ease in boring holes through hard wood, at any angle with the fibres; the hole, too, is more truly cylindrical, and is produced without tearing or bruising the fibre. AUGMENTATION, in old music, was an increasing of the value of the notes above their common and essential value. The term has long been known only to musical antiquaries. AUGMENTATIONS, THE COURT OF, was established by 27 Hen. VIII. c. 27, for managing the revenues and possessions of all monasteries under 2001. a year (which by an act of the same session had been given to the king), and for determining suits relating thereto. It was called 'the Court of the Augmentations of the Revenues of the King's Crown,' and was a court of record with one great seal and one privy seal; the officers being a chancellor, who had the great seal, a treasurer, a king's attorney and solicitor, ten auditors, seventeen receivers, with clerk, usher, &c. All the dissolved monasteries under the above value, with some exceptions, were in survey of the court, the chancellor of which was directed to make a yearly report of their revenues to the king. The records of the Court are now at the Public Record Office, in the keeping of the Master of the Rolls (1 & 2 Vict. c. 94), and may be searched on payment of a fee. AUGSBURG, CONFESSION OF. [CONFESSIONS.] AUGUR. The earliest inhabitants of Italy, like all rude nations, imagined that they saw in every unusual occurrence a manifestation of the will of heaven. The power of interpreting the signs thus furnished by the gods was thought to depend upon a peculiar talent conferred upon the favoured mortal from his birth, but a certain discipline was necessary to give to the talent its full development. A superstition so deeply seated in the minds of the people was turned to account in the political constitution of Rome, by the establishment of a college of augurs, whose duty it was on all occasions of importance, whether of a public or private nature, by certain arts to ascertain and report the pleasure or displeasure of the gods. Romulus himself was said to have been skilled in the arts of divination from his earliest youth, and at the foundation of the city the claims of the rival brothers were decided by augury. The story of Tanaquil, of Servius Tullius, and still more the contest between the elder Tarquin and Attus Navius, afford additional evidence of the peculiar nature of this Roman superstition. The institution of the college of augurs may be referred to the very earliest period of Roman history; for the assertion of Livy (i. 18, and iv. 4), that there were no augurs in the reign of Romulus is not merely opposed to the general tenor of the history of Rome, but directly contradicted by Cicero. (De Republica,' ii. 9.) The original number of augurs is again differently reported. Cicero, himself an augur, says that Romulus associated three others with himself, and that Numa added two. (Ibid. 14.) Livy reports that in the opinion of the augurs of his time the number of the college was necessarily related to the number of the ancient tribes, and that consequently there must have been at the beginning either three or six; so that each of the three tribes should have either one or two augurs. On the other hand, the same author found it recorded in the annals of Rome that, prior to the Ogulnian law, there were but four members of the college. In these different accounts Niebuhr has pointed out strong reasons for giving the preference to the last. The notion of there having been three or six seems to have been a mere inference from the number of the tribes; and if all the tribes had stood on an equal footing, the argument would have had much weight. But the same writer has fully established the fact that the first two tribes possessed higher privileges than the third, and this in a more marked manner in the offices of a religious character, so that the number four, two for each of the privileged tribes, seems to point to a similar distinction in the highly-important powers of the augurate. On the other hand, though Cicero's evidence is in favour of the number six, his mode of accounting for that number is wholly at variance with the reasons of the augurs as reported by Livy. Again, if, as Cicero implies, Romulus was a member of the college, his successors in the regal power must have succeeded likewise to the augural office, a supposition in no respect confirmed by history, and scarcely compatible with what is reported of Tarquin's dispute with Attus Navius. Moreover, if such a power had passed through the hands of the kings, it remains to be asked what course was pursued at the change of the government from the regal to the consular form. At that revolution the political powers of the king devolved upon the consuls, or prætors as they were at first called, those of a religious character upon the priest, called rex sacrificulus; but there is no trace of evidence to show that the authority of the latter ever included the powers of the augurate. Under this view of the subject, Niebuhr is of opinion that originally the Ramnensian tribe possessing the chief powers of the state had its two augurs; that at a later period, when the Titienses were admitted to a share of these privileges, two others were added. This is confirmed by the statement of Cicero that Numa added two to the college, for the name of that king is always connected with the privileges of the second tribe. Livy, in his wish to reconcile the different accounts, has been driven to the supposition that when the Ogulnian law was brought forward, there may have been two vacancies by death; but it is not probable that the