Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/616

600 600 H Y S H Y S leaves have a warm, aromatic, bitter taste, and are believed to owe their properties to a volatile oil which is present in the proportion of -j- to ^ per cent. Hyssop is a native of the south of Europe, its range extending eastward to Siberia ; it was introduced into England by Gerard in the year 1596. A strong tea made of the leaves, and sweetened with honey, was formerly used in pulmonary and catarrhal affections, and externally as an application to bruises and indolent swellings. The Hedge Hyssop (Gratiola officinalis) belongs to the natural order Scrophulariacece, and is a native of marshy lands in the south of Europe, whence it was introduced into Britain nearly 300 years ago. Like Hyssopus offici nalis, it has smooth opposite entire leaves, but the stems are cylindrical, the leaves twice the size, and the flowers solitary in the axils of the leaves and having a yellowish- red veined tube and bluish- white limb, while the cap sules are oval and many-seeded. The herb has a bitter, nauseous taste, but is almost odourless. In small quan tities it acts as a purgative, diuretic, and emetic when taken internally. It was formerly official in the Edin burgh Pharmacopoeia, being esteemed as a remedy for dropsical and scrofulous affections. It has also been given iu the form of wine for hypochondriasis. It is said to have formed the basis of a celebrated nostrum for gout, called Eau medicinale, and in former times was called Gratia, Dei, on account of its medicinal properties. When growing in abundance, as it does in some damp pastures in Switzerland, it becomes dangerous to cattle. G. peruviana is known to possess similar properties. The hyssop ( czob) of Scripture (Ex. xii. 22 ; Lev. xiv. 4, 6 ; Numb. xix. 6, 18 ; 1 Kings v. 13 (iv. 33) ; Fs. li. 9 (7) ; John xix. 29), a wall-growing plant adapted for sprinkling purposes, has long been the subject of learned disputation, the only point on which all have agreed being that it is not to be identified with the Hys sopus officinalis, which is not a native of Palestine. No less than eighteen plants have been supposed by various authors to answer the conditions, and Celsius has devoted more than forty pages to the discussion of their several claims. By Tristram (Oxford Bible for Teachers, 1880) and others the caper plant (Capparis spinosa) is supposed to be meant ; but, apart from other difficulties, this identification is open to the objection that the caper seems to be, at least in one passage (Eccl. xii. 5), otherwise designated ( abiy- ydnah). Thenius (on 1 Kings v. 13) suggests Orthotrichum saxatile. The most probable opinion would seem to be that found in Maimo- nides and many later writers, according to which the Hebrew czob is to be identified with the Arabic saatar, now understood to be Saturcja Thymus, a plant of very frequent occurrence in Syria and Palestine, with which Thymus Scrpyllum, or Wild Thyme, and Saturcja Thymbra are closely allied. Its smell, taste, and medi cinal properties are similar to those of H. officinalis. In Morocco the saatar of the Arabs is Origanum compactum, Benth. ; and it appears probable, as suggested by Mr AV. Carruthers, that several plants of the genera Thymus, Origanum, and others nearly allied in form and habit, and found in similar localities, were used under the name of hyssop. See Gerard, Herball, p. 578-5_82; StilleandMaisch, National Dis pensatory, p. 7512; Carruthers, in Bible Educator, vol. iv. p. 226-27 ; Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 112; J. Smith, Bible Plants, p. 214; Furrer, art. &quot; Ysop,&quot; in Sclienkel s Bibcl-Lcxicon, vol. v. HYSTERIA, a term applied to a disordered condition of the nervous system, the anatomical seat and nature of which are unknown to medical science, but of which the symptoms consist in well-marked and very varied disturbances of nerve function. By the ancients and by modern physicians down to the time of Sydenham its symptoms were supposed to be due to disturbances of the uterus (vo-Tcpa, whence the name), but it is now universally recognized that they are dependent on a variety of causes with which that organ has no neces sary connexion. The causes of hysteria may be divided into the predisposing, such as hereditary predisposition to nervous degeneration, sex, age, occupation, and national idiosyncracy; and the immediate, such as mental and physical exhaustion, fright, and other emotional influences, pregnancy, the puerperal condition, diseases of the uterus and its appendages, and the depressing influence of injury or general disease. Each and all of these causes may act and react in any given case ; in fact, it is nearly always impossible to assign a particular cause in a particular instance. Perhaps, taken over all, hereditary predisposition to nerve-instability may be asserted as the most prolific cause. It is often noticed in families in which this insta bility exists that hysteria presents itself to a greater or less extent in a considerable number of its members as the sole indication of the diathesis. As regards age the condition is apt to appear at the evolutional periods of life puberty, pregnancy, and the climacteric without any further assign able cause except that first spoken of. It is very frequent in girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen, and in women on the cessation of the menstrual flow. It is much more common in the female than the male,- in the propor tion of 20 to 1, which circumstance points to the important influence of the uterus in causation, but definitely places hysteria in the category of nervous diseases. It has been asserted that certain races are more liable to the disease than others that for instance the Latins and the Slavs are more prone to it than other inhabitants of Europe. This, however, is doubtful ; in the more excitable races we find on the whole a greater tendency to hysterical excite ment, in those whose national characteristic is calm and irnpassionateness a tendency to hysterical depression ; and it is probable that the greater prominence of the symptoms in the former may have masked the more subtle yet not less important manifestations of the disease presented in the latter. Occupation, or be it rather said want of occupation, is a prolific cause. This is noticeable in all classes of society : in the higher the idle luxurious woman concentrates herself upon herself, and the frivolity of her existence helps to aggravate the evil which may be innate in her constitution ; in the lower classes the disease is not so prevalent except among women who live a vicious and excited life. The experience of prison authorities shows not only that women of the criminal classes are individually liable to the hysterical paroxysm, but that it is very apt to assume an epidemic form amongst them. There is no proof that any particular legitimate occupation tends to its develop ment. The depressing effects of almost any disease may be directly productive of hysteria, more especially those accompanied by pain and loss of sleep. There can be little doubt, however, that disease of the uterus and its append ages has a greater tendency towards its production than disease of any other system. At the same time, hysteria seems to follow more frequently on the less severe than on the graver forms of uterine complaints. In point of duration hysteria may be transient or chronic. In the first phase it consists of an explosion of emotionalism, generally the result of mental excitement, to which the popular term &quot; hysterics &quot; is applied. Such attacks are generally preceded and accompanied by a sensation of a lump in the throat (the &quot; globus hystericus &quot;), a flow of limpid urine, violent outbursts of alternate laughter and weeping, and sometimes even convulsion. In the chronic condition we find an extraordinary complexity of symptoms, both physical and mental. These are continuous, constitut ing the &quot; status hystericus,&quot; and paroxysmal. The physical symptoms are extremely diverse: there may be a pseudo- paralysis, the patient lying palsied wholly or partially, or there may be rigidity of one or more limbs, in either case the symptom persisting for weeks or months or even years ; there may be flushing or pallor of the face, an increase or decrease of temperature. Perversions of sensation are frequent symptoms ; these consist in complaint of pain, generally of a local character : a common instance is the sensation of a nail being driven through the vertex of the head (&quot;clavus hystericus&quot;), or of increased sensibility of