PELLAGRA. 



PBLOPOKCTSIAK \v.\K. 



M 



in *on place* 20 feet high. A* has heo mid, the wall* exliil.it an 



im|.r..%, -incut in structure over those of Tiryns; but tin fortifications 

 tbmuplvw it u scarcely necessary to ay present m> aivhiti etur.d 

 riumrtrr. The only ornamental frature i the great gateway, which is 

 ; high, and at the top S>J feet wide. It in formed liy two great 

 lone upright* or jamb*, oorered with a lintel 15 feet long, 4 feet wide, 

 and 6 thick. The lintel bean mark* of bolta and hinges, and on 

 clearing away the ground in 1842, the ruU formed by the chariot 

 wheel* were found in the smooth alaba of the pavement. Above the 

 lintel U a block of gray limestone, 10 feet high and 12 wide, upon 

 which, sculptured in low-relief, U a central column or altar with, on 

 each aide, a lion standing on hit hind legs and resting bin fore-paws on 

 the base; whence it is known ag the Gate of the Lions. This is the 

 oldest known example of sculpture in Greece. Pausanius mention* 

 this gateway (B. ii. c. 16) which, be adds, they report was made by the 

 Cyclopes. The lion* are carved in a rude but simple style ; and in the 

 fneae or altar borne by the central column are rude circular projec- 

 tions which Mr. Fergusson believes represent " the round ends of the 

 timbers of the roof, as if projecting into the fric/c." 



lly the U-rnean Marsh, about half a mile from the road from Argon 

 to Mantinea, and a mile from the Erasinos, are the remains of a 

 pyramid crowning a rocky eminence, which some have supposed to be 

 of I'cLwgic constniction. It U doubtless of extreme antiquity, but 

 whether Pelasgic or not U uncertain : some have seen in it a con- 

 necting link with the mythic Egyptian colony of Danaus. 



(Leakc, Trarfls in the Morta ; PrlopaHitaiaea ; Mure, Tour in 

 (Irttet ; Sir W. Cell, Argolu ; Pouqueville, Voyage daiu la Orice ; 

 Petit-Hade), Rethmlut nr la Mmumau-CydafftM ; Donaldson, A itti- 

 1/nitlft of A tkau.) 



PELLA'GRA is a dinnssr chiefly affecting the skin, and particularly 

 prevalent amongst the peasantry of the north of Italy. According to 

 Dr. Holland (whose description in the 8th volume of the ' London 

 Medico-Chinirgical Transactions,' is by far the best that baa been pub- 

 lished in this country), the disease affects the poor almost exclusively, 

 and among them chiefly those who arc occupied in the culture of the 

 irrigated rice-grounds, and in other branches of agricultural labour. It 

 usually appears first as a disease of the skin, breaking out early in the 

 spring, with slightly elevated shining dark-red blotches on the hands 

 am) feet, and sometimes on other parts of the body, accompanied by a 

 slight pricking sensation. Soon after, small tubercles arise upon the 

 inflamed blotches, and the skin becomes dry and scaly, and often 

 deeply cracked. Desquamation gradually takes place, and, towards the 

 close of the summer, or even earlier, the skin usually appears quite 

 recovered. This, at least, is the usual progress of the first attack ; and 

 there is seldom any greater general disturbance of the health than 

 debility, irregular pains of the body, loss of appetite, and emaciation. 



In the next spring however the disease usually recurs, with a great 

 aggravation of both the local and the general symptoms, and especially 

 with an increase of the nervous affection, and great anxiety and de- 

 spondency. In succeeding years it regularly returns with increased 

 severity in every spring, though it does not, as at first, leave the patient 

 nearly healthy in the autumn and winter. After the third attack, or 

 sometimes later, the weakness of the patient commonly becomes ex- 

 treme, and he has many symptoms similar to those of scurvy, with 

 constant diarrhoea, dropsical swellings, and various nervous disorders. 

 Its most marked character however is the total despair which tills the 

 patients' minds, from which nothing can rouse them, and which, if the 

 disease does not prove fatal by its effects in debilitating their bodies, 

 generally leads to incurable idiotcy or mania. In the lunatic hospital 

 at Milan, I)r. Holland found, among 500 patients, more than one-third 

 in whom the insanity had been the result of pellagra, and " even this 

 statement gives little adequate idea of the nature of its ravages. The 

 public hospitals are far from sufficient to receive the vast number of 

 persons affected with the pellagra ; and the greater proportion perish 

 in their own habitations, or linger wretched spectacles of fatuity and 

 decay." The period during which the disease may continue IK 

 tain ; but after the third or fourth year, there is usually little hope of 

 from any means that can be adopted. The diseases to which, in 

 its later stages, it may lead, or with which it may be complicated, are 

 of the most varied kinds ; and there are few which, in different cases, 

 the Italian physicians do not ascribe to its influence. 



The pellagra prevails chiefly in the provinces of Lombardy between 

 the Alps and the Po, and especially in the district between the Lago 

 Maggiore and the Lago di Como. Among the inhabitants of these 

 part* it has now been supposed to have existed for upwards of a cen- 

 tury : here it appears first to have become an object of attention to 

 physicians, and hence to have spread slowly to the Venetian and other 

 northern province*. It is distinctly an hereditary disease ; but there 

 is no sufficient evidence for believing it to be propagated by contagion. 

