VARANGIANS 166 VARICOSE VEINS VARANGIANS, or VARAGIANS, the name applied to the Norse viking, who at the close of the 9th century, founded various principalities in Russia. Some «f them afterward entered the service of the Byzantine emperors, and became the imperial guards at Constantinople. Here they were recruited by Anglo-Saxons and Danes, who fled from England to escape the Norman yoke. VARDAMAN, JAMES KIMBLE, an American public official, born in Jack- son CO., Texas, in 1861. He was educated in the public schools of Mississippi and was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1882. In 1883 he was editor of the Winona (Miss.) "Advance," from 1890 to 1896 editor of the Greenwood (Miss.) "Enterprise," and in the latter year established the Greenwood "Common- wealth." He became in 1908 editor of "The Issue," Jackson, Miss. He was a presidential elector in 1892 and 1896, a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1890 to 1896, cap- tain and later major of the 5th United States Volunteer Infantry from 1898 to 1899, Governor of Mississippi from 1904 to 1908, and Democratic United States Senator from 1913 to 1919. He was de- feated for re-election in 1918. VARIATION, in astronomy, any de- viation from the mean orbit or mean motion of a heavenly body produced by the perturbation of another body or bodies. Thus the planets are considered to move mathematically in elliptic orbits, which would be the case if they were subject to the attraction of the sun only, but being acted on by each other, there is supposed to be a minute and slow but constant variation in the elements of the ellipse. Variations which are compen- sated in short intervals are called peri- odic, and those which require for their compensation a long period are called secular. In biology: (1) A tendency in all or- ganisms to vary slightly from other organisms produced by the same parents. (2) Hereditary modification. (3) A modification directly due to the physical conditions of life; such as the dwarfed condition of shells in the Baltic, or of stunted plants on Alpine summits. (4) An organism, or a group of organisms, exhibiting modification due to external conditions. VARICK, THEODORE ROMEYN, an American surgeon; born in Dutchess co., N. Y., June 24, 1825; was graduated at the Medical Department of the New York University in 1846. He settled in Jersey City, N. J., in 1848; and became famous as a surgeon. He introduced the use of cocaine in capital amputations, and was the first in the United States to employ the method of Trendelenberg in performing amputations at the hip joint. He also perfected a method for the use of hot water in surgery, by which he performed the largest number of successful operations knovm to his time, failing in only three cases out of 54. He originated, too, the use of hot water in checking the ooze in laparotomy. His publications include "Urticaria Pro- duced by Hydrocyanic Acid"; "Complete Luxation of the Radius and Ulna to the Radical Side"; "Distal Compression in Inguinal Aneurism"; "The Use of Hot Water in Surgery"; "Protective Treat- ment of Open Wounds"; etc. He died in Jersey City, N. J., Nov. 23, 1887. VARICOSE VEINS. When a vein be- comes dilated at a certain part of its course, for no apparent physiological object, such as relieving the venous cir- culation elsewhere (as, for example, in the case of the superficial abdominal veins enlarging in order to relieve a coni- pressed vena cava), it is said to be vari- cose, the actual dilatation being called a varix (a word used in this sense by Cicero and Celsus). Some veins srera to be unaffected by varices, which, how- ever, are of common occurrence in the sub-mucous veins of the rectum (consti- tuting hemorrhoids or often pilps), in the spermatic veins, giving rise to vari- cocele, and in the veins of the lower ex- tremities. They are occasionally (but very rarely) found in other veins. Cer- tain conditions of the system favor the formation of varices, among which may be noticed an indolent temperament, and a debilitated condition of the general system, accompanied by a relaxed state of the walls of the veins; and possibly also a congenital predisposition or her- editary tendency. Persons with such a disposition are more likely to suffer from this_ affection if their occupation is one which involves much standing or walking; and cooks, washerwomen, and foot-soldiers have been selected as speci- ally prone to varicose veins. Varices may occur at almost any period of life, but are chiefly developed during middle age. Their formation is aided by any condition of the system which impedes the circulation, as certain diseases of the heart, lungs, and liver, and by continued high living, which is especially liable to induce hemorrhoids. Direct pressure on the veins, e. g., by the use of garters, or by habitual constipation, is often an important factor in their production. From the researches of Andral, it ap- pears that in varicose veins the coats of
