Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/345

 MEDIA MEDICAL ELECTRICITY 333 in parts of Media which succeeded in conquer- ing and maintaining their independence. Ac- cording to Rawlinson, the Median kingdom was probably first established about 633 by Cyaxares, the third king of Herodotus. At all events, it was probably that monarch, generally regarded by Greeks and Asians as the founder of a dynasty, who made the Aryan element paramount in the kingdom, after a hard strug- gle against native and foreign Turanian tribes. The Aryan emigration from the east had for centuries been pressing upon the Turanian populations of the regions E. and S. of the Caspian, and under Cyaxares a violent strug- gle of the two races was after many years de- cided in favor of the former. This struggle He- rodotus brings in connection with the invasion of Asia by the Cimmerians, relating that the Scyths, their pursuers, interrupted the suc- cesses of Cyaxares, the conqueror of Nineveh in alliance with Babylonia, and spread the ter- ror of their arms as far as the confines of Egypt, holding sway over Asia for 28 years.. A treacherous massacre is said to have termina- ted this sway, when Media, which under Cyax- ares also waged war against Alyattes of Lydia, became the first among the nations of Asia, another empire being simultaneously founded by its Babylonian ally. The reign of Asty- ages, the son of Cyaxares, which lasted 35 years, was peaceful, but ended (about 558) with a catastrophe, which changed the united king- dom of "Media and Persia," as it is called in Scripture, into another styled Persia and Media, in which the people of the conqueror, Cyrus, became the predominant race. The difficulty, however, which arises from the fact of a Darius the Mede being represented in the book of Daniel as king of Babylon, has induced some critics to accept the relation of Xeno- phon, strengthened by that of Josephus, con- cerning the reign of a Cyaxares II., son and successor of Astyages, for whom Cyrus, his nephew, conquered Babylon, in preference to the detailed story of Herodotus ; while others find Darius the Mede, not in a Cyaxares II., but in Astyages, who may have maintained a shadow of royalty under his grandson, Cyrus. (See DAEITTS.) Both Media as a province, and its undoubtedly mixed population, continued prominent in the history of the new Aryan empire, though two great struggles for the re- covery of independence, under Darius Hystas- Eis and Darius Nothus, failed. Many of the ighest offices in the state were held by Medes ; and the Scythic inscriptions on the Persian monuments prove the importance which was attached to the populations of the ancient Me- dian provinces. The relation of the influential caste of the Magi to the Median tribe of the same name, as well as of the Scythic element of the Medo-Persian religion to the Aryan, is not yet satisfactorily cleared up. The Median religion appears to have been Magism, while that of the Persians was Mazdeism. Desirous of conciliating the religious notions of the Tu- ranian people who formed a large element in the population of Media, the Magi, the great ones, or priests, combined the worship of Ormuzd with that of Ahriman, whom they identified with the Turanian Afrasiab. (See ORMTJZD, and ZOROASTEE.) Semitic races formed also a constituent part of the population of Me- dia, and hence the Magi introduced also the worship of the gods of Assyria and Elam. It seems that the Magi also practised sorcery and incantations, which pure Zoroastrianism ex- pressly forbids. Otherwise but little is known of the state of Median civilization, arts, and religion. Median architecture, according to Kawlinson, appears to have possessed a bar- baric magnificence, but not much of either grandeur or beauty. After the Macedonian conquest, and the death of Alexander, a gov- ernor of the latter, Atropates, made himself independent in the K "W. part of Media, hence called Atropatene, which continued to exist as a kingdom down to the time of Augustus, while Great Media was under the successive rule of the Seleucidss and Parthians. Both parts of ancient Media were again united un- der the Neo-Persian kings, and its subsequent history is blended with that of Persia. See George Rawlinson, "The Five Great Monar- chies of the Ancient Eastern "World " (London, 1862-'8); Lenormant, Manuel cPJiistoire an- cienne de V Orient (Paris, 1868-'9) ; Spiegel, Erdnische Alterthumslcunde (Leipsic, 1871- '3); and Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums (4th ed., Leipsic, 1874 et seq.). MEDICAL ELECTRICITY, or Electro-Therapeu- tics, the therapeutical application of the various kinds of electricity. The attempt to employ electricity in medicine dates as far back as the knowledge of the phenomena of electricity it- self. The history of electro-therapeutics may be divided into four periods : 1, the period before the invention of the electrical machine and Leyden jar ; 2, from the invention of this machine to the discovery of galvanism; 3, from the discovery of galvanism to that of magneto-electricity; 4, from this last discov- ery to the present time. Of the first period little is known. The ancients occasionally ate of the raja torpedo on account of its supposed curative properties, and 1,000 years ago the women of western Africa are said to have placed their sick children in pools of water containing these fish. Scribonius Largus, a physician of the time of the emperor Tiberius, employed electric fishes for the cure of gout, and Pliny and Dioscorides speak of electricity as a therapeutical agent in several diseases. It was not till about the middle of the 18th century, or a century and a half after the observations of Dr. Gilbert of Colchester in England, that much was done in the way of applying frictional electricity in electro-thera- peutics. About this time a German named Kratzenstein is said to have restored the use of a paralyzed finger by electricity, and experi- ments were made in the Vienna hospital under