patricians would allow themselves to lose two seats in the college through such an accident, especially as even after the law was brought forward it was not too late for the remaining augurs to fill up the supposed vacancies for in them the election resided. The Ogulnian law, which was brought forward by Q. and Cn. Ogulnius, and passed in the year B.C. 307, opened the pontifical and the augural colleges to the plebeians. (Liv. x. 6, 9.) In the latter, five plebeians were associated with the four patricians; and this number remained to the time of Sulla, B.C. 81, who increased it to fifteen. (Liv. Epit. 89.) Lastly, among the many extraordinary powers conferred upon Augustus in B.C. 29 was the right of electing augurs at his pleasure, whether there was a vacancy or not; so that from that period the number of the college ceased to be definite. (Dion. xli. 20.) But a more important point than the number of the augurs was the mode of election. At first, the augurs, like the other priests, were elected by the patrician assembly of the Curies, called the Comitia Curiata: but no election was complete without the sanction of the augury; so that the college possessed a virtual veto upon the admission of all members into it. (Dion. ii. 22.) This power was not unlikely to lead to a gradual usurpation of the elective right; and thus, as early as the year B.C. 452, we find it the practice of the college to fill up vacancies by co-optation as it was called, that is, by the votes of the existing augurs. (Liv. iii. 32.) This mode of election continued to the third consulship of Marius, B. c. 103, when the tribune Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus carried a law, that in case of any vacancy in any of the sacred colleges, seventeen out of the thirty-five tribes chosen by lot should, by a majority of the votes of the said seventeen tribes, nominate a successor, whom the college should be bound to elect. (Cic. contra Leg. Agrar.' ii. 7, &c.) The return of Sulla to power restored the election to the colleges; but in the consulship of Cicero (B. c. 63) T. Attius Labienus, with the support of Cæsar, procured the reversal of Sulla's law. (Dion. xxxvii. 37.) After the death of Cæsar, Antony restored the old law, at least in the election of the chief pontiff, and therefore, most probably, in that of the other priests. (Dion. xliv. 55.) We have already mentioned that the emperors had the privilege of appointing augurs at their own discretion. The ceremonies and superstitions which constituted the supposed science of the augurs would be tedious to enumerate; but that which especially characterised the augural office was the pretended power of ascertaining the divine will from the flights of birds. For this purpose the augur selected some elevated spot, on which he sat with his head veiled and his face turned towards some particular quarter of the heaven, varying perhaps according to the occasion; for the accounts differ so much that, while Livy says it was the east, we have the authority of Varro for the south, and Frontinus for the west. Then the augur, with a bent wand or crook, free from knots, called a lituus, marked off a certain portion of the heavens and of the earth, within which his observations were to be made, and again divided this portion into two parts-the right and left. The space so defined in the mind of the augur was called a templum, and the steadfast observation of the augur directed upon it may probably account for the meaning of the Latin word con-templa-ri, to contemplate, which has been adopted into our own language. The gods then signified their approbation by the appearance of birds on the left, and the augury was complete. For some purposes the whole circumference of the heavens, together with the corresponding parts of the earth, were divided, according to the rules of the art. by lines directed to the cardinal points, and others parallel to these. (Liv. i. 18, Dion. ii. 70, and the appendix to the translation of Niebuhr, vol. ii.) So prominent a place did the feathery creation hold as the interpreters of the divine will, that au or axi, the Latin for bird, is the chief element in the term augur, as it is also in the nearly equivalent word ausper. In the latter, the second syllable is deduced from spec, look, so that the word signifies bird-observer. The second element of the word augur does not admit of satisfactory explanation from any existing word in the Latin language. We have called the terms nearly equivalent, and if Plutarch's authority had been sufficient (Romaica, c. 72), we might have dropped the qualifying adverb. But a Roman antiquary would have pointed out many distinctions between them. The most important of these is, that the leading magistrates of Rome possessed the auspices (Cic. ' De Leg.' iii. 3) by virtue of their office, while the term augurium never refers to any other than an augur. The name auspex does not appear to have been in early times a technical word, and indeed was but rarely employed; but the derivatives from it were frequently used, and applied with considerable latitude to the augurs as well as to the magistrates. The objects of the auspices and auguries were nearly the same, and the means employed of a similar nature. Moreover, all legal disputes about the auspices of the magistrates seem to have been referred to the augurs. Under all these circumstances, we shall not attempt to draw a very nice line between them. There were, as we have already stated, besides the movements of birds, a variety of other occurrences in the physical world which, as expressive of the will of heaven, came under the