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 the remains of a castle, once a residence of the governor (Vogt) of the Vogtland.

 OELWEIN, a city of Fayette county, Iowa, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, about 132 m. N.E. of Des Moines. Pop. (1890) 830; (1900) 5142, of whom 789 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 6028. It is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Chicago Great Western railways, the latter having large repair shops here, where four lines of its road converge. Oelwein was named in honour of its founder, August Oelwein, who settled here in 1873; it was incorporated in 1888, and chartered as a city in 1897.

 OENOMAÜS, in Greek legend, son of Ares and Harpinna, king of Pisa in Elis and father of Hippodameia. It was predicted that he should be slain by his daughter’s husband. His father, the god Ares-Hippius, gave him winged horses swift as the wind, and Oenomaiis promised his daughter to the man who could outstrip him in the chariot race, hoping thus to prevent her marriage altogether. Pelops, by the treachery of Myrtilus, the charioteer of Oenomaüs, won the race and married Hippodameia. The defeat of Oenomaüs by Pelops, a stranger from Asia Minor, points to the conquest of native Ares-worshippers by immigrants who introduced the new religion of Zeus.

OENONE, in Greek legend, daughter of the river-god Kebren and wife of Paris. Possessing the gift of divination, she warned her husband of the evils that would result from his journey to Greece. The sequel was the rape of Helen and the Trojan War. Just before the capture of the city, Paris, wounded by Philoctetes with one of the arrows of Heracles, sought the aid of the deserted Oenone, who had told him that she alone could heal him if wounded. Indignant at his faithlessness, she refused to help him, and Paris returned to Troy and died of his wound. Oenone soon repented and hastened after him, but finding that she was too late to save him slew herself from grief at the sight of his dead body. Ovid (Heroïdes, 5) gives a pathetic description of Oenone’s grief when she found herself deserted.

 OERLAMS, the name (said to be a corruption of the Dutch Oberlanders) for a Hottentot tribal group living in Great Namaqualand. They came originally from Little Namaqualand in Cape Colony. They are of very mixed Hottentot-Bantu blood.

 OESEL (in Esthonian Kure-saare or Saare-ma), a Russian island in the Baltic, forming with Worms, Mohn and Runö, a district of the government of Livonia, and lying across the mouth of the Gulf of Riga, 106 m. N.N.W. of the city of Riga. It has a length of 45 m., and an area of 1010 sq. m. The coasts are bold and steep, and, especially towards the north and west, form precipitous limestone cliffs. Like those of Shetland, the Oesel ponies are small, but prized for their spirit and endurance. The population, numbering 50,566 in 1870 and 60,000 in 1900, is mainly Protestant in creed, and, with the exception of the German nobility, clergy and some of the townsfolk, Esthonian by race. The chief town, Arensburg, on the south coast, is a place of 4600 inhabitants, with summer sea-bathing, mud baths and a trade in grain, potatoes, whisky and fish. In 1227 Oesel was conquered by the Knights of the Sword, and was governed by its own bishops till 1561, when it passed into the hands of the Danes. By them it was surrendered to the Swedes by the peace of Bromsebro (1645), and, along with Livonia, it was united to Russia in 1721.

 OESOPHAGUS (Gr.  ＝I will carry, and , to eat), in anatomy, the gullet; see for comparative anatomy. The human oesophagus is peculiarly liable to certain accidents and diseases, due both to its function as a tube to carry food to the stomach and to its anatomical situation (see generally ). One of the commonest accidents is the lodgment of foreign bodies in some part of the tube. The situations in which they are arrested vary with the nature of the body, whether it be a coin, fishbone, toothplate or a portion of food. An impacted substance may be removed by the oesophageal forceps, or by a coin-catcher; if it should be impossible to draw it up it may be pushed down into the stomach. When it is in the stomach a purgative should never be given, but soft food such as porridge. Should gastric symptoms develop it may have to be removed by the operation of gastrotomy. Charring and ulceration of the oesophagus may occur from the swallowing of corrosive liquids, strong acids or alkalis, or even of boiling water. Stricture of the oesophagus is a closing of the tube so that neither solids nor liquids are able to pass down into the stomach. There are three varieties of stricture; spasmodic, fibrous and malignant. Spasmodic stricture usually occurs in young hysterical women; difficulty in swallowing is complained of, and a bougie may not be able to be passed, but under an anaesthetic will slip down quite easily. Fibrous stricture is usually situated near the commencement of the oesophagus, generally just behind the cricoid cartilage, and usually results from swallowing corrosive fluids, but may also result from the healing of a syphilitic ulcer. Occasionally it is congenital. The ordinary treatment is repeated dilatation by bougies. Occasionally division of a fibrous stricture has been practised, or a Symond’s tube inserted. Mikulicz recommends dilatation of the stricture by the fingers from inside after an incision into the stomach or a permanent gastric fistula may have to be made. Malignant strictures are usually epitheliomatous in structure, and may be situated in any part of the oesophagus. They nearly always occur in males between the ages of 40 and 70 years. An X-ray photograph taken after the patient has swallowed a preparation of bismuth will show the situation of the growth, and Killian and Brünig have introduced an instrument called the oesophagoscope, which makes direct examination possible. The remedy of constant dilatation by bougies must not be attempted here, the walls of the oesophagus being so softened by disease and ulceration that severe haemorrhage or perforation of the walls of the tube might take place. The patient should be fed with purely liquid and concentrated nourishment in order to give the oesophagus as much rest as possible, or if the stricture be too tight rectal feeding may be necessary. Symond’s method of tubage is well borne by some patients, the tube having attached to it a long string which is secured to the cheek or ear. The most satisfactory treatment, however, is the operation of gastrotomy, a permanent artificial opening being made into the stomach through which the patient can be fed.

 OETA (mod. Kotavothra), a mountain to the south of Thessaly, in Greece, forming a boundary between the valleys of the Spercheius and the Boeotian Cephissus. It is an offshoot of the Pindus range, 7080 ft. high. In its eastern portion, called Callidromus, it comes close to the sea, leaving only a narrow passage known as the famous pass of (q.v.). There was also a high pass to the west of Callidromus leading over into the upper Cephissus valley. In mythology Oeta is chiefly celebrated as the scene of the funeral pyre on which Heracles burnt himself before his admission to Olympus.

<section end="Oeta" /> <section begin="Otinger, Friedrich Christoph" />OETINGER, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH (1702–1782), German divine and theosophist, was born at Göppingen on the 6th of May 1702. He studied theology at Tübingen (1722–1728), and was much impressed by the works of Jakob Böhme. On the completion of his university course, Oetinger spent some years in travel. In 1730 he visited Count Zinzendorf at Herrnhut, remaining there some months as teacher of Hebrew and Greek. During his travels, in his eager search for knowledge, he made the acquaintance of mystics and separatists, Christians and learned Jews, theologians and physicians alike. At Halle he studied medicine. After some delay he was ordained to the ministry, and held several pastorates. While pastor (from 1746) at Waldorf near Berlin, he studied alchemy and made many experiments, his idea being to use his knowledge for symbolic purposes. These practices exposed him to the attacks of persons who misunderstood him. “My religion,” he once said, “is the parallelism of Nature and Grace.” Oetinger translated Swedenborg’s philosophy of heaven and earth, and added notes<section end="Otinger, Friedrich Christoph" />