Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/670

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658 ENSINAL ENTOMOLOGY He w&s the son of a converted Portuguese Jew, lived much in France, became a captain in the Spanish army, and fled from Spain to escape the inquisition on account of his alleged Judaism, to which religion he finally returned. His Siglo pitagorico (Rouen, 1647 and 1682; Brussels, 1727) is a mystical book, partly in verse and partly in prose, satirizing the an- cient doctrine of transmigration ; and he wrote other similar works, besides 22 comedies which were very successful on the stage, and some of which resembled Oalderon's, especially A lo que obliga el honor (" The Duties of Honor "), contained with three other plays in his Aca- demias morales de las Musas (Rouen, 1642; Madrid, 1660; Barcelona, 1701). Some of his plays were printed with the name of Calderon, and others with that of Fernando de Zarate, which led to the mistake that he was identical with the latter. See Jos6 Amador de los Rios, Estudios Mstoricos, politicos y literarios sobre los Judios de Espana (Madrid, 1848). ENSINAL, a S. W. county of Texas, watered by some affluents of the Rio Nueces and Rio Grande; area, 1,610 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 427, all white. The county is best adapted to stock raising. "Water and timber are scarce. In 1870 the county produced 9,556 Ibs. of wool, and contained 1,678 cattle and 5,778 sheep. ENTAIL, an expression used in the old books for an estate in tail (mediieval Lat. fcedwn talliatum, from taliare, to cut off), signifying a truncated inheritance, as being carved out from a larger estate, or perhaps from the ex- clusion of certain heirs. For the nature of this species of inheritance, see ESTATE. ENTERITIS (Gr. Ivrepov, an intestine), a medical term denoting inflammation of the mucous membrane of the small intestine. It is most frequent in young children, being a rare disease in adult life. It is marked by red- ness, softening, and thickening of the mucous membrane, eochymoses in its substance and beneath it, and serous infiltration of the sub- mucous connective tissue. The symptoms of enteritis are a moderate febrile movement, pain, tenderness, and diarrhoea, with nausea and vomiting. The pain is restricted to a small part of the abdomen, or spreads over its whole surface, according as the inflammation extends to the whole or part of the intestines ; H is commonly severest about the navel, and is always increased by pressure. This pain is generally the first manifestation of the disease. The brain usually but not always remains un- affected. As occurring in adults, this is not usually a fatal disease, but generally terminates in convalescence in about a week or ten days from the commencement of the attack. Acute enteritis is distinguished from dysentery, or inflammation of the large intestine, by the absence of tenesmus and the characteristic dysenteric discharges ; from gastritis, or in- flammation of the stomach, by the compara- tively mild character of the general symptoms ; and from colic by the presence of tenderness, diarrhoea, and fever, and the absence of severe spasmodic pain. The treatment usually adopt- ed is a purgative at the outset, followed by opiates in sufficiently large doses to relieve the pain and diarrhoea, with warm fomentations to the abdomen. ENTOMOLOGY (Gr. Ivrofiov, insect, from evro/uo?, cut in, and Adyof, discourse), the branch of natural history which treats of insects, one of the classes of articulated animals. That part of the science which refers to the anatomy and physiology of the class will be treated under the head of INSECTS ; and the particular descriptions of orders, families, genera, and species will be found under their various scien- tific and popular titles. This article will be devoted to the history of entomology, and to brief sketches of the principal systems of classification. In entomology, more perhaps than in any other department of natural his- tory, does the student feel the want of a natu- ral classification ; but, as the best authors have devoted very unequal study to different groups, from the impossibility of fully cultiva- ting every portion of the immense field, no clas- sification complete and natural in all its parts can be found. The nearly 100,000 species now described probably do not .form one half of the total number in existence. If we take for a basis the comparative ratio which has been found to exist in Germany between insects and plants, that of 2 to 1, and extend this to the whole world, we shall have in round numbers at least 400,000 species of insects inhabiting the earth. It appears that Aristotle, the fa- ther of natural history, separated insects from Crustacea, and divided them into winged and wingless, subdividing these last into several natural minor groups so successfully as to ex- cite the surprise and admiration of modern ob- servers. From Aristotle we may pass over a period of 1,800 years, a blank as far as the progress of natural history is concerned, to the middle of the 16th century, when Gesner, a Swiss, revived the study of animals, leaving valuable papers on insects from personal ob- servation, which were published after his death by Mouffet, in 1634. During the next 100 years Aldrovandus divided insects into two chief groups, land and water insects, subdivi- ding them according to the structure of their wings and legs ; Hoefnaegel made beautiful fig- ures of them; Redi studied their origin and mode of propagation ; Malpighi made a careful dissection of the silkworm ; Goedart and Vallis- nieri described the metamorphoses of insects; Leeuwenhoeck examined them microscopical- ly ; and Mme. Merian studied the development of the lepidoptera, going to Surinam in her scientific zeal to continue her observations among the most gorgeous species. The wri- tings of Swammerdam, a Dutch naturalist in the middle of the 17th century, created a new epoch in the annals of entomology. He studied the metamorphoses of insects, and fro^n these introduced the first attempts toward a natural