cognisance of the augurs. We shall not attempt to give a catalogue of all the forms which the superstitions of man may take; but absurd as these forms may have been, the political power of the augurs was most substantial. The election of a king, a consul, a dictator, a prætor, a curule ædile, of the various priests, pontifex, augur, vestal, flamen, &c., all were void unless the auspices were favourable. A general could not cross the pomarium, or sacred boundary of Rome, the frontier of the state, or even a river, without the sanction of his birds. To engage an enemy in defiance of these interpreters of the will of heaven was sure to entail present or future defeat. In the assignment of public lands the science of the augur was required to mark out the different allotments. Among the patricians, the presence of an augur was necessary to render valid many of the proceedings of private life, as marriage and adoption; and the same political body found in the auspices a powerful argument against the rising claims of the plebeians. The auspices, they said, were their peculiar privilege, and as the leading magistrates could not fulfil their duties without such divine assistance, there was an insuperable bar to the election of plebeians. Of the three comitia, or legislative assemblies, that of the curies, being the special assembly of the patricians, was of course subject to the auspices; the same was the case with the mixed assembly of the centuries; but that of the tribes was free from such control. Of the two last (for the comitia curiata became obsolete) the assembly of the centuries was the most important, as possessing the election of the leading magistrate; and so complete was the veto of an augur in this assembly, that if he but heard a clap of thunder, nay, if he but said he had heard one, and that falsely, the proceedings of the assembly were void. Such was the power of the augural office; and it was strengthened by the law that a man once created an augur was an augur for life, no matter what crimes he might commit. (Plin., Ep.' iv. 8; Plutarch, Romaica,' 97.) On the pecuniary advantages of the office there are no very definite statements. That they received money in some shape from the public treasury is indeed positively stated (Dionys. ii. 6); and the poet Attius has made a bad pun at their expense, charging them with extracting aurum (gold) from the aures (ears) of those who believed in them; and the public money may perhaps be traced in the dinners given by the augurs on their election, which were celebrated in the annals of Roman gastronomy. (Cic., 'ad Fam.' vii. 16; Varro, R. R.' iii. 6; Plin., 'H. N.' x. 23.) In the latters years of the republic many of the duties of the augurs were performed in the most lax manner. At the inauguration of a magistrate, says Dionysius (ii. 6), speaking of his own time, the ceremony is a mere shadow of what it was. The candidate takes his seat, rises, repeats a set prayer in the open air, an augur then declares he hears thunder on the left, when in fact there was none, and the candidate forthwith enters upon his magistracy. AUGUST. The month of August was originally called Sextilis, being the sixth month in the Alban or Latin calendar; and this name, as is stated, it retained in the calendars of Romulus, Numa Pompilius, and Julius Cæsar. Since Numa's reform, however, it has held only the eighth place in the series of months. In the Alban calendar, Sextilis consisted, of twenty-eight days; in that of Romulus of thirty; Numa reduced the number to twenty-nine; Julius Cæsar restored it to thirty; and Augustus Caesar, from whom it derived its new name of August, extended the number of days to thirty-one, which has continued ever since. It was originally proposed that September should bear the name of Augustus, from the emperor having been born in that month; but he preferred Sextilis, not only as it stood next to July, which had been recently named after his predecessor Julius, but for the same reasons which influenced the decree of the Senate detailed by Macrobius, in his 'Saturnalia' (edit. Bipont. i. 261), viz., that since it was in this month that the Emperor Cæsar Augustus had entered upon his first consulship-had celebrated three triumphs in the city-had received the allegiance of the soldiers who occupied the Janiculum-had subdued Egypt, and put an end to civil war it appeared that it was, and had been, propitious to the empire; and the Senate therefore ordained that Sextilis should thenceforward bear the name of Augustus. Gassendi (Kalend. Romanum,' apud Græv. viii. col. 164) says that Commodus wished to have had the month Sextilis called by his own name. The Flemings and Germans have adopted the word August for Harvest; Oogst maand is the harvest-month. (Hadr. Junius de Annis et Mensibus,' apud Græv. Thesaur. viii. col. 217.) So the German Augst-wagen, a harvest-waggon (Wachter Glossar. German.'); and the Dutch Oosten, to reap or gather corn from the field (Sewel's Dutch Diction.'). The Spaniards also have the verb Agostar, to gather in harvest; and both French and Spaniards have phrases for making harvest, faire l'Aoust, and hazer su Augusto. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors named August Peod monad, the made Bishop of Hippo, A.D. 395. But they were little known till the 10th or 11th century, were not brought into England till after the Conquest, and appear not to have obtained the name of Augustine or Austin Canons till some years after. (Bingham, Antiq. of the Christ. Church,' b. vii. c. 2. s. 9.) Bale (Script.' cent. xiii. 4) and Sir Robert Atkyns (Antiq. of Glouc.') say, that these canons were brought into England by St. Birinus in the beginning of the 7th century; A.D. 630 or 640, as Fuller, quoting the Chronicon Augustin' of Joseph Pamphilus, states in his Church History (b. vi.); but those were certainly secular canons whom he placed at Dorchester in Oxfordshire; and all other historians agree that we had no regular canons here till the 11th, or probably till the 12th century. For though they differ about the place of their first settlement, yet the general opinion is, that they came in after king Henry I. began his reign. Jos. Pamphilus, according to Fuller (Ch. Hist.' ut supr.), says they were seated in London, in 1059; but this is not believed. Somner says that St. Gregory's in Canterbury, which was built by archbishop Lanfranc in 1084, was their first house (Antiq. Canterb.'); but Leland's saying ( Collectan.' vol. i.) that Archbishop Lanfrane placed secular canons at St. Gregory's, and that Archbishop Corboyl changed them into regulars, makes the authority of that judicious antiquary in this case doubtful. Reyner says (Apostol. Benedict.' tr. i.) that they were first brought into England by Athelwulphus or Adulphus, confessor to king Henry I., and had their first house at Nostell in Yorkshire; but they seem not to have been settled there till Thurstan was archbishop of York, and that was not till 1114. Thurstan was elected in 1114, but not consecrated till 1119. (Willis's Cathedrals,' vol. i.) Stow (Surv. of London') mentions that a gift of lands was made to Norman, the prior, and to the canons of the Holy Trinity, or Christ Church within Aldgate, London, in 1115, but he does not say that it was the first establishment of the order, and that house was not built till R. Beaumeis was bishop of London; whereas the house of these canons at Colchester was founded before the death of Bishop Maurice his predecessor, which happened Sept. 26, 1107. (Godwin'de Præsul;' Newc. 'Rep. Eccl.' vol. i.) And therefore Bishop Tanner thinks that John Rosse (Mon. Angl.' vol. vi.) and Pope Paschal II. (Ibid.) are right in placing them first at Colchester, though it could not be in Rosse's year, 1109, but was rather in 1105, in which Fuller (Ch. Hist.' b. vi., s. i., c. 6.) places the coming of these canons into England. Stevens tells us, in his Continuation of Dugdale (vol. ii.), that though there were regular canons who embraced the rule of St. Austin, taken from his 109th epistle, in the 11th century (as particularly at the Abbey of St. Denis, at Rheims, about 1067), yet the regular canons did not make solemn vows till the 12th century; and did not, in general, take the name of "regular canons of St. Austin" till Pope Innocent II. ordained, in the Lateran Council, in 1139, that all regular canons should submit to that rule of St. Austin in his 109th epistle. So that these regular canons certainly fall short of the time of their pretended founder; and therefore when black or regular canons are mentioned before 1105, the reader must thereby understand secular canons; for it was usual in those days to call the secular canons of cathedral and collegiate churches "canonici regulares," to distinguish them from the common parochial clergy, though probably many of those societies might become Austin canons afterwards. In 1244, the rules were sanctioned by a bull from Pope Innocent IV., and in 1532 the Barefooted Augustines,' a sort of reformed order, was established. Their habit was a long black cassock, with a white rochet over it, and over that a black cloak and hood. The monks were always shaved, but these canons wore beards, and caps on their heads. The nuns of the order were probably the elder of the two, as there certainly was a society of females who lived apart under the spiritual direction of the Bishop of Hippo himself; and a cloister was founded at Venice in 1177 by Pope Alexander III.; these wore black garments, which in 1632 were changed to violet. Tanner says he found above 175 houses of these canons and canonesses in England and Wales. By the rules of the order, among many other ordinances, the vows of weed-chastity and poverty were to be taken by all persons joining the order, to which all property whatever was to be relinquished by the individual; alins might be solicited; on any business requiring members of the fraternity out of the house, two were always to be sent together; concord and implicit obedience were inculcated; and talking was forbidden. Of the habit, it was only directed that it should not be conspicuous. Lammas Day, the first of the month, is also called the Gule of August (Brand's Popular Antiq.' i. 275), probably from the Gothic HIOL or IUL, a wheel, indicating that revolution of season which brought the return of harvest. This day, called by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors Hlap-mærre, that is, loaf mass, was the feast of thanksgiving for the first fruits of the corn. (Compare Pitisci 'Lexicon Antiq., Græc. et Roman., v. Augustus; the different treatises printed in Grævius's 'Collection;' and Brady's 'Clavis Calendaria,' i. 76.) AUGUSTINE (ST.), CANONS OF THE ORDER OF, usually called AUSTIN CANONS. Regular Canons, says Bishop Tanner (Pref. to 'Notit. Monast.'), were such as lived under some rule; they were a less strict sort of religious than the monks, but lived together under one roof, had a common dormitory and refectory, and were obliged to observe the statutes of their order. The chief rule for these canons was that of St. Augustine, who was The separate societies in England and on the Continent were extremely numerous, and many, no doubt, were marked by some peculiarity; but the four