 Its origin and prevalence are rather to be referred to the condition of 

 poverty in which the peasantry, though the cultivators of one of the 

 most fertile countries in Europe, are compelled to live. Their ordinary 

 diet consist* of vegetables, which ore usually of inferior quality ami 

 ill-prepared : their bread, which is principally made of maize, is for 

 the most part ill-fermented, and often deficient in salt. They rarely 

 have any animal food, and their |MI\ crty almost entirely precludes the 

 use of the wines of their own country. Similar wretchodne.- 



their clothing, in their dwellings, and in the deficiency of all 



the commonest comforts of life. They are thus constantly predisposed 

 t ili.- attacks of diseases of all kinds, and especially are unfit for ex- 

 posure to the influence of a burning sun during severe agricultural 

 l.ilxmr. Hence the disease usually makes its first appearance \vhru 

 the peasants are at their most active work, and when the heat of the 

 days is increasing ; and hence it is usually first characterised by a dis- 

 ease of the skin, which however is but a slight indication of its future 

 more serious and varied effects. 



The treatment of pellagra offers little prospect of success, so long as 

 the patient remains exposed to the same influences by which he was 

 rendered subject to its attack. The course usually adopted by the 

 Italian physicians for the patients who are admitted into tin- ho.-pitals 

 U a liberal allowance of wholesome food, and the administration of 

 wine and of tonics of various kinds. There seems little reason to 

 doubt that if wholesome food could be constantly seam .1 for the p .Kir, 

 the pellagra would speedily disappear from all the districts in which it 

 now so fatally prevails. 



PELLUTEINE. [PEi.osm:.] 



1'KI.IM'ONNKSIAN WAll is the name given to the great contest 

 between Athens and her allies on the one Hide, ami the I'elopounesian 

 confederacy, headed by Sparta, on the other, which lasted from 431 to 

 404 ii.i'. The political state of Greece at the commencement of the 

 war has been briefly described under GREECE, in GEOO. Div. The war 

 was a consequence of the jealousy with which Sparta and Athens 

 regarded each other, as states each of which was aiming at supremacy 

 in Greece, as the heads respectively of the Dorian and Ionian races, 

 and as patrons of the two opposite forms of civil government, oil 



uocracy. The war was eagerly desired by a strong party in 

 each of those states ; but it was necessary to find an occasion for com- 

 mencing hostilities, especially as a truce for thirty years had been 

 concluded between Athens and Sparta in'the year u.c. 445. Such an 

 occasion was presented by the affairs of Corcyra and Potidica. In a 

 quarrel which soon became a war between Corinth and Corcyra, 

 respecting Kpidamuus, a colony of the latter state (B.C. 436), the Corcy- 

 reons applied to Athens for assistance. Their request was granted, as 

 far as the conclusion of a defensive alliance between Athens and Cor- 

 cyra, and an Athenian fleet was sent to their aid, which however soon 

 engaged in active hostilities against the Corinthians. 



Potidjoa, on the isthmus of I'alleue, was a Corinthian colony, and 

 even after its subjection to Athens continued to receive every year 

 from Corinth certain functionaries or officers (triSruuoopyot). The 

 Athenians, suspecting that the Potidicans were inclined to join in a 

 revolt to which Perdiccas, king of Macedon, was instigating the to\vm 

 of Chalcidice, required them to dismiss the Corinthian functionaries, 

 and to give other pledges of their fidelity. The Potidteans refused, 

 and, with most of the other Chalcidian towns, revolted from A 

 and received aid from Corinth. The Athenians sent an expedition 

 against them, and, after defeating them in battle, laid siege to 1 ' 

 (B.c. 432). 



The Corinthians now obtained a meeting of the Peloponnesian con- 

 federacy at Sparta, in which they complained of the conduct of 

 Athens with regard to Corcyra and PotULva. After others of the 

 allies had brought their charges against Athens, and after some 

 Athenian envoys, who happened to be in the city, had defended the 

 conduct of their state, the Spartans first, and afterwards all the allies, 

 decided that Athens had broken the truce, and they resolved upon 

 immediate war: king Archidamus alone recommended some delay. In 

 the interval necessary for preparation, an attempt was mode to throw 

 the blame of commencing hostilities upon the Athenians, by sending 

 three several embassies to Athens with demands of such a nature as 

 could not be accepted. In the assembly which was held at Athens to 

 give a final answer to these demands, Pericles, who was now at the 

 height of his power [PERICLES, in Broo. Div.], urged the people to 

 engage in the war, and laid down a plan for the conduct of it. .He 

 advised the people to bring all their nioveable property from the 

 country into the city, to abandon Attica to the ravages of the . 

 and not to suffer themselves to be provoked to give them Kittle it Ii 

 inferior numbers, but to expend all their strength upon their navy. 

 which might be employed in carrying the war into the snemie* 

 territory, and in collecting supplies from the subject state- 

 further, not to attempt any new conquest while the war lasted. 1 1 

 advice was adopted, and the Spartan envoys were sent home with a 

 refusal of their demands, but with an offer to refer the matters in 

 diMi teiicc to an impartial tribunal, on offer which the LacedaMn 



intention of accepting. After this the usual peaceful inter- 

 course between the rival states was discontinued. 



Thucydides (ii. 1) dates the beginning of the war from the early 

 spring of the year 431 B.C., the fifteenth of the thirty years' truce, 

 \>li. M a party of Thebans made on attempt, which at first suc- 

 ceeded, but was ultimately defeated, to surprise 1'laUca. The truce 

 being thus openly broken, both parties addressed themselves to 

 the war. The Peloponnesian confederacy included all the sta; 

 Peloponnesus, except Ach.ca (which joined them afterwards) and 

 Argos, and without the Peloponnesus, Megaris, I'hocis, Locris, Bcootia, 

 the island of Leucos, and the cities of Ambracia and Anactorium. The 

 allies of the Athenians were Chios and I.esbt.s, besides Samos and the 

 other islands of the jKgean which had been reduced to subjection 

 (Thera and Melos, which were still independent, remained neutral), 



