The artificial application of air to lungs at varying pressure is carried out by inspiring rarefied air or compressed air and expiring into rarefied air or into compressed air. Only inspiring compressed air, or expiring into rarefied air, can be practically applied. There are many kinds of apparatus for this. The best is the compressed-air bath (seen at Brompton Hospital, London), consisting of three parts—the engine, receiver, and air-chamber.
The patient is placed in this air-chamber, where he remains for two hours, during which time the pressure is usually raised from half again to double normal. For the first half-hour the pressure is gradually raised, and is maintained
at the same abnormal height for one hour; for the last half-hour it is reduced again gradually to normal. The patient first experiences an unpleasant sensation in the throat. This is relieved by swallowing or by drinking water; then pain in the ear-drums; the voice becomes shriller. These are early signs of the effects of high pressure, and are seen to a more marked degree in cases where a man has descended suddenly into a mine, caisson, &c. Compressed air-baths are used in cases of asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, anæmia.
Respiratory gymnastics are of value for defective breathing due to badly formed chests or injury and disease of the lungs. There are various forms of artificial breathing exercises and many ways of using artificial aids, e.g. breathing into bottles connected together by tubes and partly filled with water. The water is forced from one bottle to another by the respiratory effort of the patient.
Aerschot, town in Belgium, province of Brabant, on the Demer, a tributary of the Dyle. It was occupied by the Germans in Aug., 1914. Pop. 7800.
Æschines (es′ki-nēz), a celebrated Athenian orator, the rival and opponent of Demosthenes, was born in 389 B.C. and died in 314. He headed the Macedonian party in Greece, or those in favour of an alliance with Philip, while Demosthenes took the opposite side. Having failed in 330 B.C. in a prosecution against Ctesiphon for proposing to bestow a crown of gold upon Demosthenes for his services to the State (whence the oration of Demosthenes 'On the Crown') he left Athens, and subsequently established a school of eloquence at Rhodes. Three of his orations are extant. Æschines should not be confounded with his namesake, the Athenian philosopher and intimate friend of Socrates.
Æschylus (es′ki-lus), the first in time of the three great tragic poets of Greece, born at Eleusis, in Attica, 525 B.C., died in Sicily 456. Before he gained distinction as a dramatist he had fought at the battle of Marathon (490), as he afterwards did at Artemisium, Salamis, and Platæa. He first gained the prize for tragedy in 484 B.C. The Persians, the earliest of his extant pieces, formed part of a trilogy which gained the prize in 472 B.C. In 468 B.C. he was defeated by Sophocles, and then is said to have gone to the Court of Hiero, King of Syracuse. Altogether he is reputed to have composed ninety plays and gained thirteen triumphs. Only seven of his tragedies are extant: The Persians, Seven against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus, Agamemnon, Choephori, and Eumenides, the last three forming a trilogy on the story of Orestes, represented in 458 B.C. Æschylus may be called the creator of Greek tragedy, both from the splendour of his dramatic writings and from the scenic improvements and accessories he introduced. Till his time only one actor had appeared on the stage at a time, and by bringing on a second he was really the founder of dramatic dialogue. His style was grand, daring, and full of energy, and his choruses, though difficult, are among the noblest pieces of poetry in the world. His plays have little or no plot, and his characters are drawn by a few powerful strokes. There are English poetical translations of his plays by Blackie, Plumptre, Swanwick, Campbell, Robert Browning, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.—Bibliography: Bishop Copleston, Æschylus, in English Classics for Modern Readers Series (Blackwood & Son); Miss J. Case, Translation of Prometheus Vinctus (Dent).
Æscula′pius (Gr. Asklēpios), the god of medicine among the Greeks and afterwards adopted by the Romans, usually said to have been a son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis. He was worshipped in particular at Epidaurus, in the Peloponnesus, where a temple with a grove was dedicated to him. The sick who visited his temple had to spend one or more nights in the sanctuary, after which the remedies to be used were revealed in a dream. Those who were cured offered a sacrifice to Æsculapius, commonly a cock. He is often represented with a large beard, holding a knotty staff, round which is entwined a serpent, the serpent being specially his symbol. The staff and serpent have been adopted as a badge by the Royal Army Medical Corps. Sometimes Æsculapius is represented under the image of a serpent only.—Bibliography: L. Dyer, The Gods of Greece; W. H. D. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings.
Æs′culus, the genus of plants to which belongs the horse-chestnut.
Æsir, in Scandinavian mythology, the eleven chief gods, besides Odin. They are: Thor, Balder, Ty or Tyr, Bragi, Heimdal, Hod, Vidar, Vali, Ull, Forseti, and Loki or Lopt. See Scandinavian Mythology.