HYERES HYMEN. 



Uiruut, if on the upper extremities. The Calient 

 bccoMS silent; frightful dmuns di-tm-l> his sleep ; 

 the ey bflooaw brilliant; pains in the neck and 

 throat ensue. These symptoms precede the rabid 

 symptoms two or three days. They are followed hy 

 1 general shuddering at the approach of any liquid 

 or tmmrt 1 * body, attended with a sensation of oppres- 

 sion, deep signs and convulsive starts, in which the 

 muscular strength is much increased. After the 

 rabid it, the patient is able to drink. The disposi- 

 tion to bite does not appear to belong to any animals 

 except those whose teeth are weapons of offence; 

 thus rabid sheep butt furiously. A foamy, viscid 

 slaver is discharged from the mouth ; the deglutition 

 of solid matters is difficult; the respiration hard; the 

 kin warm, burning, and afterwards covered with 

 sweat; the pulse strong ; the fit is often followed by 

 a syncope ; the fits return at first every few hours, 

 then at shorter intervals, and death takes place 

 generally on the second or third day. A great 

 number of applications have been recommended, but 

 without success. The treatment of the disease is of 

 two sorts; the one consists in preventing its de- 

 velopment; the other in checking its progress. 

 The former consists in cauterizing the wound with 

 iron heated to a white heat, the pain of the cautery 

 being less, as the temperature is greater. The 

 cautery is preferable to ttie use of lotions, liniments, 

 &c., but it should be employed within twelve hours 

 after the bite. It has been said that, in patients who 

 were about to become rabid, several little pustules 

 filled with a serous matter appeared under the 

 tongue, the opening of which would prevent the 

 disease ; but this is not well established. Various 

 remedies have been prescribed for the cure of a 

 declared hydrophobia. Bleeding, even to syncope, 

 appears to have produced the greatest effect, but 

 without complete success. Preparations of opium 

 administered internally or by injection, mercurial 

 frictions, belladonna, emetics, sudorifics, purgatives, 

 &c., have been tried ineffectually. Yet the physician 

 should not despair, as a remedy which has failed in 

 one case may succeed in another. Above all, the 

 patient should be treated gently, and his sufferings 

 alleviated by consulting his comfort as much as pos- 

 sible; and the attendants should not forget, that 

 there is no instance of the rabies having been com- 

 municated from one man to another. 



HYERES. See Hieres. 



HYG I El A, the sweet, smiling goddess of health, 

 was the daughter of Asclepias, or Esculapius. Hesiod, 

 Homer, and Pindar, who were unacquainted with any 

 such divinity as Esculapius, of course knew nothing 

 of such a goddess. This fable, probably, had its 

 origin at the time in which the worship of Esculapius 

 began. When the healing art was practised in his 

 temple, the god of medicine and the goddess of health 

 were always in close connexion. Her temple was 

 placed near his, and her statues were even erected 

 in it. She is represented as a maid of slender form, 

 with a long flowing robe. Her distinguishing char- 

 acUri>tic is a feminine softness. She has a bowl in 

 her hand, from which a serpent is eating an emblem 

 of the art of medicine 



H YGROMETER, HYGROSCOPE. It is of the 

 greatest importance for meteorology to ascertain at 

 any time the quantity of water contained in the air. 

 The instruments used for this purpose are called 

 hygrometer* (measurers of moisture). Daily experi- 

 ence shows, that some bodies possess a great capa- 



ility of absorbing the humidity suspended in the 

 atmoiphere, and, according to their respective con- 

 struction, becoming longer or shorter, in the direc- 

 tion of the fibres of their length or breadth. Thus, 

 for example, cordage and catgut are shortened and 



untwisted by moisture. And this observation is the 

 foimilution of the hygrometer of Lambert, which, 

 however, on account of the irregularity of the motion 

 produced in the catgut by the humidity, does not 

 altogether answer its purpose, but properly deserves 

 the name of a hygroscope (shower of moisture). 

 Saussure and De Luc, therefore, sought for other 

 substances, which are regularly lengthened or short- 

 ened by the absorption or loss of humidity. Saus- 

 sure believed this property might be found in a 

 human hair, freed from all unctuosity by boiling in 

 ley ; De Luc, in a very thin piece of whalebone, cut 

 in a direction transverse to the fibre. Saussure 

 stretches the hair, properly prepared, and fastened 

 at one end, over a delicate and easily movable wheel, 

 by a small weight, while De Luc makes use of a 

 small wire of gold to stretch the whalebone. When- 

 ever the hair in Saussure's hygrometer is lengthened 

 or shortened by the action of the moisture or dryness, 

 the wheel, and an index attached to it, must be 

 turned, and thus mark the increase or diminution of 

 the water suspended in the atmosphere. But to find 

 the absolute quantity, it is necessary to fix the points 

 of extreme moisture and dryness. Saussure fixes 

 the point of extreme moisture in his hygrometer by 

 placing it in a glass receiver, which is enclosed in 

 water and moistened with water within ; De Luc, on 

 the other hand, by simply immersing his hygrometer 

 in water. The point of extreme dryness Saussure 

 determines by placing his hygrometer under a re- 

 ceiver, which stands on a tin plate, heated to a red 

 heat, and covered with red hot potash ; De Luc by 

 suspending the hygrometer in a close vessel, partly 

 filled with hot quicklime. 



HYLAS ; a beautiful boy, of whose parents differ- 

 ent accounts have been given. Hercules, who 

 loved him, took him with him on the Argonautic 

 expedition. But Hylas having landed in the region 

 of Troy to draw water, the nymphs saw him, and 

 were so enraptured with his beauty, that they drew 

 him down into the crystal water. Hercules called 

 him in vain on the shore, and, on this account, 

 delayed his return to the ship Argo, which continued 

 her voyage to Colchis without him. 



HYMEN, HYMEN^EUS; the god of marriage 

 among the later Greeks, by whom the marriage itself 

 and the bridal song were also called Hymenaus. 

 But it is probable that the god of marriage derived 

 his name from the nuptial song, since we find it men- 

 tioned earlier than the divinity. According to the 

 commonly received opinion, Hymen was so beauti- 

 ful a youth, that he might easily have been mistaken 

 for a maiden. But he was poor ; and therefore his 

 love, though not unrequited, was unfortunate. In 

 order to be near his mistress, he dressed himself like 

 a woman on the festival of the Eleusinian Ceres, and 

 mingled in the ceremony. During the celebration, 

 a band of pirates broke in, and carried him off with 

 the crowd of females. The pirates having landed 

 on a desolate island, and fallen asleep through 

 weariness, he destroyed them all, and hastened back 

 to Athens, where he promised to bring back all the 

 damsels that had been carried off, on condition of 

 being united to his mistress. A joyful consent was 

 given, and, because his marriage was so fortunate, he 

 was commemorated in the nuptial songs, till he was 

 deified. Other traditions also are handed down 

 respecting him, and nothing certain is known about 

 his descent. Sometimes he is called the son of the 

 musician Magnes; sometimes of Bacchus and Venus; 

 and sometimes of Apollo and a muse, but whether of 

 Terpsichore, Urania, Clio, or Calliope, is uncertain. 

 Claudian says that Venus gave the son of the muse 

 authority over marriages; so that, without invoking 

 him, no one dared to solemnize them, or to light the 



