HEBERDEN, WILLIAM (1710-1801), English physician, was born in London in 1710. In the end of 1724 he was sent to St John’s College, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship about 1730, became master of arts in 1732, and took the degree of M.D. in 1739. He remained at Cambridge nearly ten years longer practising medicine, and gave an annual course of lectures on materia medica. In 1746 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London; and two years later he settled in London, where he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1749, and enjoyed an extensive medical practice for more than thirty years. At the age of seventy-two he partially retired, spending his summers at a house which he had taken at Windsor, but he continued to practise in London during the winter for some years longer. In 1778 he was made an honorary member of the Paris Royal Society of Medicine. He died in London on the 17th of May 1801. Heberden, who was a good classical scholar, published several papers in the Phil. Trans. of the Royal Society, and among his noteworthy contributions to the Medical Transactions (issued, largely at his suggestion, by the College of Physicians) were papers on chicken-pox (1767) and angina pectoris (1768). His Commentarii de morborum historia et curatione, the result of careful notes made in his pocket-book at the bedside of his patients, were published in 1802; in the following year an English translation appeared, believed to be from the pen of his son, William Heberden (1767-1845), also a distinguished scholar and physician, who attended King George III. in his last illness.
HÉBERT, EDMOND (1812-1890), French geologist, was born at Villefargau, Yonne, on the 12th of June 1812. He was educated at the Collège de Meaux, Auxerre, and at the École Normale in Paris. In 1836 he became professor at Meaux, in 1838 demonstrator in chemistry and physics at the École Normale, and in 1841 sub-director of studies at that school and lecturer on geology. In 1857 the degree of D. ès Sc. was conferred upon him, and he was appointed professor of geology at the Sorbonne. There he was eminently successful as a teacher, and worked with great zeal in the field, adding much to the knowledge of the Jurassic and older strata. He devoted, however, special attention to the subdivisions of the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations in France, and to their correlation with the strata in England and in southern Europe. To him we owe the first definite arrangement of the Chalk into palaeontological zones (see Table in Geol. Mag., 1869, p. 200). During his later years he was regarded as the leading geologist in France. He was elected a member of the Institute in 1877, Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1885, and he was three times president of the Geological Society of France. He died in Paris on the 4th of April 1890.
HÉBERT, JACQUES RENÉ (1757-1794), French Revolutionist, called “Père Duchesne,” from the newspaper he edited, was born at Alençon, on the 15th of November 1757, where his father, who kept a goldsmith’s shop, had held some municipal office. His family was ruined, however, by a lawsuit while he was still young, and Hébert came to Paris, where in his struggle against poverty he endured great hardships; the accusations of theft directed against him later by Camille Desmoulins were, however, without foundation. In 1790 he attracted attention by some pamphlets, and became a prominent member of the club of the Cordeliers in 1791. On the 10th of August 1792 he was a member of the revolutionary Commune of Paris, and became second substitute of the procureur of the Commune on the 2nd of December 1792. His violent attacks on the Girondists led to his arrest on the 24th of May 1793, but he was released owing to the threatening attitude of the mob. Henceforth very popular, Hébert organized with P. G. Chaumette (q.v.) the “worship of Reason,” in opposition to the theistic cult inaugurated by Robespierre, against whom he tried to excite a popular movement. The failure of this brought about the arrest of the Hébertists, or enragés, as his partisans were called. Hébert was guillotined on the 24th of March 1794. His wife, who had been a nun, was executed twenty days later. Hébert’s influence was mainly due to his articles in his journal Le Père Duchesne,[1] which appeared from 1790 to 1794. These articles, while not lacking in a certain cleverness, were violent and abusive, and purposely couched in foul language in order to appeal to the mob.
See Louis Duval, “Hébert chez lui,” in La Révolution Française, revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, t. xii. and t. xiii.; D. Mater, J. R. Hébert, l’auteur du Père Duchesne avant la journée du 10 août 1792 (Bourges, Comm. Hist. du Cher, 1888); F. A. Aulard, Le Culte de la raison et de l’être suprême (Paris, 1892).
[1] There were several journals of this name, the best known of the others being that edited by Lemaire.
HEBREW LANGUAGE. The name “Hebrew” is derived, through the Greek Ἑβραῖος, from ‘ibhray, the Aramaic equivalent of the Old Testament word ‘ibhrī, denoting the people who commonly spoke of themselves as Israel or Children of Israel from the name of their common ancestor (see [Jews]). The later derivative Yisra’elī, Israelite, from Yisra’el, is not found in the Old Testament.[1] Other names used for the language of Israel are speech of Canaan (Isa. xix. 18) and Yehūdhīth, Jewish, (2 Kings xviii. 26). In later times it was called the holy tongue. The real meaning of the word ‘ibhrī must ultimately be sought in the root ‘abhar, to pass across, to go beyond, from which is derived the noun ‘ebher, meaning the “farther bank” of a river. The usual explanation of the term is that of Jewish tradition that ’ibhrī means the man “from the other side,” i.e. either of the Euphrates or the Jordan. Hence the Septuagint in Gen. xiv. 13 render Abram ha-‘ibhrī by ὁ περάτης, the “crosser,” and Aquila, following the same tradition, has ὁ περαἴτης, the man “from beyond.” This view of course implies that the term was originally applied to Abram or his descendants by a people living on the west of the Euphrates or of the Jordan. It has been suggested that the root ‘abhar is to be taken in the sense of “travelling,” and that Abram the wandering Aramaean (Deut. xxvi. 5) was called ha-‘ibhrī because he travelled about for trading purposes, his language, ‘ibhrī, being the lingua franca of Eastern trade. The use of the term ἑβραϊστί for biblical Hebrew is first found in the Greek prologue to Ecclesiasticus (c. 130 B.C.). In the New Testament it denotes the native language of Palestine (Aramaic and Hebrew being popularly confused) as opposed to Greek. In modern usage the name Hebrew is applied to that branch of the northern part of the Semitic family of languages which was used by the Israelites during most of the time of their national existence in Palestine, and in which nearly all their sacred writings are composed. As to its characteristics and relation to other languages of the same stock, see [Semitic Languages]. It also includes the later forms of the same language as used by Jewish writers after the close of the Canon throughout the middle ages (Rabbinical Hebrew) and to the present day (New Hebrew).