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HOMOLOGY 



HONDURAS 



Though Hahnemann is denounced by many as a 

 'fanatic' and a ' knave,' and notwithstanding that 

 homoeopathy has very generally been set aside as 

 a 'fraud,' no one can study the history of medicine 

 during the 19th century without perceiving the 

 powerful influence it has had on the general prac- 

 tice of the medical profession. While, during the 

 first lifty years of the century, homoeopathy was 

 gradually becoming more frequently practised, the 

 weapons commonly used against disease were of 

 the most formidable character. Bleeding by lancet, 

 leeches, and cupping-glasses, mercurialism, purga- 

 tives, &c. were in constant use. The progress of 

 homoeopathy in Austria, and the assumption on 

 the part of some physicians that it was a purely 

 negative mode of treatment, the success of which 

 was due to the omission of all drugs, led to that 

 scepticism in. medicine which, originating with 

 Skoda in Vienna, prevailed throughout the profes- 

 sion during the next twenty years. ' Placebos ' 

 took the place of the lancet, bread-pills formed a 

 substitute for purgatives, and ' ptisans ' did duty 

 for mercury. As the literature of homoeopathy 

 increased a revival of interest in the use of drugs ! 

 followed ; and during the last twenty years the | 

 method of studying the actions of drugs originally \ 

 suggested and carried out by Hahnemann has been 

 adopted to a very large extent, under the designa- 

 tion of pharmacology ; while, for practical purposes, 

 the uses of drugs proposed by homoeopathists, and 

 set forth in their journals and published works, 

 have, as has already been stated, been very largely 

 followed. See the article MEDICINE. 



The chief authorities on homoeopathy are : The History 

 of Homoeopathy : its Origin and Conflicts, by Dr Aineke, 

 translated by Dr A. E. Drysdale ; Lectures on Homoeo- 

 pathy, by Dr Dudgeon ; Homoeopathy : its Principle, 

 Method, and Future, by Dr Pope ; Fifty Reasons for 

 being a Homoeopath, by Dr Burnett; A Manual of 

 Therapeutics, by Dr Hughes ; A Manual of Pharmaco- 

 dynamics, by Dr Hughes. The Homeopathic Review and 

 The Homoeopathic World are published monthly. 



Homology. See ANALOGY, and DARWINIAN 

 THEORY, Vol. III. p. 689. 



Homooiisiail (Gr. homos, 'the same,' and 

 ousia, 'substance') and HOMOIOUSIAN (Gr. 

 homoios, 'like,' and ousia, 'substance'), two 

 terms that long distracted the primitive church 

 in connection with the Arian and semi-Arian con- 

 troversies. See ARIUS, CREEDS. 



Homop'tera (Gr. homos, 'the same, nni- 

 form;' pteron, 'a wing'), a division of the insect 

 order Hemiptera (q.v.), including Coccus insects, 

 Aphides, Cicadas, xc. (q.v.). 



Hoinof axis. See CONTEMPORANEITY. 



Horns. See HEMS. 



lEnnail. one of the central provinces of China, 

 desolated in 1887 by the inundation of the Hoang- 

 ho. See CHINA, HOANG-HO. 



Honawar, a small seaport on the Malabar or 

 west coast of India, is a town in the district of 

 North Kanara, in the presidency of Bombay, and 

 is 340 .miles SSE. of Bombay. Pop. 6658. 



Honduras, a Central American republic, since 

 1895 confederated with Nicaragua and Salvador as 

 part of the Repuhlica Mayor de Centro- America, lies 

 between Nicaragua and San Salvador and Guate- 

 mala, and is bounded on the N. and NE. by the 

 Bay of Honduras and the Caribbean Sea, having 

 here a coast-line of some 400 miles ; while on the 

 S. the Bay of Fonseca, over 50 miles long and 

 about 30 wide, opens to the Pacific. The area of 

 Honduras is calculated at 46,500 sq. m. ; the pop. 

