The town hall and free library are the principal public buildings of Worksop. Malting is the principal industry. A large corn market and a cattle and horse fair are held. The town also possesses brass and iron foundries, agricultural implement works, saw-mills and chemical works; and there is a considerable trade in Windsor chairs and wood for packing-cases for Sheffield cutlery. There are collieries at Shireoaks, 3 m. W.
WORLD, a word which has developed a wide variety of meanings from its original etymological sense of the "age of man," “course of man's life.” In O. Eng. it appears under its true form weoruld, being a compound of wer, man (cf. Lat. vir), and yldo, age, from eald, eld, old. Of the various meanings the principal are the earth (q.v.), as a planet, or a large division of the earth, such as the “old world,” the eastern, the “new world,” the western hemisphere; the whole of created things upon the earth, particularly its human inhabitants, mankind, the human race, or a great division of mankind united by a common racial origin, language, religion or civilization, &c. A derived meaning is that of social life, society, as distinct from a religious life.
WORM,[1] a term used popularly to denote almost any kind of elongated, apparently limbless creature, from a lizard, like the blind worm, to the grub of an insect or an earthworm. Linnaeus applied the Latin term Vermes to the modern zoological divisions Mollusca, Coelentera, Protozoa, Tunicala, Echinoderma (qq.v.), as well as to those forms which more modern zoologists have recognized as worms. As a matter of convenience the term Vermes or Vermidea is still employed, for instance in the International Catalogue of Zoological Literature and the Zoological Record, to cover a number of wormlike animals. In systematic zoology, however, the use of a division Vermes has been abandoned, as it is now recognized that many of the animals that even a zoologist would describe as worms belong to different divisions of the animal kingdom. The so-called flatworms (Platyelmia, q.v.), including the Planarians (q.v.). Flukes (see Trematodes), Cestodes (see Tapeworm) and the curious Mesozoa (q.v.), are no doubt related. The marine Nemertine worms (see Nemertina) are isolated. The thick-skinned round worms, such as the common horse-worm and the thread worms (see Nematoda), together with the Nematomorpha (q.v.), Chaetosomatida (q.v.), Desmoscolecida (q.v.) and Acanthocephala (q.v.), form a fairly natural group. The Rotifera (q.v.), with probably the Kinorhyncha (q.v.) and Gastrotricha (q.v.), are again isolated. The remaining worms are probably all coelomate animals. There is a definite Annelid group (see Annelida), including the Archiannelida, the bristleworms (see Chaetopoda), of which the earthworm (q.v.) is the most familiar type, the Myzostomida (q.v.), Hirudinea (see Leech) and the armed Gephyreans (see Echiuroidea). The unarmed Gephyreans (see Gephyrea) are now separated from their former associates and divided into two groups of little affinity, the Sipunculoidea and the Priapuloidea (qq.v.) . The Phoronidea (q.v.) are now associated with Hemichordata (q.v.) in the line of vertebrate ancestry, whilst the Chaetognatha (q.v.) remain in solitary isolation.
Mention is made under Tapeworm of the worms of that species inhabiting the human body as parasites, and it will be convenient here to mention other parasitic varieties. The most common human parasite is the Ascaris lumbricoides or round worm, found chiefly in children and occupying the upper portion of the intestine. They are usually few in number, but occasionally occur in such large numbers that they cause intestinal obstruction. Unlike the tapeworm no intermediate host is required for the development of this worm. It develops from direct ingestion of the larvae. Various symptoms, such as diarrhoea, anaemia, intermittent fever, restlessness, irritability and convulsions are attributed to these worms. The treatment is the administration of santonin, followed by a purgative. The thread worm or Oxyuris vermicularis is a common parasite infecting the rectum. The larvae of this worm are also directly swallowed, and infection probably takes place through water, or possibly through lettuces and watercress. The symptoms caused by thread worms are loss of appetite, anaemia and intense irritation and itching. The treatment consists in the use of enemata containing quassia, carbolic acid, vinegar or turpentine or even common salt. In addition mild purgatives should he given.
