ENDEMIC ENFILADE, 



859 



t rates the island of New Guinea from New Hol- 

 land ; about thirty miles in extent from N. E. to 

 S. W., and about fifteen broad, except at the en- 

 trance, where it is less than a league, being nar- 

 rowed by the islands. A bank runs across it from 

 north to south, about half a mile, where the depth 

 of water, at three-quarters ebb, was found to be 

 three fathoms. 



ENDEMIC (from ! and Inpos, prevailing among 

 the people). This name is often applied to diseases 

 which attack the inhabitants of a particular district 

 or country, and have their origin in some local cause, 

 as the physical character of the place, where they 

 prevail, or in the employments, habits, and mode of 

 living of the people. Every part of the world, 

 every climate, and every country, has its peculiar 

 endemics. Thus the tropical and warm climates are 

 subject to peculiar cutaneous disorders, eruptions of 

 various kinds, because the constant heat keeps up a 

 strong action of the skin, and draws the humours to 

 the surface of the body. In northern climates, erup- 

 tions of the skin occur, but they are of a different 

 kind. Thus in all the north polar countries, espe- 

 cially in Norway, a kind of leprosy, the radesyge, is 

 prevalent, arising from the coldness and humidity of 

 the climate, which dispose the skin to such disorders. 

 Hot and moist countries generate the most violent 

 typhus and putrid fevers ; the West Indies and 

 some of the American seaports, for instance, produce 

 the yellow fever. Places in a more dry and elevated 

 situation, northern countries particularly, are peculi- 

 arly subject to inflammatory disorders. In coun- 

 tries and districts very much exposed to currents of 

 wind, especially in mountainous places, we find at all 

 seasons of the year, rheumatisms, catarrhs, and the 

 whole train of complaints which have their origin in 

 a sudden stoppage of the functions of the skin. In 

 large and populous towns, we meet with the most 

 numerous instances of pulmonary consumption. In 

 places that are damp, and at the same time not 

 warm, e. g., on marshes and large rivers, intermit- 

 tent fevers are prevalent. In cold and damp coun- 

 tries, like England, Sweden, and Holland, the most 

 frequent cases of croup occur. 



Diseases which are endemic in one country, nwy 

 also appear in others, and become epidemical, if 

 the weather and other physical influences resemble 

 those which are the causes of the endemic in the 

 former place ; the climate being for a time trans- 

 ferred, as it were, from one to the other. Thus, 

 for instance, we find the croup sometimes, during 

 wet and cold weather, appearing in high situations ; 

 intermittent fevers sometimes in places where they 

 occur rarely for years, and then again attack great 

 numbers ; putrid and malignant typhus fevers rage 

 in all countries occasionally, and so of the rest. 



Endemic disorders, in some circumstances, be- 

 come contagious, and thereby spread to other per- 

 sons, and may be transplanted to other places, the 

 situation and circumstances of which predispose 

 them to receive these disorders. This is known by 

 the sad experience of the migrations of diseases, the 

 spreading of the leprosy from the Oriental countries 

 to Europe, &c. It is useful to inquire into the en- 

 demical circumstances of countries,districts, and even 

 cities and towns ; some precautions may be thereby 

 suggested to escape the sickness, or to obviate the 

 unwholesomeness of the situation of the place in 

 question. As, for instance, the physician of pope 

 Clement XI., Lancini, procured the draining and 

 drying cf the marshes about Pesaro; and the diseases 

 which had arisen from the exhalations of these 

 marshes immediately ceased. It is also very favour- 

 able to the cure of obstinate disorders, for the inva- 

 lid to remove to a climate opposed to his particular 



complaint. Thus, it is customary in this country for 

 people attacked with pulmonary complaints to travel 

 to the South of France, and especially to the neigh- 

 bourhood of Nice, the climate of which is incompar- 

 able. So it is of advantage to the consumptive to 

 exchange the unwholesome city air, full of dust and 

 fine particles of sand, for the pure atmosphere of the 

 country. And so of other disorders. 



ENDIVE. The wild succory (cichorium tntybug) , 

 is perennial, branching, and about two feet high, 

 the leaves oblong lanceolate and runcinate, a little 

 hairy on the nervures ; the flowers axillary, gemi- 

 nate and nearly sessile, of a blue colour, and resem- 

 bling in size and form those of the dandelion : it 

 likewise belongs to the same natural family, compo- 

 sitee. The wild succory contains a milky juice, and 

 has been frequently employed by physicians as a 

 tonic and aperient : when blanched, its bitterness is 

 very much diminished, and in this state it is eaten 

 in soups or as a salad, particularly in France, as it 

 was formerly by the ancient Romans : it is also ex- 

 tensively cultivated in Italy for fodder, and the root 

 when roasted, has been used as a substitute for 

 coffee. The endive (C. endivia), is perhaps only 

 a cultivated variety of the former plant, from which 

 it differs in being annual, more elevated, and hav- 

 ing smooth, entire, or dentated leaves, rarely lobed, 

 and in its flowers being some of them sessile, and 

 others upon long peduncles : it is considered in 

 France one of the best esculents, and is eaten in 

 salads, ragouts, as a pickle, &c. 



ENDYMION ; according to some, a huntsman, 

 according to others, a shepherd, and according to a 

 third account, a king of Elis. He is said to have 

 asked of Jupiter, whom many have called his father, 

 eternal youth and immortality. His beauty excited 

 passion even in the cold Diana, and hence he has 

 served hi all ages as an ideal of loveliness, and 

 Diana's love to him as that of the tenderest affec- 

 tion. He is most generally conceived as sleeping in 

 the wood, where the mild rays of the moon kiss his 

 slumbering eyes. See Diana. 



ENEAS. See JEneas. 



ENEID. See Virgil. 



ENESIDEMUS. See Mnesidemus. 



ENFIELD, WILLIAM, LL. D., a dissenting di- 

 vine, of great learning, and amiable character, was 

 born at Sudbury, in 1741. He was educated for the 

 dissenting ministry, at Daventry, and, in 1763, was 

 chosen pastor to a congregation at Liverpool, where 

 he published two volumes of Sermons, in 12mo, and 

 a collection of Hymns and Family Prayers, which 

 were well received. In 1770, he became resident 

 tutor and lecturer on belles-lettres, at the academy 

 at Warrington, where he remained for several years, 

 and published several works, including his well- 

 known Speaker. Here he also drew up Institutes 

 of Natural Philosophy, theoretical and experimental. 

 After the dissolution of the academy, he accepted an 

 invitation to preside over a congregation at Nor- 

 wich. In 1791, he published his Abridgment of 

 Bruckers's History of Philosophy, 2 vols. 4to, a 

 clear and able performance ; and subsequently 

 joined with doctor Aikin and others in the General 

 Biography, 10 vols. 4to. He died in 1797, in his 

 fifty-seventh year. 



ENFILADE (from the French enfiler), in the 

 military art, is used in speaking of trenches or posi- 

 tions, which maybe scoured by the enemy's shot along 

 the whole length. In conducting the approaches at 

 a siege care must be taken that the trenches be not 

 enfiladed from any work of the place. In the famous 

 battle of Zorndorf, a shot from a Prussian battery, 

 enfilading a Russian square, killed or disabled thirty 