great branches which sprung from the parent root were the Præmonstratensians, Trinitarians, Dominicans, and the Knights Hospitallers, with more or less of variation according to circumstances. Copies of the rule of the Augustine order will be found among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum, Numbers 2939, 3392, 3995, and 4053. Wilkins, in his Concilia,' vol. ii., and Spelman, 'Concil.' vol. ii., have given the Constitutions of Pope Boniface XII. for the reformation of this order in 1339; and the Cottonian Manuscript, Vespasian D. I. contains, 1. The proceedings at various general and provincial chapters of the Order, held within the province of 761 AULIC COUNCIL. Canterbury from 1325 to 1404, fol. 41, b. 2. The details of the great AULIC COUNCIL (Reichshofrath), was the title of the second At the extinction of the German empire by the renunciation of Francis II. in 1806, and the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine under the protection of the Emperor Napoleon, the Aulic Council ceased to exist. There is, however, a council at Vienna for the affairs of the war department of the Austrian empire: it is called Hojkriegsrath, of which the president possesses the powers of a minister of war, subject of course to the will and directions of the sovereign. AURANTIIN. [HESPERIDIN.] AURATES. [GOLD] AUREOLE. [NIMBUS.] AUREUS, or DENARIUS AUREUS, the ordinary Roman coin of gold, was equivalent to twenty-five silver denarii, or a hundred sestertii. Gold was first struck at Rome in the year of the city 547, or 207 before Christ, in the consulship of C. Cl. Nero and M. Liv. Salinator, sixty-two years after the introduction of the coinage of silver. The earliest coin of gold at this time was named a scruple (scrupulum), and crupulum. Brit. Mus. Gold. Actual size. went for twenty sesterces of that age. (Plin. Nat. Hist.' lib. xxxiii. AUREUS. 753 seen none heavier than one of Pompey, which weighed 128-2 grains; Alexander Severus coined pieces of one-half and one-third of the CARAUS Brit. Mus. ML Gold. Actual size. Rev. Mr. Cracherode, who bequeathed it to the British Museum, bought The average weight of the aurei of Augustus, then, appears to have been nearly 121 grains; that of Nero's aurei nearly 117. Raper says the Consular aurei weighed at a mean 126 grains. Some The following is Letronne's table of the mean weight of Aurei, of the Family aurei in the Museum weigh 122, 124, and 125 grains. transferred into Troy grains : J. Cæsar French gr. Troy gr. 153.25 125.73 148.71 121-97 145.7 119:53 Caligula 118-55 Claudius 144-6 118-63 Nero 139.5 114.44 137.3 112-64 (Letronne, 'Considérations générales sur l'Evaluation des Monnaies Grecques et Romaines,' &c. 4to. Paris, 1817.) Victors in the chariot races were usually rewarded with aurei (Suetonius, Claud.' cap. 21, § 10; Juv. Sat.' vii. 243.) The Scholiast observes that no more than five were allowed to be given in such cases. (Buleng. 'de Circo,' c. 55.) The fee (probably the maximum) to a lawyer was centum aurei, see Ulpian (D. i. 12,de extr. cognit.") A single aureus was all that Justinian permitted to be risked at dice. Thesaur,' tom. vii. col. 1228.) (Col. Calcagninus de Talorum Tess. et. Calc. Ludis,' ap. Græv. The reader who wishes for information upon the aureus beyond Doctr. Num. Vet.' tom. v.; Pinkerton, Essay on Medals,' vol. i.; what is here given, may consult Pitiscus, Lexicon' i. in voce; Eckhel, Raper's Inquiry,' already referred to; Böckh's 'Untersuchungen über Gewichte, Münzfüsze, und Masse des Alterthums in ihrem zusammenhange,' Berlin, 1838; Hussey, 'Ancient Weights and Money,' and H. Noel Humphrey, 'Coin Collector's Guide.' AURIC ACID. [GOLD.] AURI'GA, the Charioteer, a constellation situated between Perseus and Gemini. It is represented as a man holding a bridle in the right hand and supporting a goat and kids on the left arm. The star in the body of the goat, called Capella (and Alioth by the Arabs) is of the first magnitude, and presents the best guide to the constellation. There is no satisfactory account of the mythology of this figure. It is said to have been the Horus of the Egyptians; among the Greeks, the human figure is by different writers called Erichthonius, Bellerophon, Hippolytus, &c.; while the goat is Amalthea, the foster-mother of Jupiter. But this explanation is even more unsatisfactory than most others, owing to the want of apparent connection between the figures of the group. The following are the principal stars in this constellation :- AURIPIGMENTUM. [ARSENIC, TERSULPHIDE OF.] AUROHYDROCYANIC ACID. [GOLD.] AURORA BOREALIS. [POLAR LIGHTS.] AUSCULTATION, from ausculto to listen, the method of distinguishing the states of health and disease by the study of the sounds produced by the organs in the movements which they make in the performance of their functions. When air rushes by the wind-pipe into the lung in the action of inspiration; when it is expelled through the same tube in the action of expiration; when it is acted upon in the larynx by the organs of the voice; when the heart beats, that is, when the different chambers of which it is composed forcibly contract; when the blood flows through the great arterial trunks; when air is contained in the intestines and is acted on by these organs in their natural movements,-in all these cases sounds are produced which can be heard, often by the unassisted ear; and still more distinctly by the aid of an acoustic instrument. When attention is paid to these sounds, it is found that they differ greatly from each other. The sound of the air in the wind-pipe during inspiration is different from that in the