ABSINTHE is a spirit flavored with the pounded leaves and flowering tops of certain species of Artemisia (q. v.), chiefly wormwood (A. Absinthium), together with Angelica-root, sweet-flag root, star-anise, and other aromatics. The aromatics are macerated for about eight days in alcohol, and then distilled, the result being an emerald-colored liquor. Adulteration is largely practised, even blue vitriol being sometimes found in so-called A. The best A. is made in Switzerland, the chief seat of the manufacture being in the canton of Neufchatel. It is chiefly used in France, but is of late largely exported to the United States. When to be drunk, the greenish liquor is usually mixed with water. The evil effects of drinking A. are very apparent; frequent intoxication or moderate but steady tippling, utterly deranges the digestive system, weakens the frame, induces horrible dreams and hallucinations, and may end in paralysis or in idiocy.

A'MBULANCE, a military term which is somewhat differently applied in different countries. In France, an A. is a portable hospital, one of which is attached to every division of an army in the field, and provided with all the requisites for the medical succor of sick or wounded troops. Such an A. is stationed at some spot removed from immediate danger; and soldiers are sedulously employed after a battle in seeking out those who have fallen, and conveying them to the A. Baron Larrey, during the great wars of the First Napoleon, brought this department of medical business to a high degree of efficiency, and set an example to the rest of Europe. When England engaged in war with Russia in 1854, the A. arrangements, like many others relating to the army, were in a very imperfect state. In the English army, A., strictly speaking, means a field hospital with all its wagons, litters, tents, cooking canteen, &c-; but sometimes the name is applied to a four-wheeled wagon or a two-wheeled cart fitted up for the reception of wounded men. When Lord Raglan was about to be sent out with the army, Dr. Guthrie, President of the College of Surgeons, devised a new form of A. cart; while Dr. Andrew Smith, Director-general of the Army and Ordnance Medical Department, invented a new A. wagon.

Annexed is a figure of Dr. Guthrie's A. cart. The badly wounded were laid on it at full length, while those slightly hurt sat in front and rear, and on the sides. A stretcher is slung from the top for the accommodation of the former. The back-board is let down for cases requiring amputation. The hospital chests are lashed underneath. Many of Smith's A. wagons and of Guthrie's A. carts were at once made and sent out to the East; but they were not at the proper place when most wanted. After the battle of the Alma, the English were almost entirely destitute of means for conveying their wounded down to the beach; but the French had for this purpose a large number of camlets, suggested to them by their experience in Algeria. Each of these consists of two easy-chairs, slung in panniers across the back of a mule; and it is accordingly available along tracks where no wheel-carriage could pass. These cacolets have since been adopted in the English army, as well as improved, hand-litters, wheeled-litters or barrows, and ambulance wagons on a more modern model than those of Smith and Guthrie, but having the same general character. The American War, the wars of 1866 and 1870, and above all, the growth of volunteer aid societies under the influence of the Geneva Convention of 1866 (which gave to the wounded and their attendants the privileges of neutrality), have largely developed the ambulance equipments of every European army. Every international exhibition now contains an immense number of designs for the safe transport of the wounded. The most remarkable step taken in this direction has been the organization of railway ambulances. Trains of carriages either built for the purpose, or adapted from the ordinary rolling stock, can now be fitted up as moving hospitals, with their staff of surgeons and attendants; and by means of these railway ambulances the wounded can be safely and rapidly removed from the encumbered field hospitals to the permanent hospitals of the great cities of their own country. All the fittings for thus adapting railway trains to hospital purposes are now kept permanently m store in many of the countries of the continent.

RAPHA'NIA, or ERGOTISM, is a disease which was much more prevalent some centuries ago than it is at present. It is defined as 'a train of morbid symptoms, produced by the slow and cumulative action of a specific poison peculiar to wheat and rye, and which gives rise to convulsions, gangrene of the extremities, and death ' (Aitken's Science and Practice of Medicine, 1858, p. 332). It has been described under various names. From the 10th to the 14th c., it was known as St. Anthony's fire, a title which has been since associated with erysipelas. It was then described as epidemic gangrene. The name Raphania was first given to it by Linne, who thought the morbid symptoms were dependent upon the mixture of Raphanus Raphanistrum, or jointed charlock, with the wheat used as food. It was suspected, as early as the end of the 16th c., that the disease was due to the development of a fungus on the grain, and this fact is now established beyond doubt, although some writers hold (like Linne) that this morbid state is also produced by the admixture of poisonous plants, especially Lolium temulentum, or darnel, being mingled with the grain. Although rye is the ordinary seat of the poisonous fungus, wheat, rice, and other grains are liable to be similarly affected, and to produce similar results. For an account of the fungus, see ERGOT.

