Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 01.djvu/80

AËROTHERAPEUTICS thus produced among his troops. Earlier than this, the Italian poet-aviator d'Annunzio had flown over the Alps to Vienna and circled over that city,



dropping pamphlets which told the Viennese that he could just as easily have dropped bombs and urged them to withdraw from a hopeless conflict.

AËROTHERAPEUTICS, the method of treating diseases by employing various degrees of atmospheric pressure upon diseased persons. The effect is sometimes produced by changing the composition of the air. Tuberculosis of the lungs is most frequently treated in this method, although it is employed likewise in pneumonia and other pulmonary diseases.

AERSCHOT, a town of Belgium on the river Demer, 20 miles N. E. of Brussels and important as a railway center and for its cloth manufactures. Its population at the outbreak of the World War was about 8,000. In the first month of the World War the Germans entered the place and took possession. It was claimed by the Germans that one of their officers was shot by a boy, the son of the burgomaster. A reign of terror set in that lasted three days. 150 inhabitants are alleged to have been shot. Cardinal Mercier stated that he knew of his own knowledge that 91 at least were killed. Others of the inhabitants were taken as prisoners, first to Louvain, and then into Germany.

ÆSCHINES (es′ke-nēz), a great Athenian orator (389-314 B.C.), rival of Demosthenes. Only three of his "Orations" have come down to our time. He was especially brilliant in his extemporaneous efforts. In his more studied orations, his great merit was the clearness and fullness of the narrative part.

ÆSCHYLUS (es′kil-us), the father of the Athenian drama. He was in the sea fight at Salamis, and received a wound in the battle of Marathon. His most solid fame, however, rests on his power as a tragic poet. Of 90 plays produced by him, 40 were rewarded with the public prize, but only seven have come down to us, though the titles of 72 others are known to us. The seven tragedies still extant are: "The Suppliants"; "The Persians"; "The Seven against Thebes"; "Prometheus Bound"; and a trilogy, "Oresteia" ("Agamemnon"; "Choëphori"; "Eumenides"). He was the first to introduce two actors on the stage, and to clothe them with dresses suitable to their character. He likewise removed murder from the sight of the audience. He decorated the theater with the best paintings of his time, and the ancient, like the modern stage, exhibited temples, sepulchres, armies, fleets, flying cars, and apparitions. He mounted the actors on stilts, and gave them masks to augment the natural sounds of their voices. He was born in Eleusis about 525 and died in Sicily about 455   His imagination was strong, but wild, vast in its conception, but greatly dealing in improbabilities. The obscurity of his style is admitted.  ÆSCULAPIUS (es-kū-lā′pē-us), the god of medicine, son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis. Apollo brought his son to Chiron, who instructed him in medicine and hunting. In the former, he acquired a high degree of skill, so as to surpass even the fame of his teacher. He not only prevented the death of the living, but even recalled the dead to life. Jupiter, however, induced by the complaints of his brother, Pluto, slew Æsculapius with a thunderbolt. After his death, he received divine honors. Æsculapius is represented with a large beard, holding a knotty staff, round which was entwined a serpent, the symbol of convalescence. Near him stands the cock, the symbol of watchfulness. He is sometimes crowned with the laurel of Apollo. Sometimes also Æsculapius is represented under the image of a serpent only.

ÆSIR, the gods of the Northmen of Scandinavia and Iceland.