HELVIN HEMORRHOIDS. 



677 



author to liis house at Jena. Goethe then passed 

 much of his time at Jena, and the young poetess, in 

 their society, heard the most instructive observations 

 on poetry and literature. She was afterwards ap- 

 pointed lady of the court of Saxe- Weimar. Here she 

 became acquainted with her future husband, whom 

 she afterwards followed to Sweden. Her health 

 suffered there, and she returned to her own country. 

 In 1813, she published the first Taschenbuch der 

 Sagen und Lcgenden. She translated several works 

 from the Swedish, among others, the Frithiofs-Sage 

 of Es. Tegner, in 1826. She died in 1832. 



HELVIN ; the name of a rare mineral, bestowed 

 by Werner, in allusion to its sun-yellow colour, found 

 in a mine near Schwartzenburg, in Saxony, dissemin- 

 ated through an aggregate of chlorite, blende, and 

 fluor, in minute tetrahedral crystals, with their solid 

 angles truncated. These crystals cleave parallel to 

 the faces of the regular octahedron. Its hardness is 

 about the same with quartz; its specific gravity, 

 3-100. It consists, according to Gmelin, of silex, 

 33-258; glucine and a little alumine, 12-029; prot- 

 exide of manganese, 31-817 ; protoxide of iron, 

 5-564; sulphuret of manganese, 14-000; and vola- 

 tile matter, 1-555. 



HELVOETSLUYS ; a sea-port in the province of 

 Holland and kingdom of the Netherlands, on the 

 south side of the island of Voorn ; twelve miles W. 

 Dort; fifteen S.W. Rotterdam; Ion. 4 8' E.; lat. 

 51 50* N.; population, 1208. It has a good har- 

 bour, about twelve miles from the open sea, in the 

 middle of a larje bay, capable of holding the whole 

 fleet of the country. The town is small, but well 

 defended with strong fortifications. This is the 

 general port for packets from Britain, chiefly from 

 the port of Harwich. Here is a naval school. The 

 ship channel, from Rotterdam to Helvoetsluys, was 

 completed in November, 1830. William III. sailed 

 from this port for England. Nov. 11, 1688, with 

 14,000 men. 



HEMERODROMI ; a kind of couriers among the 

 Greeks, famous for their extraordinary swiftness, and 

 used, on that account, by the state, as messengers. 

 They were employed, not only in times of peace, for 

 the conveyance of letters, but also in war, as spies 

 and bearers of orders. Of their great swiftness, the 

 ancients report several instances. 



HEMLOCK. It is still a matter in dispute, whe- 

 ther the hemlock, so celebrated among the ancients, 

 and used at Athens for the execution of those con- 

 demned to death, was the plant at present denomi- 

 nated by botanists coniuin maculatum, or the cicuta 

 virosa. These are both umbelliferous plants, re- 

 sembling each other somewhat in appearance, but 

 differing essentially in the degree of their virulence, 

 the cicuta being by far the most powerful. Another 

 opinion is, that the deadly potion was a compound 

 of the juice of several umbelliferous plants. 



HEMLOCK SPRUCE. See Spruce. 



HEMMLING, or HEMMLINK, HANS ; an em- 

 inent painter, who lived about the middle of the 

 fifteenth century. He is commonly thought to have 

 been born in Flanders, and to have been carried, as 

 a poor sick soldier, into St John's hospital, at Bru- 

 ges, where, on his recovery, his extraordinary genius 

 for painting disclosed itself. According to later re- 

 searches, he was probably born at Constance, and 

 went to the Netherlands in order to study the art of 

 painting in the school of Eyck. De Bast, of Ghent, 

 asserts, in his Messager des Sciences ct Arts (1825, 

 No. 4 7), that the name of this artist was Hans 

 Memling. Of his works, which have remained in 

 the Netherlands, the above-mentioned hospital pos- 

 sesses the best ; among them, a reliquary of St Ur- 

 sula, of which Van Keverberg published a description 



(1818), under the title Ursula, Princesse Dritannique 

 d'apres la Legende et les Peintures d'Hemwling, 

 containing also information on the other works of 

 this artist. 



HEMORRHAGE (Greek ,>, blood, and ?vy,vfu, 

 to burst); a flux of blood from the vessels contain- 

 ing it, whether proceeding from a rupture of the 

 blood-vessels or any other cause. Hemorrhages pro- 

 duced by mechanical causes, belong to surgery ; those 

 produced by internal causes, to medicine. The 

 cutaneous system is rarely, and the cellular and 

 serous systems are never, the seats of hemorrhages ; 

 that of the mucous membranes is the most subject to 

 them. The symptoms of the disease are not less 

 various than its causes and its seats, and the treat- 

 ment must of course be adapted to all these different 

 circumstances. A hemorrhage from the lungs is 

 called hemoptysis ; from the urinary organs, hematu- 

 ria ; from the stomach, hematemesis ; from the nose, 

 epistaxis. 



HEMORRHOIDS (Greek ,>*, blood, and ft*, to 

 flow); literally, a flow of blood. Until the time of 

 Hippocrates, this word was used, conformably to its 

 etymology, as synonymous with hemorrhage. It was 

 afterwards used in a narrower sense, to indicate the 

 flux of blood at the extremity of the rectum, and in 

 some other cases which were considered analogous to 

 it ; thus we hear it applied to the flow of blood from 

 the nostrils, the mouth, the bladder, and the matrix. 

 It is at present used to signify a particular aVection 

 of the rectum, although the disease is not always 

 attended with a flux ; in this sense it is also called 

 piles. Certain general causes may produce a predis- 

 position to this disease ; in some cases, it appears to 

 be the effect of a hereditary disposition ; in general, 

 it manifests itself between the period of puberty and 

 old age, although infants and aged people are not 

 entirely exempt from its attacks. The bilious tem- 

 perament seems to be more exposed to it than any 

 other. Men are oftener affected with it than women, 

 in whom it is sometimes produced by local causes. 

 It often shows itself in subjects who pass suddenly 

 from an active to a sedentary life, or from leanness 

 to corpulency. Any circumstance winch produces a 

 tendency or stagnation of the blood at the extremity 

 of the rectum, is to be reckoned among the local 

 causes. The accumulation of fecal matter in the in- 

 testines, efforts to expel urine, the pressure produced 

 by polypi, the obstruction of any of the viscera, espe- 

 cially of the liver, worms, the frequent use of hot 

 bathing, of drastic purges, and particularly of aloes, 

 long continuance in a sitting posture, riding on horse- 

 back, pregnancy, the accumulation of water by 

 ascites, such are some of the ordinary causes of 

 hemorrhoids. They are distinguished into several 

 sorts, as external, when apparent at the anus ; inter- 

 nal, when concealed within the orifice, blind or open, 

 regular or irregular, active or passive, periodical or 

 anomalous, &c. There is also a great difference in 

 the quantity of blood discliarged ; it is usually incon- 

 siderable, but, in some cases, is so great as to threaten 

 the life of the subject. The quality, colour, &c., of 

 the blood, also differ in different cases. The number, 

 seat, and form of the hemorrhoidal tumours likewise 

 present a great variety of appearances. When the 

 ilisease is purely local, we may attempt its cure ; but 

 in the greatest number of cases, it is connected with 

 some other affection, or with the constitution of the 

 subject. In these caes, if the tumours are not trou- 

 blesome on account of their size, or if the quantity of 

 blood discharged is not very considerable, the cure 

 may be attended witli bad consequences. The best 

 mode of treatment i~. then, to recur to hygeitic rather 

 than medicinal influences. The subject should avoid 

 violent exercises; but moderate exercise will be 



