Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/377

Rh N E U N E U 363 he first contemplated visiting China, a project which in 1830 he carried into execution. While in that country he gathered together a library of 10,000 volumes, consist ing of works in all departments of literature, and he also purchased a collection of works in 2400 volumes for the royal library at Berlin. On his return to Europe in 1831 he presented the 10,000 volumes to the royal library at Munich, and was most appropriately installed by the Government as curator of his gift, as well as professor of Chinese at the university. His lectures at this period of his career were no less conspicuous for the deep and wide knowledge they displayed of the languages and history of the East than for the zeal for social progress which was apparent in them. During the disturbed years which preceded the revolutionary period of 1848 the natural tendency of his mind placed him in the fore front among the &quot; friends of the people,&quot; and when the outbreak came he was elected a member of the Bavarian Provisional Parliament. The prominent position thus accorded to him cost him his professorship when four years afterwards the royalists found themselves sufficiently powerful to make such reprisals. He, however, still remained at Munich pursuing his favourite studies until 1864, when he removed to Berlin, where he died on the 17th March 1870. Among the best known works of this indefatigable student are his Pilgcrfahrten buddhistischer Priester aus China und Indicn, Leipsic, 1883 ; Memoire sur la vie et les ouvragcs de David, philosophe armenien du cinquieme sieclc de notre ere, Paris, 1829 ; Geschichte des Englisch-Chincsischen Kricges, Leipsic, 1846 ; Supplement to Burck s Marco Polo, Leipsic, 1846 ; Geschichte des Englischen Rcichcs in Asien, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1857 ; Ostasiatische Geschichte vom crsten ChinesiscJten Krieg bis z. den Vcrtrayen in Peking, 1840-60, Leipsic, 1861 ; translations from Armenian of the History of Tartan by Elisseus (London, 1830), and of Vahram s Chronicle of the Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia (London, 1831); from the Chinese of the Catechism of the Shamans (London, 1831), and of the History of the Pirates who infested the Chinese Seas from 1807 to 1810 (London, 1831) ; and from the Italian of the Vcrsuch einer Geschichte dcr aiincnischm Literatur (Leipsic, 1833). Besides these works he published Lchrsaal des Mittelreiches, 1836 ; his Asiatische Studien, 1837 ; Die Volker des siidlicJicn Russlands in ihrer geschichtlichen Entivickelung, 1847, for the last of which papers he gained a prize from the French Institute. NETJ-MUNSTER, a town of Prussia, in the province of Schleswig-Holstein, district of Kiel, lies on both banks of the small river Schale, in the basin of the Stb r. It is the centre of the railway system of Holstein, and after Altona the most important industrial town in the province, containing upwards of seventy cloth-factories, besides manufactories of cotton, wadding, carpets, paper, and bonbons. Its trade is also brisk. The name is derived from an Augustine monastery, founded by Vicelin, and mentioned as &quot; Novum Monasterium &quot; in a document of 1136. Its industrial importance began in the 17th century, when the cloth-workers of Segeberg, a town to the south-east, migrated to it. In 1880 it contained 11,623 inhabitants, almost exclusively Protestant. NEUNKIRCHEN&quot;, or OBER-NEUNKIRCHEN, a small manufacturing town of Prussia, in the district of Treves and circle of Ottweiler, is situated on the Blies, 12 miles to the north-west of Saarbriicken. The principal industrial establishment is a huge iron-foundry, employing upwards of 2000 hands, and producing about 80,000 tons of manu factured iron per annum; but there are also boiler- works, soap manufactories, and a brewery. It lies in an important coal-basin, in which about 4 million tons of coals, worth 1,500,000, are raised annually. The 14,647 inhabitants (1880) consist of Protestants and Roman Catholics in almost equal proportions. NEURALGIA, literally nerve pain, is a term which is frequently employed both technically and popularly in a somewhat loose manner, to describe pains the origin of which is not clearly traceable. In its strict sense it denotes the existence of pain in some portion or through out the whole of the distribution of a nerve without any distinctly recognizable structural change in the nerve or nerve centres. This strict definition, if adhered to, how ever, would not be applicable to a large number of cases of neuralgia; for it is well known that in not a few instances the pain is connected with some source of irrita tion, by pressure or otherwise, in the course of the affected nerve ; and hence the word is generally used to indicate pain affecting a particular nerve or its branches from any cause. There are few ailments which give rise to greater human suffering than neuralgia, and some of the chief causes concerned in its production, or the conditions most frequently found associated with it, may be briefly alluded to. It may be stated generally that neuralgia rarely occurs in the midst of good health. On the contrary its exist ence usually betokens a depressed or enfeebled state. Constitutional conditions inherited or acquired are among the most powerful of the predisposing influences in the production of neuralgia. Thus it is often found to affect the hereditarily rheumatic or gouty. In weakened con ditions of the system from improper or insufficient food, or as a result of any drain upon the body, or in anaemia from any cause, and in certain disease poisons, such as syphilis or malaria, neuralgia is a frequent concomitant. Further, any strain upon the nervous system, such as mental overwork or anxiety, is a predisposing cause of recognized potency. Among the exciting causes of an attack of neuralgia by far the most common is exposure to cold and damp, which seems to excite irritation in a nerve already predisposed to suffer. But irritation may be pro duced by numerous other causes besides this, such as a decayed tooth, diseased bone, local inflammations in which nerves are implicated, by some source of pressure upon a nerve trunk, or by swelling of its sheath in its passage through a bony canal or at its exit upon the surface. Further, there would appear to be causes of a reflex character which are capable of setting up neuralgia at a distance, such as intestinal or uterine derangements. The practical importance of ascertaining the probable nature of the cause is obvious. The pain of neuralgia is generally localized, but may come to extend beyond the immediate area of its first occurrence. It is usually of paroxysmal character, and not unfrequently periodic, occurring at a certain time of the day or night. It varies in intensity, being often of the most agonizing character, or less severe and more of a tingling kind. Various forms of perverted nerve function may be found co-existing with or following neuralgia. Thus there may be hypersesthesia, anaesthesia, paralysis, or alterations of nutrition, such as wasting of muscles, whitening of the hair, &c. Attacks of neuralgia are liable to recur, particularly when the general health is low, and some persons unhappily continue to suffer from occasional attacks during the greater part of their lifetime. The nature of the disease and its manifestations will be best understood by a reference to the forms in which neuralgia most commonly shows itself. These are facial neuralgia or tic douloureux, migraine (hemicrania or brow ague), intercostal neuralgia, and sciatica. Other forms, such as those affecting the neck, arm, &c., are described, but they are of less frequent occurrence. Facial neuralgia, or tic doloureux, is one of the most common forms of neuralgia, and one of the most severe. It affects the great nerve of sensation of the face (fifth nerve), and may occur in one or more of the three divisions in which the nerve is distributed. It is usually confined to one side. Females suffer, on the whole, more frequently than males, and adults or young persons more than children or the aged. Among the more prominent conditions asso-