There are two forms of the disease—the spasmodic and the gangrenous. The spasmodic form begins with tingling or itching of the feet and hands, and sometimes of the head. Violent contractions of the hands and feet, giving rise to intense pain in the joints, are a common symptom. The head is much affected, the patient complaining of drowsiness, giddiness, and indistinct vision. If coma or epileptic convulsions supervene, there is little hope of recovery. The appetite is usually enormous; spots like those of purpura appear on the face, and there are seldom any signs of improvement for some weeks. The gangrenous form begins with extreme lassitude, and is accompanied by some febrile disturbance. The extremities are painful, cold, almost insensible, and not readily moved; and after a varying time, gangrene supervenes.

With regard to treatment, the first thing to do is to replace the poisonous flour by easily digested, nourishing, wholesome food. The pain must be relieved by opiates, the blood purified by the administration of chlorate of potash, and the general tone of the system improved by tonics, such as the preparations of iron, bark, &c. In the spasmodic form, warm baths and gentle friction would probably prove serviceable. Whatever be the form of treatment adopted, the mortality in the gangrenous form is usually 90 per cent. The spasmodic form is much less destructive to life.

SPLINTS, in Surgery, are certain mechanical contrivances for keeping a fractured limb in its proper position, and for preventing any motion of the fractured ends; they are also employed for securing perfect immobility of the parts to which they are applied in other cases, as in diseased joints, after resection of joints, &c.

Ordinary splints are composed of wood carved to the shape of the limb, and padded; the best pads being made out of old blankets, which should be cut into strips long and wide enough to line the splints, and laid in sufficient number upon one another to give the requisite softness. The splints should be firmly bound to the previously bandaged limb with pieces of bandage, or with straps and buckles; care being taken that they are put on sufficiently tight to keep the parts immovable, and to prevent muscular spasm", but not so tight as to induce discomfort. Gutta percha, sole-leather, or pasteboard, after having been softened in boiling water, may in some cases advantageously take the place of wooden splints. They must be applied when soft to the part they are intended to support, so as to take a perfect mould, and then be dried, stiffened, and, if necessary, lined. An account of the more complicated kinds of splint required in certain cases, as Macintyre's Splint, Liston's Splint, &c., may be seen in any illustrated catalogue of surgical instruments.

The ordinary splint is now to a great degree superseded by immovable bandages, which consist of the ordinary bandage saturated with a thick mucilage of starch, or with a strong solution of a mixture of powdered gum-arabic and precipitated chalk, which, when dry, form a remarkably light but firm support. As, however, these bandages require some hours to dry and become rigid, means must be used to counteract any displacement of the limb in the interval. On this account, many surgeons prefer the plaster of Paris or gypsum bandage, which is applied in the following manner : the limb being protected by a layer of cotton-wool, a bandage composed of coarse and open material, into which as much dry powdered gypsum as possible has been rubbed, must be immersed in water for about a minute, and then rolled around the limb in a spiral manner, just as an ordinary bandage; after every second or third turn of the bandage, the left hand of the surgeon should be plunged into water, and smeared over the part last applied. When the whole has been thus treated, the exterior of the bandage should be smeared over with a paste of gypsum and water until a smooth surface and complete rigidity have been attained—a process not occupying more than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.

In a case of simple fracture, where no surgical aid is at hand, any non-professional person of ordinary intelligence might apply this bandage, extreme care being taken that the ends of the broken bones are in their proper position.