same tube in expiration; the sound of the air in the larynx during the act of speaking is different from both; while the sound produced by the action of the heart, and even by the action of its different chambers, may be discriminated the one from the other. By the study of these sounds, it is obvious that it may be possible to become acquainted with those which are natural to the different organs in the state of health but when these organs become disordered, their movements are modified in a great variety of modes, each modification of movement being attended with a corresponding modification of sound; consequently, these modified sounds are capable of affording indications of various states of disease, the difference between the healthy and the morbid sound being the sign and the measure of the deviation of the organ from the state of health. The physician, carefully studying the sounds produced by the organs during life, makes himself familiar with those which are natural to them: in a particular case he hears sounds which he knows to be altogether different from those that are natural: the patient dies; the physician examines the organs after death; he finds that a certain organ is diseased in a certain mode; this morbid condition of the organ, which he has been taught by inspection after death, he associates in his mind with the peculiar sound which he observed that the organ emitted during life. Another case, attended with the same sound, is proved by inspection after death to be connected with the same disease of the same organ: and every time that he hears this peculiar sound, he finds the same organ diseased in the same mode. A peculiar sound may thus become the sure and certain indication of a particular disease; in this manner, by persevering attention during life and careful examination after death, it may be possible to discriminate the morbid states of all the organs that give, when in action, a distinguishable sound. Extended and repeated observation has shown that the detection and discrimination of disease by this mode may be effected with a minuteness and precision that could not possibly have been credited previous to the practical demonstration of the fact; and modern science has elicited, and almost matured, a new mode, an inventum novum, as one of the first suggestors of the method justly termed it, of discovering the morbid states of several of the most important organs of the body. To the philosophical mind nothing is more interesting and instructive than to trace the history of useful discovery. It is clear that the idea ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. I. on which the modern art of auscultation is founded, had occurred to Hippocrates upwards of two thousand years ago. 'You will know by this," says this first recorded observer of disease as denoted by sound, "that the chest contains water and not pus, if, on applying the ear for a certain time to the side, you hear a sound like that of boiling vinegar." The non-existence of dissection in the age and country of Hippocrates prevented all accurate and extended observation; and consequently rendered it impossible to follow out to any sure and useful result the idea which had occurred to the most ancient writer on physic. Accordingly, the suggestion of Hippocrates seems to have attracted no attention for many centuries, and the mode of studying disease founded upon it, if it had ever been carried to any extent in remote ages, had long sunk into oblivion. About the middle of the 17th century, a distinguished philosopher and mathematician, who was not of the medical profession, and who does not appear to have been acquainted with the writings of Hippocrates, had the penetration to see that advantage might be taken of the sounds produced by the motions of the internal organs to discover the nature of their diseased states, and he even predicted that artificial means would some day be employed to assist the ear in the pursuit of that object. "There may be a possibility," says Hooke, in his posthumous works," of discovering the internal motions and actions of bodies by the sound they make. Who knows but that, as in a watch, we may hear the beating of the balance, and the running of the wheels, and the striking of the hammers, and the grating of the teeth, and multitudes of other noises;-who knows, I say, but that it may be possible to discover the motions of internal parts of bodies, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, by the sounds they make that one may discover the works performed in the several offices and shops of a man's body, and thereby discover what engine is out of order,-what works are going on at several times, and lie still at others, and the like. I have this encouragement not to think all these things utterly impossible, though never so much derided by the generality of men, and never so seemingly mad, foolish, and fantastic; that, as the thinking them impossible cannot much improve my knowledge, so the believing them possible may perhaps be an occasion for taking notice of such things as another would pass by without regard as useless. And somewhat more of encouragement I have also from experience, that I have been able to hear very plainly the beating of a man's heart; and it is common to hear the motion of the wind to and fro in the guts and other small vessels: the stopping in the lungs is easily discovered by the wheezing. As to the motion of the parts one amongst another, to their becoming sensible, they require either that their motions be increased, or that the organ be made more nice and powerful to sensate and distinguish