Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 07.djvu/269

PHALLISM 213 PHASCOLOMTS than in the other species. They feed on minute Crustacea, and their flesh is oily and unpalatable. PHALLISM, the worship of the fer- tilizings power of nature under the symbol of the phallus. The idea that natural productions were engendered in a manner akin to the propagation of man and the lower animals is poetically expressed by Vergil and Lucretius. Phallism appears to have been at first an independent cult, but was afterward adopted into other forms of worship. The Phoenicians as- cribed its introduction into their wor- ship to Adonis; the Egyptians to Osiris, the Phrygians to Atys, and the Greeks to Dionysos. PHARAOH, the name borne in the Bible by 10 kings of Egypt; the best known of which are, the monarch to whom Joseph explained his dream, and who loaded him with honors ; he who com- menced the persecution of the Hebrews, and who put to death all the male chil- dren; and he who was summoned by Moses to permit of the departure of the Hebrew people, and who was afterward drowned, with all his host, in the waters of the Red Sea. PHARISEES, the most numerous of the three divisions or orders of Judaism in the time of Christ, the other two be- ing the Essenes and the Sadducees. They were so called because they kept aloof from Levitically impure food, sepa- rated themselves from the lawless people of the land, and united to keep the Mosaie law. They arose immediately after the return from the Babylonian captivity. As all the students of the law naturally joined this association, the appellation Member, Associate, chaber, or Pharisee, parush, became synonymous with student, disciple, lawyer, scribe. Accordingly, they represented the na- tional faith of orthodox Judaism. Some Pharisees fell into extravagances, and laid more stress on trifling and petty formulse than on the spirit of the law, to whom the rebukes of Christ refer, and who have given rise to the term Pharisee being used as synonymous with a strict observer of external forms of religion without the spirit of it. See Sadducee. PHARMACOPCEIA, a book contain- ing the prescriptions for the preparatj'^n of medicines recognnized by the general body of practitioners. Up till 1863 sepa- rate pharmacopoeias were issued by the Colleges of Physicians of London, Edin- burgh, and Dublin. Since then a British pharmacopoeia, issued by the medical council of the kingdom, is recognized by the whole medical profession of Great Britain. There is also an American pharmacopoeia. PHARMACY, or PHARMACEUTICS, the art of preparing, compounding, and combining substances for medical pur- poses; the art of the apothecary. PHARNACES, a King of Pontus; the son of Pontus, the son of Mithridates V., and grandfather of Mithridates the Great. He made war against the King of Pergamus, and reigned between 190- 157 B. C. PHARNACES, King of the Cimmerian Bosporus; son of Mithridates VL, King of Pontus, and revolted with the army against his father, who slew himself in despair, 63 b. c. Pharnaces cultivated the friendship of the Romans, and in the war between Caesar and Pompey, he re- mained neutral; but Caesar declared war against and defeated him 47 B. c, after a struggle of three days only. It was on that occasion that Caesar wrote to the Roman senate, in allusion to his easy triumph: "I came, saw, and conquered" (Veni, vidi, vici) . Pharnaces died shortly afterward. PHAROS, a lighthouse. The name is derived from the island of Pharos, close to and now part of Alexandria, which protected the port of that city. On the E. promontory of the island stood the lighthouse of Alexandria, so famous in antiquity, and considered one of the won- ders of the world, built 300 years B. c. PHARSALUS, now Fersala, a town of Thessaly, to the S. of Larissa, on a branch of the Salambria, and accord- ingly in the part of Thessaly restored to Greece in 1881. The district, Pharsalia, is historically notable mainly for Caesar's great victory over Pompey on Aug. 9, 48 B. c. PHARYNX, the dilated commence- ment of the gullet. There may be a dif- fused erysipelatous inflammation, an ordinary or a syphilitic ulcer of the pharynx, or foreign bodies may become imbedded in it. PHASCOLOMYS, wombat, the sole genus of the family Phascolomyidie. Tail rudimentary; stomach simple; cae- cum very short, wide, and with a pecu- liar vermiform appendage. Three species are known ; they may be divided into two groups: (1) P. wmnhat and P. platy- rhinus, the common and broad-nosed wombats; and (2) P. latifrons, the hairy-nosed wombat. They are terrestrial, burrowing animals, vegetable feeders, from the S. of Australia, Tasmania, and the islands of Bass' Straits.