 is stated at 435,000. Except for a narrow strip 

 of swamp-land along either coast, the country 

 is a tableland, its series of elevated plateaus 

 broken by broad and fertile plains anil valleys, or 



rising to mountain -ridges that reach 8000 feet 

 (highest peak, the Montana de Selaque, 10,120 

 feet). There are no active volcanoes. The Cordil- 

 leras proper traverse the country irregularly in a, 

 north-west and south-east direction. Honduras is 

 watered by innumerable streams, though these are 

 seldom navigable, and then only for short distances ; 

 the Wanks or Segovia, which forms for many miles 

 the boundary with Nicaragua, has a length of 350 

 miles. Roatan and the other fertile Bay Islands 

 (q.v.), off the north coast, belong to Honduras, as 

 well as two small islands in the Bay of Fonseca. 

 The climate is hot on the coast, where also fever 

 prevails ; but in the highlands the temperature is 

 low, and in the principal towns the mean is 74 F. 

 In the mountains heavy frosts encrust the leaves of 

 the pine and oak forests in November and Decem- 

 ber; but snow has never been known. Generally 

 speaking, the rainy season extends from May to 

 November. The flora and fauna are very nearly 

 the same as those of Guatemala (q.v.); but in 

 Honduras the raising of cattle is an important 

 industry, while agriculture receives no such atten- 

 tion as in Guatemala. In minerals Honduras is 

 the richest of the Central American republics. 

 Silver ores in almost every variety are abundant ; 

 gold is washed principally in Olancho, and mined 

 in one or two places ; rich iron ores are found, 

 mostly magnetic ; also copper, antimony, platinum, 

 zinc, and tin. There are beds of lignite in Gracias 

 department, and famous opals that are second only 

 to those of Hungary. The mineral resources have 

 never been properly developed, but now that 

 several North American and other foreign com- 

 panies are at work, and especially since a wagon- 

 road has been constructed from the Pacific coast to 

 Yuscaran (122 miles), by which heavy machinery 

 can be conveyed into the heart of the silver belt, 

 there is every prospect of scientific methods being 

 successfully applied. The exports in 1895, mostly 

 to the United States, and consisting chiefly of cattle, 

 fruits and cocoa-nuts, india-rubber, sarsaparilla, 

 timber, and indigo, exceeded 1,800,000 dollars. 

 The imports may be estimated at 1,500,000 dollars. 



The republic is divided into thirteen depart- 

 ments. Under the revised constitution of 1894 

 (after the successful revolution of that year), 

 the president is elected for four years, and is 

 assisted by six ministers ; and the legislative 

 power is vested in a congress of thirty-seven dep- 

 uties. The president, however, is for all practical 

 purposes a dictator. The active army consists of 

 500 men, the militia of 3000. The finances of the 

 country are extremely embarrassed, partly owing 

 to wars with the two neighbouring states in 1872- 

 76 ; while three loans contracted on heavy terms in 

 London and Paris in 1867-70, for the purpose of 

 making an interoceanic railway, have left Honduras 

 saddled with a foreign debt of 5,398,570, exclu- 

 sive of the interest, which has been accumulating 

 since 1872 ; and for this there is only a line from 

 Puerto Cortez to San Pedro Sula (38 miles) to 

 show. The internal debt is returned at 2,745,000 

 dollars. The revenue for the year 1895 was put at 

 1,550,000 dollars, the expenditure at 1,543,000 

 dollars. 



Honduras was discovered by Columbus on his 

 fourth voyage, in 1502, and derives its name from 

 the Spanish honduras, 'depths,' in allusion, accord- 

 ing to the common account, to the difficulty he ex- 

 perienced in finding anchorage on its coast. There 

 are numerous pyramids and other remains of the 

 ancient inhabitants. Honduras threw off the yoke 

 of Spain, with the rest of Central America, in 

 1821, and became independent on the dissolution 

 of the confederation in 1839. Revolutions and fre- 

 quent Avars with Guatemala and San Salvador 

 ended only in 1876, since when a considerable 



