ALBINOS ALBION. 



85 



power to bring the remainder of the A. to the stake, 

 and made even the converts feel the irreconcilable 

 anger of the church, by heavy fines and personal 

 punishments. The name of the A. disappeared after 

 the middle of the 13th century ; but fugitives of 

 their party formed, in the mountains of Piedmont 

 and in Lombardy, what is called the French church, 

 which was continued, through the Waldenses, to 

 the times of the Hussites and the reformation. 



ALBINOS (white Negroes, Blafards, LeucaHhiops, 

 Dondos), who were formerly found on the isthmus 

 of Panama and at the mouths of the Ganges, and 

 have been described as a distinct race of men, have 

 been likewise discovered, by modem naturalists, in 

 various countries of Europe, e. g. in Switzerland, 

 -among the Savoyards in the valley of Chamouni, in 

 France, in the tract of the Rhine, in Tyrol, &c. 

 The characteristics of the A. are now said to be 

 owing to a disease which may attack men in every 

 climate, and to which even animals are subject, such 

 as white mice, rabbits, &c. The A. have a milky 

 or cadaverous look, and are distinguished from the 

 genuine whites, not only by their wrinkled skin, but 

 also by their red eyes, which want the black mucus, 

 and cannot, therefore, endure the bright light of day. 

 By moon-light, and in the dark, they can see pretty 

 well, for which reason they are accustomed to go 

 abroad only in the night, and, by Linnzeus and other 

 naturalists, are termed nocturnal men. Their hair is 

 woolly when they are descended from actual ne- 

 groes, and somewhat less curly when they are the 

 children of East Indians ; but it is always of an un- 

 pleasing milk-colour, like their skin. They are 

 weak in body and mind, and very rarely attain the 

 common size of the nations to which they belong. 

 They are generally incapable of begetting children, 

 but when the case is otherwise, the offspring resem- 

 ble the parents. There are instances of A. possess- 

 ed of the common faculties of mind, and capable of 

 literary accomplishments. (See, likewise, Cretin.) 

 The Germans use the word Albino for all individuals 

 afflicted with this disease of the skin, but Kakerlake 

 for varieties, whose skin is only sprinkled with white 

 spots. The East Indians give the name of albino to 

 a species of beetle (blattae), especially the blatta gi- 

 gantea of the Indian forests, which grows three 

 inches long, and forms an ornament of entomological 

 collections. It is dark-brown and shining; the fea- 

 thers of its wings are fox-coloured and yellow. After 

 this beetle the Indians have named the Albinos. 

 Blumenbach, Saussure, Buzzi, surgeon to the hos- 

 pital at Milan, Soemmering, and many others, have 

 made interesting observations on Albinos, and the 

 causes which produce their peculiar colour. 



ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried, whose true name 

 was Weiss (White), a distinguished anatomist, born 

 Feb. 24, 1696, at Frankfort on the Oder, died, 

 Sept. 9, 1770, at Leyden, where he was fifty years 

 professor of anatomy. Instructed by his father, Ber- 

 nard, who enjoyed a good reputation as a professor 

 of medicine, and by the famous professors of the 

 Leyden school, Ran, Bidloo, Boerhaave, he went to 

 France in 1718, where he formed an intimacy with 

 Winslow and Senac, with whom he afterwards car- 

 ried on a correspondence highly advantageous to ana- 

 tomy, their favourite science. He entered upon his 

 office as lecturer, in Leyden, 1719, with an oration 

 DC Anatomia Comparutu. The medical faculty there 

 conferred on him the degree of doctor, without either 

 examination or disputation. A few weeks after, pro- 

 fessor Ran died, and, in 1720, A. succeeded him in 

 the professorship of anatomy and surgery. He was 

 one of the first who felt the impulse which Boer- 

 haave gave to anatomy., by explaining the phenomena 

 of the animal economy, not chemically, but mecha- 



nically, a system which rendered a more accurate 

 study of the single parts of the body, and of their 

 formation, necessary ; for the least deviation in the 

 form of any part, according to him, necessarily pro- 

 duces differences in its action. This system render- 

 ed it necessary to describe with more accuracy what 

 Vesalius, Fallopius, and Eustachius had explained 

 only in a general manner. A. laboured in this spi- 

 rit ; we are indebted to him for the most exact ana- 

 tomical descriptions and prints, especially of the mus- 

 cles and bones. While he held the office of profes- 

 sor, at Leyden, he wrote Index Supellectilis Ana- 

 tomicas Ravianae, likewise De Ossibus Corporis 

 Human!, also Historia Musculonun Hominis, and 

 other works, which fill an honourable place in the 

 history of science. He edited, also, several writings 

 of Harvey, Vesalius, Fabricius ab Aquapendente, 

 and Eustachius. His brother, Christian Bernard, 

 professor at Utrecht, distinguished himself in the 

 same science, and was likewise an esteemed ana- 

 tomical writer ; he died May 23, 1778. 



ALBION ; the former name of the island of Great 

 Britain, called by the Romans Britannia Major, 

 from which they distinguished Britannia Minor, the 

 French province of Bretagne. Agathemerus (lib. 

 xi. c. 4), speaking of the British islands, uses the 

 names Hibernia and Albion for the two largest ; Pto- 

 lemy (lib. ii. c. 3), calls A. a British island; and 

 Pliny (H. N. lib. iv. c. 16), says, that the island of 

 Great Britain was formerly called Albion, the name of 

 Britain being common to all the islands around it. In 

 poetry, A. is still used for Great Britain. The ety- 

 mology of the name is uncertain. Some writers de- 

 rive it from the Greek xpv (white), in reference to 

 the chalky clifls on the coasts ; others, from a giant, 

 the son of Neptune, mentioned by several ancient 

 writers; some, from the Hebrew albcn (white); 

 others, from the Phoenician alp or atpin, (high, and 

 high mountain), from the height of the coast Spren- 

 gel, in his Universal History of Great Britain, thinks 

 it of Gallic origin, the same with Albyn, the name of 

 the Scottish Highlands. It appears to him the plural 

 of alp or ailp, which signifies rocky mountains, and to 

 have been given to the island, because the shore, 

 which looks towards France, appears like a long row 

 of rocks. The ancient British poets call Britain 

 Itiis Wen, i. e. the white island. 



ALBION, New. This name is given to an exten- 

 sive tract of land on the N. W. coast of America. It 

 was originally applied by Sir Francis Drake, in 1578, 

 to the whole of California, but is now, by recent 

 geographers, e. g. Humboldt, confined to that part 

 of the coast which extends between 43 and 48 N. 

 lat. Cook discovered it, March 7, 1778. In 1792, 

 Vancouver visited this coast, made a very diligent 

 inspection of all its parts, and gave a most interest- 

 ing account of them. The country is described as 

 very fertile ; the quadrupeds seem not to be very 

 numerous. The inhabitants are not numerous, and 

 resemble the other savages of the north-west coast 

 of N. A. Vancouver's chart of this region is still 

 the best. The most authentic account of a part of 

 New A. is to be found in Lewis and Clark's Expe- 

 dition to the Sources of the Missouri, 2 vols., Phila- 

 delphia, 1814. The citizens of the United States, 

 and others who have frequented the north-western 

 coast of Anerica for commercial purposes, have had 

 but little, if any, intercourse with the natives, who 

 inhabit that part of the coast which lies between the 

 entrance of Columbia river, in lat. 46 15', and the 

 Russian settlement at Port Bodega, in lat. 38 21 , 

 because no harbour, capable of admitting such ves- 

 sels as are usually employed in the north- west trade, 

 has yet been discovered within these limits. It has 

 been affirmed by the Russians, that they have dis- 



