A person who is the subject of a reducible hernia should take great care to obtain an accurately fitting truss, and should remember that whenever symptoms resembling in any degree those of strangulation occur, delay in treatment may prove fatal. A surgeon should at once be communicated with, and he should come prepared to operate.
(E. O.*)
HERNICI, an ancient people of Italy, whose territory was in Latium between the Fucine Lake and the Trerus, bounded by the Volscian on the S., and by the Aequian and the Marsian on the N. They long maintained their independence, and in 486 B.C. were still strong enough to conclude an equal treaty with the Latins (Dion. Hal. viii. 64 and 68). They broke away from Rome in 362 (Livy vii. 6 ff.) and in 306 (Livy ix. 42), when their chief town Anagnia (q.v.) was taken and reduced to a praefecture, but Ferentinum, Aletrium and Verulae were rewarded for their fidelity by being allowed to remain free municipia, a position which at that date they preferred to the civitas. The name of the Hernici, like that of the Volsci, is missing from the list of Italian peoples whom Polybius (ii. 24) describes as able to furnish troops in 225 B.C.; by that date, therefore, their territory cannot have been distinguished from Latium generally, and it seems probable (Beloch, Ital. Bund, p. 123) that they had then received the full Roman citizenship. The oldest Latin inscriptions of the district (from Ferentinum, C.I.L. x. 5837-5840) are earlier than the Social War, and present no local characteristic.
For further details of their history see C.I.L. x. 572.
There is no evidence to show that the Hernici ever spoke a really different dialect from the Latins; but one or two glosses indicate that they had certain peculiarities of vocabulary, such as might be expected among folk who clung to their local customs. Their name, however, with its Co-termination, classes them along with the Co-tribes, like the Volsci, who would seem to have been earlier inhabitants of the west coast of Italy, rather than with the tribes whose names were formed with the No-suffix. On this question see [Volsci] and [Sabini].
See Conway’s Italic Dialects (Camb. Univ. Press, 1897), p. 306 ff., where the glosses and the local and personal names of the district will be found.
(R. S. C.)
HERNÖSAND, a seaport of Sweden, chief town of the district (län) of Vesternorrland on the Gulf of Bothnia. Pop. (1900) 7890. It stands on the island of Hernö (which is connected with the mainland by bridges) near the mouth of the Ångerman river, 423 m. N. of Stockholm by rail. It is the seat of a bishop and possesses a fine cathedral. There are engine-works, timber-yards and saw-mills. The harbour is good, but generally ice-bound from December to May. Timber, iron and wood-pulp are exported. There are a school of navigation and an institute for pisciculture. Hernösand was founded in 1584, and received its first town-privileges from John III. in 1587. It was the first town in Europe to be lighted by electricity (1885). The poet Franzen (q.v.), Bishop of Hernösand, is buried here.