and suggested its use instead of ether. These three anaesthetics are taken into the system by inhalation. Local anaesthesia is produced by chilling with ice or by the evaporation of some volatile substance like ether or rhigoline. Cocaine is also used extensively for this purpose.
Anam'. See Cochin China.
Anarchism, a communistic and revolutionary theory adverse to social order, law and government, and manifesting in its votaries—generally men of grandiose ideas lacking in mental equilibrium—an unnatural aversion to their kind, especially if well-to-do and influential, and an implacable fanaticism. The leaders of the movement have been men of prominence in various countries, acting under the impulse given it by such eminent writers as Karl Marx of Germany (1818-83), Pierre J. Proud-hon (1809-65), the French socialist,William Godwin, the English political writer (1756-1836) and author of the famous Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Elisee Reclus, the French republicanist, and Prince Krapotkin, the Russian nihilist and revolutionist (1842) and propagandist of social reform. Some of these men are idealists rather than revolutionists, and are opposed to assassination and violent measures in ridding the world of tyrannical rulers and bureaucratic administration. Others of them, however, including many of their more hasty and hotheaded followers, are eager for the overthrow of the existing social order, and are fanatical in their desire to overturn society and give rein to extreme individualistic theories, including resistance by force to all repressive, orderly authority. Hence have come the bomb-throwing and the anarchical assassinations which have been the terror of the time, including revolutionary conspiracy.
Anat'omy. It is a common mistake to suppose that anatomy applies only to the bones; on the contrary, it includes the structure of both animals and plants. Just as the architecture of a house shows its plan of construction, so anatomy, or the architecture of animals and plants, shows how they are constructed, and with the higher animals this is a very complex thing. The physicians and medical men were the first to take an interest in the anatomy of the human body, because a knowledge of it is necessary for medicine, and it thus happens that the earliest observations in this line were directed toward making known the structure of the human body and of animals rather closely related to man in points of structure. Anatomical study, therefore, began with the most complex animals instead of with the simpler ones, and this led to many misunderstandings. It was so difficult in the early days to get an opportunity to study the human body that the pioneer anatomists were obliged to gain their knowledge by dissections of animals like the dog and occasionally of a monkey. Aristotle (B. C. 384-322) and other ancients learned a great deal about anatomy in this way.
About B. C. 300, the dissection of the human body was legalized in the Alexandrian school, the bodies of condemned criminals being devoted to that purpose. But this did not become general, and anatomy continued to be studied mainly from brute animals.
Finally, in the early part of the Christian era, Galen (130-200 A. D.), became accepted as authority, from the 2d century, in which he lived, to the revival of anatomy in the i6th century. During the decline of intellectual life, in the dark ages, there was no progress. In the i4th century, observations were renewed, but no particular advance was made for about two centuries. Then a highly-gifted man of great intellectual power — Vesalius (1514-1564)—was born, who gave himself to the study of anatomy. Under his hands the science underwent a revival, and his work marks an epoch. In 1543, at the age of 29, he published a book (De Corporis Hu-mani Fabrica), most beautifully illustrated, which is accepted as laying the foundations of modern anatomy. In this book he corrected many errors of Galen, and claimed that the knowledge of that anatomist had been gained from the bodies of apes and other brute animals, and not from man. Vesalius had with great difficulty procured the bodies of some criminals for his studies, and he reaped the displeasure of the authorities and of the Inquisition, by whom he was threatened. He found himself in controversy with his teachers and contemporaries, most of whom defended the authority of Galen, but in due course of time his position was triumphantly established and the authority of Galen overthrown.
Anatomy began now to assume more importance, and there arose famous teachers of the subject. The Italians were at this time in the lead—the prejudices against dissection in Germany, France and Britain prevented the development of the subject in those countries. The school at Padua became deservedly famous, and students were attracted to it from all over Europe and Britain. From England, William Harvey (1578-1657) found his way to Padua as a medical student. In the early part of the 17th century, he made an epoch in both anatomy and physiology by the demonstration (1628) of the circulation of the blood. Among the famous Italian teachers of the period were the leaders in anatomy: Vesalius, Fallopius and Eustachius (from whom is named the Eustachian tube). Thus in the i6th century human anatomy was well established.
