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ANAGNIA—ANAGRAM

been used for the injection, of which the following are the chief —tropacocaine, stovaine, novocaine, cocaine, eucaine and alypin. All of these have been combined with adrenalin hydrochloride with a view to limiting their action in one degree or another; and also with other inert substances in such quantity as will produce isotonic solutions of relatively high specific gravity.

The points in favour of this method of producing analgesia are as follows: (a) The patient is not rendered unconscious, and is often able to assist at his own operation, such as by coughing or moving his limbs in any way as may be desired. (b) There are no troublesome after-effects, such as nausea, vomiting and thirst. (c) The formation of haematoma is less frequent. (d) Surgical shock is considerably lessened, especially in such operations as amputations and severe abdominal emergencies. (e) The risk attending a general anaesthetic is avoided.

The disadvantages at present attending the method are: (a) A severe form of headache may sometimes follow, but this has seemed to depend on the kind of fluid injected, and in the recent cases has not been so frequent as in the early ones. (b) The paralysis of muscles. In a very few cases this has been permanent. The temporary paralysis of the muscles of respiration is apt to be a serious matter. (c) Occasionally incontinence of urine and faeces occurs; this, however, has not been permanent except in a few of the earlier cases. (d) The uncertainty of the method, so that the analgesia is not always as complete as is desirable. (e) The analgesia for safety must be limited to a line below the level of the second rib in front. (f ) The use of the Trendelenburg position is impossible, or indeed the use of any position which involves lowering the patient’s head.

It would appear that the method undoubtedly has its uses, and that it will take its place in surgery and find its proper level. A large amount of work is being done on the subject, with a view of determining the limitations and possibilities of the method, the best kind of substance to use and the proper dose to employ.

Finally, a large number of operations have been performed under a local anaesthesia produced by hypnotism (q.v.), but this is a method that can only be used on selected cases.  (H. C. C.) 


ANAGNIA [mod. Anagni; pop. (1901) 10,059], an ancient town of the Hernici, situated on a hill (1558 ft.) above the valley of the Trerus and the Via Labicana (the post-station 3 m. below the town, from which a branch road ascended to it, was Compitum Anagninum, which was 40 m. E.S.E. of Rome: see T. Ashby, in Papers of the British School at Rome, i. 215). In 1880 a pre-Aryan grave was found between the town and the river, with a skeleton painted red, stone implements and a bronze dagger. After the Italian immigration, its position in a fertile district soon gave it importance, and it became the seat of the assembly of the Hernican towns. In the war of 306 B.C. it was conquered by Q. Marcius Tremulus and lost its independence. Its inhabitants had certainly acquired Roman citizenship before the Social War and it continued to be a municipium throughout the Roman period. It was besieged by the Saracens in 877, but in the 11th century was a place of considerable importance, the Conti and Gaetani being the chief families; Pope Boniface VIII., a member of the latter, was there made prisoner in 1303. The ancient city walls are in some points still existing, in others they have been much restored; they are built of rectangular blocks of porous limestone about 11/2 ft. high. On the north of the town they are especially well-preserved, and at one point the area within them is slightly extended by a terrace supported by three lofty pillars. Within the city there are no ancient remains, except some massive substruction walls which supported buildings on the hillside. The present town still preserves in parts its medieval aspect. The cathedral, constructed in 1074 at the summit of the hill, is externally plain; it has a fine Gothic interior, somewhat spoilt by restoration, with a good Cosmati pavement, and a canopy and paschal candlestick in the same style. The crypt contains frescoes of the 13th century, and in the treasury are valuable vestments. Lower down is the Palazzo Civico, belonging to the 11th or early 12th century, which is supported on arches of a single span, under which the road passes. Its posterior façade is fine. Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspeare) died here, and there is a chapel of St Thomas Becket in the crypt of the cathedral.

See L. Pigorini, in Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana (1880, 8 seq.); J. Kulakowski, in Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche (Rome, 1904), v. 673 seq.  (T. As.) 


ANAGRAM (Gr. ἀνὰ, back, and γράφειν, to write), the result of transposing the letters of a word or words in such a manner as to produce other words that possess meaning. The construction of anagrams is an amusement of great antiquity, its invention being ascribed without authority to the Jews, probably because the later Hebrew writers, particularly the Kabbalists, were fond of it, asserting that “secret mysteries are woven in the numbers of letters.” Anagrams were known to the Greeks and also to the Romans, although the known Latin examples of words of more than one syllable are nearly all imperfect. They were popular throughout Europe during the middle ages and later, particularly in France, where a certain Thomas Billon was appointed “anagrammatist to the king” by Louis XIII. W. Camden (Remains, 7th ed., 1674) defines “Anagrammatisme” as “a dissolution of a name truly written into his letters, as his elements, and a new connection of it by artificial transposition, without addition, subtraction or change of any letter, into different words, making some perfect sence applyable to the person named.” Dryden disdainfully called the pastime the “torturing of one poor word ten thousand ways,” but many men and women of note have found amusement in it. A well-known anagram is the change of Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum into Virgo serena, pia, munda et immaculata. Among others are the anagrammatic answer to Pilate’s question, “Quid est veritas?”—namely, “Est vir qui adest”; and the transposition of “Horatio Nelson” into “Honor est a Nilo”; and of “Florence Nightingale” into “Flit on, cheering angel.” James I.’s courtiers discovered in “James Stuart” “A just master,” and converted “Charles James Stuart” into “Claimes Arthur’s seat.” “Eleanor Audeley,” wife of Sir John Davies, is said to have been brought before the High Commission in 1634 for extravagances, stimulated by the discovery that her name could be transposed to “Reveale, O Daniel,” and to have been laughed out of court by another anagram submitted by the dean of the Arches, “Dame Eleanor Davies,” “Never soe mad a ladie.” There must be few names that could furnish so many anagrams as that of “Augustus de Morgan,” who tells that a friend had constructed about 800 on his name, specimens of which are given in his Budget of Paradoxes, p. 82. The pseudonyms adopted by authors are often transposed forms, more or less exact, of their names; thus “Calvinus” becomes “Alcuinus”; “François Rabelais,” “Alcofribas Nasier”; “Bryan Waller Proctor,” “Barry Cornwall, poet”; “Henry Rogers,” “R. E. H. Greyson,” &c. It is to be noted that the last two are impure anagrams, an “r” being left out in both cases. “Telliamed,” a simple reversal, is the title of a well-known work by “De Maillet.” The most remarkable pseudonym of this class is the name “Voltaire,” which the celebrated philosopher assumed instead of his family name, “François Marie Arouet,” and which is now generally allowed to be an anagram of “Arouet, l.j.,” that is, Arouet the younger. Perhaps the only practical use to which anagrams have been turned is to be found in the transpositions in which some of the astronomers of the 17th century embodied their discoveries with the design apparently of avoiding the risk that, while they were engaged in further verification, the credit of what they had found out might be claimed by others. Thus Galileo announced his discovery that Venus had phases like the moon in the form, “Haec immatura a me jam frustra legunturoy,” that is, “Cynthiae figuras aemulatur Mater Amorum.”

Another species of anagram, called “palindrome” (Gr. πάλιν, back, and δρόμος, running), is a word or sentence which may be read backwards as well as forwards, letter by letter, while preserving the same meaning; for example, the words “Anna,” “noon,” “tenet,” or the sentence with which Adam is humorously supposed to have greeted Eve: “Madam, I’m Adam!”

A still more complicated variety is the “logogram” (Gr. λόγος, word), a versified puzzle containing several words derived