MEMORY, DISEASES OF. Memory, or the power of reproducing mental impressions, is impaired by age, wounds, or injuries to the head or nervous system, fevers, intemperance, and various physical conditions. It is perhaps affected in all kinds of mental derangement, but is in a most signal manner obliterated or enfeebled in Dementia. There are, however, examples of recollection surviving all other faculties, and preserving a clear and extensive notion of long and complicated series of events amid the general darkness and ruin of mind. Incoherence owes some of its features to defective or irregular memory. Cases of so marvelous an exaltation and extension of this capacity, as where a whole parliamentary debate could be recalled, suggest the suspicion of unhealthy action. There appear, however, to be special affections of the faculty. It may be suspended while the intelligence remains intact. Periods of personal or general history may elude the grasp, and even that continuity of impressions which goes far to constitute the feeling of personal identity, is broken Up, and a duality or multiplicity of experiences may appear to be conjoined. The converse of this may happen, and knowledge that had completely faded away may, under excitement or cerebral disease, return. There are, besides, states in which this power is partially affected, as in the instances where the numbers 5 and 7 were lost, and where a highly educated man could not retain any conception of the letter F; secondly, where, it appears perverted, recalling images inappropriately, and in an erroneous sequence of order or time, and different from what are desired; and thirdly, where, while the written or printed signs of ideas can be used, the oral or articulate signs are utterly forgotten. All these deviations from health appear to depend upon changes generally of an apoplectic nature in the anterior lobes of the brain.—Crichton on Mental Derangement; Teuchtersleben, Medical Psychology; Ribot, Les Maladies de la Memoire (1881).

HY'PNOTISM (from the Greek word hypnos, sleep), is a term invented by the late Mr. Braid, of Manchester, to designate cer­tain phenomena of the nervous system which in many respects re­semble those which are induced by animal magnetism, but which clearly arise from the physical and psychical condition of the patient, and not from any emanation proceeding from others.

The following are his directions for inducing the phenomena, and especially the peculiar sleep-like condition of hypnotism. Take a silver lancet-case or other bright object, and hold it between the fingers of the left hand, about a foot from the eyes of the person experimented on, in such a position above the forehead as to produce the greatest strain on the eyes compatible with a steady fixed stare at the object. The patient must be directed to rivet his mind on the object at which he is gazing. His pupils will first contract, but soon dilate considerably; and if, after they are well dilated, the first and second fingers of the operator's right hand, extended and a little separated, are carried from the

object towards the eyes, the eyelids will most probably close with a vibratory motion. After ten or fifteen seconds have elapsed, it will be found that the patient retains his arms and legs in any position in which the operator places them. It will also be found that all the special senses, excepting sight, are at first extremely exalted, as also are the muscular sense and the sensibility of heat and cold; but after a time the exaltation of function is followed by a state of depression far greater than the torpor of natural sleep. The patient is now thoroughly hypnotized. The rigidity of the muscles and the profound torpor of the nervous system may be instantly removed, and an opposite condition induced by direct­ing a current of air against the muscles which we wish to render limber, or the organ we wish to excite to action; and then by mere repose the senses will speedily regain their original condi­tion. If a current of air directed against the face is not sufficient to arouse the patient, pressure and friction should be applied to the eyelids, and the arm or leg sharply struck with the open hand.

From the careful analysis of a large number of experiments, Mr. Braid is led to the conclusion, that by a continual fixation of the mental and visual eye upon an object, with absolute repose of body and general quietude, a feeling of stupor supervenes, which renders the patient liable to be readily affected in the manner al­ready described. As the experiment succeeds with the blind, he considers that ' it is not so much the optic, as the sentient, motor, and sympathetic nerves, and the mind through which the impres­sion is made.'

Many of the minor operations of surgery have been performed on patients in the hypnotized state without pain, and hypnotism has been successfully employed as a therapeutic agent in numer­ous forms of disease, especially such as have their seat in the nervous system. An interesting memoir On Hypnotic Therapeutics was written by Mr. Braid in 1853; but see also more recent works on Animal Magnetism and Mesmerism.

Each lung is invested externally by a very delicate serous membrane termed the pleura, which, after enclosing the whole organ, except at its root, where the great vessels enter it, is reflected upon the inner surface of the thorax or chest. That portion of the pleura which is in contact with the surface of the lung is called the pleura pulmonalis, or visceral layer; whilst

The inner surface of each pleura is smooth, glistening, and moistened by a serous fluid; the outer surface is closely adherent to the surface of the lung, to the roots of the pulmonary vessels as they enter the lung, to the upper surface of the diaphragm, and to the walls of the chest. The lobes of the lungs are separated from one another by involutions or in-foldings of the visceral layer; two such involutions—one on either side—are shown in the figure. The use of these serous sacs is much the same as that of the Peritoneum (q. v.); each pleura retains the lung and, to a certain extent, the greater vessels in position, while it at the same time facilitates, within certain limits, the movements of those parts which are essential to the due performance of the act of respiration.