Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/594

 586 EMPEROK EMPHYSEMA magne, who received the imperial crown from the hands of Leo III. at Rome on Christmas day, 800, and was hailed by the people with shouts of "Life and victory to Carolus Augus- tus, the God-sent, pious, and great emperor of Rome, the bringer of peace." When the em- pire of this great Frankish monarch was di- vided by his grandsons, the title of emperor of Rome was given to the eldest of them, the king of Italy, and his descendants bore it until it was taken (902) by the mightier king of Germany, Otho I. And now began a long se- ries of expeditions to Italy, undertaken by the German monarchs, in order to be crowned in Milan with the iron crown of Lornbardy, and in Rome by the pope with that of the Roman empire ; a series of struggles between the em- perors, claiming the sovereignty of the Ro- man world according to their title, and the popes, claiming the same as successors of St. Peter ; between the worldly and spiritual heads of the Christian nations. German bravery and Italian diplomacy were by turns victorious and vanquished ; emperors were humiliated, popes were stripped of their dignity ; Germany was distracted and Italy desolated. The reforma- tion struck at the pope, and indirectly at the empire. The German kings, who usually had been elected exclusively from Prankish or Ger- man houses, in earlier times by all, but later only by the greatest princes of Germany, who were hence called electors, gave up their Ro- man imperial pretensions, and were crowned in Germany as emperors of that country. At their coronation, celebrated in Aix-la-Chapelle, Augsburg, Ratisbon, or Frankfort, the empe- rors were obliged to sign an instrument, called capitulation, containing the conditions under which they were raised to their dignity. They lived in palatia set apart for their use (Pfal- seri), in later times in their hereditary domin- ions. The wars of the reformation broke the ancient forms and institutions; the imperial dignity became almost hereditary in the house of Austria; the other German states were made nearly independent; Prussia became a kingdom under Frederick I. ; and the unity of Germany was virtually destroyed. The wars that followed the French revolution wrought still greater changes, and when Napoleon had assumed- the imperial dignity (1804), and founded the Rhenish confederacy, Francis II., who had proclaimed himself emperor of Austria in 1804 (as such Francis I.), in 1806 finally re- nounced the German imperial title, and what was once the Roman, now the German, empire expired. Its restoration was during the revolu- tionary period of 1848-'9 the favorite idea of a party in the Frankfort parliament; but the refusal of the king of Prussia to accept the im- perial crown made the scheme a failure. Several other monarchies of Europe had taken the imperial title. Russia assumed it under Peter the Great (1721), and the assumption was in time acknowledged by all the states of Europe. The empire of the French, founded by Napoleon on the ruins of the republic, perished at Waterloo (1815), but was revived after two revolutions by the nephew of its founder (1852), and was succeeded by a re- public, proclaimed Sept. 4, 1870. The empire of Germany was reestablished by the assump- tion of the title of emperor by King William of Prussia, Jan. 18, 1871. On the American con- tinent several empires have been established, but most of them destroyed by revolutions. That of Mexico under Iturbide (1822) was ephemeral ; under Maximilian it lasted from June 12, 1864, to June 19, 1867. That of Brazil is governed constitutionally. That of Hayti, which was nominally constitutional, was over- thrown in January, 1859, and replaced by a republic. The Asiatic states of China, Japan, and Anam, and the African Fez and Morocco, are also often called empires. EMPHYSEMA (Gr. e^bai^a, inflation, from h, in, and 0wav, to blow), a diseased condition of man and animals, in which gases are developed in or have been introduced into any part of the body ; generally restricted to the dilata- tion of the cells of areolar tissue or of the lungs by atmospheric air. Gaseous collections in serous cavities, or in canals lined with mu- cous membrane, have received other names. Three kinds are usually described, which may be called surgical or traumatic, spontaneous, and pulmonary emphysema. Traumatic emphyse- ma, though always subcutaneous in the com- mencement, is not always accompanied by wound of the skin ; it may occur after severe contusions of the chest, or after fracture of the ribs, the air cells of the lungs being ruptured, and in the latter case punctured by the broken bone, with or without external communication. In any of these conditions, if the wound of the lung be small, and especially if it be not in di- rect connection with an opening in the skin, the respired air, not being able to pass out freely, becomes infiltrated in the areolar or cel- lular tissue, forming a soft and crepitating swell- ing, which may extend over a great part of the body ; during inspiration the air escapes into the cavity of the chest through the wound in the lung, and during expiration, being com- pressed between the lung and the thoracic walls, it is forced into the subcutaneous cells, the amount tending to increase at each perform- ance of the respiratory act. Emphysema may arise from any portion of the air passages, and frequently is seen accompanying wounds of the larynx and trachea ; if the external wound be extensive, and the opening in the lung or tra- chea small, this complication is not likely to occur. The ordinary symptoms are painful constriction of the chest at the injured part, and difficulty of breathing, which may become almost insupportable, and even produce death by suffocation. The swelling of emphysema may be distinguished from effusions of fluids under the skin by its crepitation and elasticity, by its not pitting on pressure of the finger, and by the absence of redness, pain, and weight.