them as they are; for the doing of both which I think it is not impossible but that in many cases there may be helps found." This prediction has been realised: helps have been found. About a century after this passage was written, Leopold Avenbrugger, a German physician then residing at Vienna, fell upon an artificial method of producing sounds in various regions of the body [PERCUSSION; AVENBRUGGER, BIOG. DIV.] by which the physician might judge of the state of the subjacent parts. This method, announced to the world in a small volume in Latin, first published in the year 1761, attracted little attention either among the countrymen of the inventor or among foreign nations for the space of half a century. It was translated into French by Rozière in 1770. In the year 1808, the celebrated Corvisart again translated it, and made his method known to all the countries of Europe. From that period the practice of percussion has been pretty general, and it soon became attended, in skilful hands, with results far more precise and certain than had been anticipated. The attention of physicians having been thus distinctly directed to the method of studying disease from sounds produced in the body whether naturally or artificially, a number of young French physicians, disciples of Corvisart, about the commencement of the present century, took up the subject with extraordinary zeal. Among the most distinguished of these young men were MM. Double, Bayle, and Laennec. Speaking of the signs furnished by respiration, and of the sounds produced by it within the chest, M. Double, in his work on Semeiology, published two years before the discovery which led to the establishment of auscultation as an art and science, says, "In order to hear distinctly the sounds within the chest, we must apply the ear closely to every point of all its aspects, by which means we can distinguish not merely the kind and degree of the sound, but even its precise site. I have frequently derived great benefit from this mode of investigation, to which I was naturally led by the employment of the like method in exploring the pulsation of the heart." At the very time when this was written, Laennec and several of his fellow-pupils, under the guidance of their master, Corvisart, while diligently studying chest diseases by means of percussion, met occasionally with cases in which this method afforded them little or no assistance; and in the hope of obtaining further aid, they accustomed themselves in such cases to apply the ear closely to the chest. Little practical benefit resulted for some time: but at length it led to a discovery of inestimable advantage; a discovery which may be said to have enabled the physician to see into the chest almost with as much clearness as if its walls were transparent. The following is the account of this discovery in the words of the remarkable man who made it, and who in the course of a few years, with a diligence scarcely ever 755 AUSONIANS. exceeded, developed, matured, and systematised the highly-important practical results which it has afforded. "In the year 1816," says Laennec in his great work 'De l'Auscultation Médiate et des Maladies des Poumons et du Cœur,' "I was consulted by a young woman affected with the general symptoms of diseased heart, and in whose case percussion and the application of the hand were of little avail, owing to her being extremely lusty. The The immediate application of the ear being inadmissible for obvious reasons, I happened to recollect a simple and well-known fact in acoustics, and fancied it might be turned to some use on the present occasion. fact I allude to is the great distinctness with which we hear the scratch of a pin at one end of a piece of wood on applying our ear to the other. Immediately on this suggestion, I rolled a quire of paper into a kind of cylinder, and applied one end of it to my patient's chest and the other to my ear, and was not a little surprised and pleased to find that I could thereby perceive the action of the heart in a manner much more clear and distinct than I had ever been able to do by the immeFrom this moment I imagined that diate application of the ear. means might be found to ascertain the character, not merely of the action of the heart, but of every species of sound produced by the motion of all the organs within the chest." Diligently applying himself to improve and perfect the rude instruments which he employed in his first trials, Laennec at length constructed that which is now in general use, called the Stethoscope (from Teos, breast or chest, and σkoréw, to examine or explore), by the aid of which he was at once impressed with the conviction that he should be enabled to discover "a set of new signs of diseases of the chest, simple and certain, and such as might probably render the diagnosis of these diseases as positive and circumstantial as that of many affections which come within the immediate reach of the hand or the instrument of the surgeon." And this conviction, to a great extent, has been realised, for a new, clear, steady, and certain light has, by the aid of this instrument, been thrown on almost all the diseases of all the organs contained in the chest. The art of distinguishing disease by sound comprehends then two distinct methods, that of auscultation and that of percussion. The study of auscultation may be pursued either by the unassisted ear, or through the medium of instruments; the first is called immediate or direct, the second mediate auscultation. In like manner percussion may be performed either on the natural surface of the body, or through the medium of some solid