so-called "laughing gas''), discovered its anaesthetic properties, and described the effects it had on himself when inhaled with the view of relieving local pain. He suggested its employment in surgery in the following words:—"As nitrous oxide, in its extensive operation, seems capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be used with advantage in surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place.'' His suggestion, however, remained unheeded for nearly half a century. The inhalation of sulphuric ether for the relief of asthma and other lung affections had been employed by Dr Pearson of Birmingham as early as 1785; and in 1805 Dr J. C. Warren of Boston, U.S.A., used this treatment in the later stages of pulmonary consumption.
In 1818 Faraday showed that the inhalation of the vapour of ether produced anaesthetic effects similar to those of nitrous oxide; and this property of ether was also shown by the American physicians, John D. Godman (1822), James Jackson (1833), Wood and Bache (1834).
These observations, however, appear to have been regarded in the light of mere scientific curiosities and subjects for lecture- room experiment, rather than as facts capable of being applied practically in the treatment of disease, till December 1844, when Dr Horace Wells, a dentist of Hartford, Connecticut, underwent in his own person the operation of tooth-extraction while rendered insensible by nitrous oxide. Satisfied, from further experience, that teeth could be extracted in this way without pain, Dr Wells proposed to establish the practice of painless dentistry under the influence of the gas; but in consequence of an unfortunate failure in an experiment at Boston he abandoned the project. On the 30th of September 1846 Dr W. T. G. Morton, a dentist of Boston, employed the vapour of ether to procure general anaesthesia in a case of tooth-extraction, and thereafter administered it in cases requiring surgical operation with complete success. This great achievement marked a new era in surgery. Operations were performed in America in numerous instances under ether inhalation, the result being only to establish more firmly its value as a successful anaesthetic. The news of the discovery reached England on the 17th of December 1840. On the 19th of December Mr Robinson, a dentist in London, and on the 21st Robert Liston, the eminent surgeon, operated on patients anaesthetized by ether; and the practice soon became general both in Great Britain and on the continent.
Sir James Simpson was the first to apply anaesthesia by ether to midwifery practice; this he did in 1847, and found that the pains of labour could be abolished without interference with uterine contractions or injury to the child. On the 8th of March 1847 M. J. P. Flourens read a paper before the Academie des Sciences on the effect of chloroform on the lower animals, but no notice was taken of what has since proved to be a discovery of epoch-making importance. In November of the same year Simpson announced his discovery of the anaesthetic properties of chloroform, the trial of which had been suggested to him by Waldie, a chemist of Liverpool. As the result, chloroform came to be widely used instead of ether, though it was found by several casualties that it was not the absolutely safe anaesthetic that had at first been hoped. It, however, remained the drug that was chiefly used till Dr J. T. Clover (1825-1882) of London introduced his regulating ether-inhaler in 1876, embodying a new principle—that of limiting the quantity of air during etherization and regulating the strength of the vapour.
During the intervening period, as the results of the labours of John Snow, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, Thomas Nunnely, and Colton amongst others, several drugs were found to possess anaesthetic properties. Of these one, ethyl chloride, which was speedily given up, has come into deserved prominence at the present time; and another, nitrous oxide, which had been lost sight of since Wells's failure at Boston, was reintroduced, and it became and has remained the most popular anaesthetic in dental practice.
Since 1876 no new drugs have been introduced; the progress has been in the direction of improvements in the technique of anaesthetization. The most important of these is the administration of oxygen with nitrous oxide, resulting from the recognition of the fact that this drug does not owe its anaesthetic properties to partial asphyxia, as was thought till the contrary was shown by Edmund Andrews of Chicago in 1868. It was not till twenty years later that this knowledge was put to practical use, when F. W. Hewett introduced his regulating stopcock, which enabled the anaesthetist to exhibit the nitrous oxide and oxygen in such proportions as were demanded by the patient's condition. At the present time the anaesthetics in common use are the following:—
(1) Nitrous oxide gas, or laughing gas, N2O. This is a colourless, odourless gas, which for convenience is carried about in liquid form in iron cylinders. When about to be used, it is allowed to escape into a large rubber bag, connected with a closely- fitting face-piece, which covers up the nose and mouth, and allows of inspiration only from the bag of gas, expiration being into the air. When thus given the patient is exposed to a certain degree of asphyxia. This asphyxia is not only not necessary but is harmful, and may be obviated by giving oxygen in small amounts simultaneously by means of Hewett's regulating stopcock. This drug is used chiefly for dental operations, and for minor surgery where absolute muscular relaxation is not required. When mixed with oxygen, it can he given if necessary for an hour or longer. It has an induction period of a few breaths only, and the recovery is as a rule unaccompanied by excitement or nausea. It is also used as a preliminary to ether; the gas is given till unconsciousness is reached, the unpleasant taste of the ether being thus avoided and the induction period shortened. The mortality from nitrous oxide is small, and from the gas and oxygen in expert hands nil.
(2) Ethyl chloride, C2H5Cl, a colourless liquid of a pleasant odour, boiling at 12.5 deg. C. It is used in the same class of operations as the last anaesthetic. It is best given in an apparatus that consists of a mask closely adapted to the face, and a rubber bag of small capacity, with which is connected the bottle containing the ethyl chloride. The vapour supplied from the bottle is breathed backwards and forwards from the bag, fresh air being admitted in small quantities only. The period of induction is shorter than in the case of nitrous oxide, the patient losing consciousness in two or three breaths; the stage of recovery is not so uniformly pleasant, headache, nausea and vomiting occurring not infrequently. It is difficult at present to estimate the mortality, as it has only recently come into general use, but it seems to occupy an intermediate position between ether and chloroform.
(3) Ether, or ethyl oxide, (C2H5)2O, a colourless, volatile liquid, boiling at 36.5 deg. C. It has a pungent odour. It is best administered, as in the case of ethyl chloride, by limiting the amount of air during inhalation. The induction is much slower than in the case of the last two drugs, and it is accompanied by a feeling of suffocation, owing to the pungent odour of the ether. On that account the anaesthetic is best started with nitrous oxide or ethyl chloride. The recovery is always marked by some nausea and very frequently by vomiting. The mortality is small during the actual operation, but fatalities from respiratory complications later on are not uncommon.
(4) Chloroform, CHCl3, a colourless liquid of a penetrating odour, boiling at 63 deg. C. It is administered in such a way as to ensure the free admixture of air. To secure this the face-piece must be loosely-fitting, and the strength of the vapour so gradually increased that the patient is never inconvenienced or impelled to hold the breath. The induction is slow, occupying two or more minutes, but it is not at all unpleasant; nausea and vomiting during recovery are rarer than in the case of ether, but if they do occur they last longer. The mortality on the table is about 1 in 2500. |
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