WORMS, a city of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, situated in a fertile plain called the Wonnegau, on the left bank of the Rhine, 25 m. S. of Mainz, 20 m. N.W. of Heidelberg, and 9 m. by rail N.W. of Mannheim. Pop. (1895) 28,636; (1905) 43,841, about a third of whom are Roman Catholics. The town is irregularly built, and some of the old walls and towers still remain, but its general aspect is modern. The principal church and chief building is the spacious cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, which ranks beside those of Spires and Mainz among the noblest Romanesque churches of the Rhine (see Architecture: Romanesque and Gothic in Germany). This magnificent basilica, with four round towers, two large domes, and a choir at each end, has a specially imposing exterior, though the impression produced by the interior is also one of great dignity and simplicity, heightened by the natural colour of the red sandstone of which it is built. Only the ground plan and the lower part of the western towers belong to the original building consecrated in 1110; the remainder was mostly finished by 1181, but the west choir and the vaulting were built in the 13th century, the elaborate south portal was added in the 14th century, and the central dome has been rebuilt. The ornamentation of the older parts is simple to the verge of rudeness; and even the more elaborate later forms show no high development of workmanship. The baptistery contains five remarkable stone reliefs of the late 15th century. The cathedral is 358 ft. long, and 89 ft. wide, or including the transepts, which are near the west end, 118 ft. (inside measurements). It belongs to the Roman Catholic community, who possess also the church of St Martin and the church of Our Lady (Liebfrauenkirche), a handsome Gothic edifice outside the town, finished in 1467. The principal Protestant place of worship is the Trinity church, built in 1726. Second in interest to the cathedral is the church of St Paul, also in the Romanesque style, and dating from 1102–1116, with a choir of the early 13th century, cloisters and other monastic buildings. This church has been converted into an interesting museum of national antiquities. The late Romanesque church of St Andrew is not used. The old synagogue, an unassuming building erected in the 11th century and restored in the 13th, is completely modernized. The Jewish community of Worms (about 1300 in number) claims to be the most ancient in Germany and to have existed continuously since the Christian era, though the earliest authentic mention of it occurs in 558. A curious tradition, illustrating the efforts of the dispersed people to conciliate their oppressors, asserts that the Jews of Worms gave their voice against the crucifixion, but that their messenger did not arrive at Jerusalem until after the event.
The town hall was rebuilt in 1884. The Bischofshof, in which the most famous diet of Worms (1521) was held, is now replaced by a handsome modern residence. The Luginsland is an old watch-tower of the 13th century. In the Lutherplatz rises the imposing Luther monument (unveiled in 1868), on a platform 48 ft. sq. In the centre the colossal statue of Luther rises, on a pedestal at the base of which are sitting figures of Peter Waldo, Wycliffe, Hus and Savonarola, the heralds of the Reformation, at the corners of the platform, on lower pedestals, are statues of Luther's contemporaries, Melanchthon, Reuchlin, Philip of Hesse, and Frederick the Wise of Saxony, between which are allegorical figures of Magdeburg (mourning), Spires (protesting) and Augsburg (confessing). The greater part of the work, which took nine years to execute, was designed by Rietschel, and carried out after his death in 1861 by Gustav Kietz (1826–1908), Adolf von Donndorf (b. 1835) and Johannes Schilling (b. 1828). The “Rosengarten” on the opposite bank of the Rhine
- ↑ The O. Eng. wyrm represents a word common to Teutonic languages for a snake or worm, cf. Ger. Wurm, Dan. and Swed. orm, Du. Worm. The Lat. vermis must be connected. The Sanskrit word is krimi, which has given kermes, the cochineal insect, whence “crimson.” Skeat takes the ultimate root to be kar, to move, especially in a circular motion, seen in "curve," "circle," &c. The word "worm" is applied to many objects resembling the animals in having a spiral shape or motion, as the spiral thread of a screw, or the spiral pipe through which vapour is passed in distillation (q.v.). As a term of disparagement and contempt the word is also used of persons, from the idea of wriggling or creeping on the ground, partly, too, perhaps, with a reminiscence of Genesis iii. 14.