or tense substance firmly applied to it. The first is termed direct, the second mediate, percussion. [PERCUSSION.] See also Double, Sémeiologie Générale;' Forbes's Translation of Corvisart's Avenbrugger;' Laennec, De l'Auscultation Médiate;' arts. Auscultation,' in Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine,' and in the 'Dictionary of Practical Medicine,' by Dr. Copland. AUSONIANS (AU'SONES), an ancient people of the Italian peninsula, who appear to have been a branch of the great Opican or Oscan nation, originally settled in Bruttium, and thence driven by the Eretri into Campania. They were either an identical or nearly related people with the Aurunci. Niebuhr maintains that Ausones is This interthe Greek form of the native name Auruni, from which the adjective form Aurunicus, shortened into Auruncus, would come. change of 8 and r, in certain positions, is not at all uncommon. Suessa Aurunca, near the Liris, was in the centre of the country which the Cales (Livy, viii. 16), Ausona, Minturnæ, and Ausones occupied. Vescia (ix. 25) were Ausonian cities. Livy (viii. 15, 16) seems to speak of the Aurunci of Suessa and the Ausones of Cales as two different people; the former were the enemies, the latter the allies The explanation must be, that the Ausones of Cales, of the Sidicini. and the Aurunci of Suessa, were both Ausones or Aurunci (it is indifferent which term we use), and that one part of the nation, at the period referred to, was hostile to the Romans, and the other part (See Niebuhr, i. 63, &c., English translation; and friendly to them. OSCI.) Lower Italy, and sometimes even all Italy, is designated by the term Ausonia. Cowper uses it in this sense "Nor for Ausonia's groves Of golden fruitage and her myrtle bowers." AUTOGRAPH. 760 were the auspices. There were many niceties in the law of auspices, which AUTHENTIC, in music, a term used in the ancient ecclesiastical modes [MODES], but unknown in modern music. When the octave is divided harmonically, as in the proportion 6, 4, 3,—that is to say, when the fifth is below and the fourth above, for example, then the mode is called authentic. When the octave is divided arithmetically, in the proportion 4, 3, 2,-that is, when the fifth is above the fourth, for example, D the mode is then called plagal. 6 Dr. Pepusch says, "When the fugue is in the fifth above or below, or in the fourth above or below, then one of the parts is in the authentic, the other in the plagal mode of the key we compose in." Handel's chorus, 'He trusted in God,' in the Messiah,' may be adduced as an AUTHENTICA, a barbarous Latin version of the Novelle of Jusexample of this, where the subject is in the authentic mode, the answer in the plagal. tinian [JUSTINIAN'S LEGISLATION], so called by early writers on the (Ducange, Gloss. ad verbum.') AUTO-DE-FE' (Act of Faith), or, as it is termed by the Spaniards, civil law, from its being a literal translation from the original Greek. with whom it was most in use, AUTO-DA-FE', was the publie and this form or act the offenders themselves were present, or in case of solemn reading of extracts from the trials promoted by the Inquisition, and of the sentences pronounced by the judges of that tribunal. At tuted for them; there were also present the civil authorities and their death or unavoidable absence, their bones or effigies were substicorporate bodies of the town where it was performed, particularly the criminal judge, into whose hands the offenders were delivered, that he might inflict upon them the punishment prescribed by the laws; the of the inquisitors. When this execution was performed with the fire, gallows, and executioners having been previously prepared by order There was also an auto particular, private act, at which highest pomp and ceremony, it was called auto público general, general and public act. in the halls of the Inquisition, in the presence of such persons as the the inquisitors and criminal judge only were present; the autillo, held inquisitors invited, and of the ministers of the tribunals alone; and, finally, the auto singular, held in the church, or in the public square, had been decided to be heresy by the Inquisition. On May 21, 1559, against a single individual. The punishment was inflicted for what 31 persons were thus executed at Valladolid, and 37 were remitted to prison for a subsequent auto-da-fé, which took place on Sept. 24, at Seville, when 24 persons were burnt, and 80 subjected to other punishments, nearly all on charges of Lutheranism. In the different autos-de-fé which have been celebrated in Spain, from the first which took place at Seville in 1481, to the abolition of the tribunal by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808, no less than 34,658 persons were executed, either publicly or secretly; 228,214 victims suffered various other punishments; and 18,049 were executed in effigy. The last auto, according to Llorente, was the auto singular, celebrated in December, 1815, at Mexico, against a certain ecclesiastic named Morellos, accused of heresy. He was absolved from the charge of heresy, but was afterwards hung by order of the viceroy for high treason, as being concerned in a plot to effect the emancipation Mexico from Spain. The suppression of the Inquisition was confirmed by the Cortes in 1813, but it was reinstated by Ferdinand VII. in 1814; there were, however, no public executions under it, though many imprisonments, and in 1820 the Inquisition was again formally abolished by the legislature. AUTOGRAPH, from the Greek uvróypapov, written with one's own hand, an original manuscript; the handwriting of any person. 1 |