from the MSS. by Henry Stephens in 1554), which long passed among the learned for the songs of Anacreon, and which are well-known to many English readers in the translations of Cowley and Moore, are really of much later date, though possibly here and there genuine fragments of the poet are included. Modern critics, however, regard the entire collection as imitations belonging to different periods—the oldest probably to Alexandrian times, the most recent to the last days of paganism. They will always retain a certain popularity from their lightness and elegance, and some of them are fair copies of Anacreon’s style, which would lend itself readily enough to a clever imitator. A strong argument against their genuineness lies in the fact that the peculiar forms of the Ionic Greek, in which Anacreon wrote, are not to be found in these reputed odes, while the fragments of his poems quoted by ancient writers are full of Ionicisms. Again, only one of the quotations from Anacreon in ancient writers is to be found in these poems, which further contain no references to contemporaries, whereas Strabo (xiv. p. 638) expressly states that Anacreon’s poems included numerous allusions to Polycrates. The character of Love as a mischievous little boy is quite different from that given by Anacreon, who describes him as “striking with a mighty axe, like a smith,” and is more akin to the conceptions of later literature.
The best edition of the genuine fragments of Anacreon, as well as of the Anacreontea, is by Bergk (Poetae lyrici graeci, 1882). He includes in an appendix a similar collection of imitations from the Anecdota graeca of P. Matranga (1850), which had their origin in the beginning of the middle ages, and resemble the Christian anacreontics of Sophronius.
ANACREONTICS (from the name of the Greek poet Anacreon), the title given to short lyrical pieces, of an easy kind, dealing with love and wine. The English word appears to have been first used in 1656 by Abraham Cowley, who called a section of his poems “anacreontiques,” because they were paraphrased out of the so-called writings of Anacreon into a familiar measure which was supposed to represent the metre of the Greek. Half a century later, when the form had been much cultivated, John Phillips (1631–1706) laid down the arbitrary rule that an anacreontic line “consists of seven syllables, without being tied to any certain law of quantity.” In the 18th century, the antiquary William Oldys (1696–1761) was the author of a little piece which is the perfect type of an anacreontic: this begins:—
| “Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I; Freely welcome to my cup, Could’st thou sip and sip it up. Make the most of life you may; Life is short and wears away.” |
In 1800 Tom Moore published a collection of erotic anacreontics which are also typical in form; Moore speaks of the necessity of catching “the careless facility with which Anacreon appears to have trifled,” as a reason why anacreontics are often tame and worthless. He dwells, moreover, on the absurdity of writing “pious anacreontics,” a feat, however, which was performed by several of the Greek Christian poets, and in particular by Gregory of Nazianzus and John of Damascus. (E. G.)
ANADYOMENE (Ἀναδυομένη), an epithet of Aphrodite (Venus), expressive of her having sprung from the foam of the sea. In a famous picture by Apelles she was represented under this title as if just emerged from the sea and in the act of wringing her tresses. This painting was executed for the temple of Asclepius at Cos, from which it was taken to Rome by Augustus in part payment of tribute, and set up in the temple of Caesar. In the time of Nero, owing to its dilapidated condition, it was replaced by a copy made by the painter Dorotheus (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxv. 36). There are several epigrams on it in the Greek anthology.
ANADYR, (1) a gulf, and (2) a river, in the extreme N.E. of Siberia, in the Maritime Province. The gulf extends from Cape Chukchi on the north to Cape Navarin on the south, forming part of the Bering Sea. The river, taking its rise in the Stanovoi mountains as the Ivashki or Ivachno, about 67° N. lat. and 173° E. long., flows through the Chukchi country, at first south-west and then east, and enters the Gulf of Anadyr after a course of about 500 m. The country through which it passes is thinly populated, barren and desolate. For nine months of the year the ground is covered with snow. Reindeer, upon which the inhabitants subsist, are found in considerable numbers.
ANAEMIA (from Gr. ἀν-, privative, and αἷμα, blood), literally “want of blood,” a word used as a generic term for various forms of disease characterized by a defective constitution of the blood. For different types of anaemia see the article Blood, section Pathology.
ANAESTHESIA and ANAESTHETICS (Gr. ἀναισθησία, from ἀν-, privative, and αἴσθησις, sensation), terms used in medicine to describe a state of local or general insensibility to external impressions, and the substances used for inducing this state. In diseases of the brain or spinal cord anaesthesia is an occasional symptom, but in such cases it is usually limited in extent, involving a limb or a definite area of the body’s surface. Complete anaesthesia occurs in a state of catalepsy or trance—conditions associated with no definite lesion of the nervous system.
The artificial induction of anaesthesia has come to occupy a foremost place in modern medicine, but there is abundant evidence to show that it is a practice of great antiquity. Besides the mention by Homer of the anaesthetic effects of nepenthe, and the reference by Herodotus to the practice of the Scythians of inhaling the vapours of a certain kind of hemp to produce intoxication, the employment of anaesthetics in surgery by the use of mandragora is particularly alluded to by Dioscorides and Pliny. It also appears, from an old Chinese manuscript laid before the French Academy by Stanislas Julien, that a physician named Hoa-tho, who lived in the 3rd century, gave his patients a preparation of hemp, whereby they were rendered insensible during the performance of surgical operations. Mandragora was extensively used as an anaesthetic by Hugo de Lucca, who practised in the 13th century. The soporific effects of mandrake are alluded to by Shakespeare, who also makes frequent mention of anaesthetizing draughts, the composition of which is not specified.
In the Medical Gazette, vol. xii, p. 515, Dr Sylvester, quoting from a German work by Meissner, published in 1782, mentions the case of Augustus, king of Poland, who underwent amputation while rendered insensible by a narcotic. But the practice of anaesthesia never became general, and surgeons appear to have usually regarded it with disfavour. When, towards the close of the 18th century, the discoveries of Priestley gave an impetus to chemical research, the properties of gases and vapours began to be more closely investigated, and the belief was then entertained that many of them would become of great medicinal value. In 1800, Sir Humphry Davy, experimenting on nitrous oxide (the so-called “laughing gas”), discovered its anaesthetic properties, and described the effects it had on himself when inhaled with the view of relieving local pain. He suggested its employment in surgery in the following words:—“As nitrous oxide, in its extensive operation, seems capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be used with advantage in surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place.” His suggestion, however, remained unheeded for nearly half a century. The inhalation of sulphuric ether for the relief of asthma and other lung affections had been employed by Dr Pearson of Birmingham as early as 1785; and in 1805 Dr J. C. Warren of Boston, U.S.A., used this treatment in the later stages of pulmonary consumption.
In 1818 Faraday showed that the inhalation of the vapour of ether produced anaesthetic effects similar to those of nitrous oxide; and this property of ether was also shown by the American physicians, John D. Godman (1822), James Jackson (1833), Wood and Bache (1834).
These observations, however, appear to have been regarded in the light of mere scientific curiosities and subjects for lecture-room experiment, rather than as facts capable of being applied practically in the treatment of disease, till December 1844, when Dr Horace Wells, a dentist of Hartford, Connecticut, underwent
