Page:EB1911 - Volume 09.djvu/335

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
314
EMBRUN—EMBRYOLOGY


(ib., 1867), and Church Vestments (ib., 1868); M. Dreger, Künstlerische Entwicklung der Weberei und Stickerei (Vienna, 1904); Madame I. Errera, Collection de broderies anciennes (Brussels, 1905); L. de Farcy, La Broderie (Paris, 1890); R. Forrer, Die Gräber und Textilfunde von Achmim-Panopolis (Strassburg, 1891); F. R. Fowke, The Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1898); Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, On English Medieval Embroidery (ib., 1848); M. B. Huish, Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries (ib., 1900); A. F. Kendrick, English Embroidery (ib., 1905); English Embroidery executed prior to the Middle of the 16th Century (Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1905, introduction by A. F. Kendrick); E. Lefebure, Embroideries and Lace, translated by A. S. Cole, C.B. (London, 1888); F. Marshall, Old English Embroidery (ib., 1894); E. M. Rogge, Moderne Kunst-Nadelarbeiten (Amsterdam, 1905); South Kensington Museum, Catalogue of Special Loan Exhibition of Decorative Art Needlework (1874); W. G. P. Townshend, Embroidery (London, 1899). For further examples of ecclesiastical embroidery see the articles Chasuble, Cope, Dalmatic and Mitre.  (A. F. K.; A. S. C.) 


EMBRUN, a town in the department of the Hautes Alpes in S.E. France. It is built at a height of 2854 ft. on a plateau that rises above the right bank of the Durance. It is 271/2 m. by rail from Briançon and 24 m. from Gap. Its ramparts were demolished in 1884. In 1906 the communal pop. (including the garrison) was 3752. Besides the Tour Brune (11th century) and the old archiepiscopal palace, now occupied by government offices, barracks, &c., the chief object of interest in Embrun is its splendid cathedral church, which dates from the second half of the 12th century. Above its side door, called the Réal, there existed till 1585 (when it was destroyed by the Huguenots) a fresco, probably painted in the 13th century, representing the Madonna: this was the object of a celebrated pilgrimage for many centuries. Louis XI. habitually wore on his hat a leaden image of this Madonna, for which he had a very great veneration, since between 1440 and 1461, during the lifetime of his father, he had been the dauphin, and as such ruler of this province.

Embrun was the Eburodunum or Ebredunum of the Romans, and the chief town of the province of the Maritime Alps. The episcopal see was founded in the 4th century, and became an archbishopric about 800. In 1147 the archbishops obtained from the emperor Conrad III. very extensive temporal rights, and the rank of princes of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1232 the county of the Embrunais passed by marriage to the dauphins of Viennois. In 1791 the archiepiscopal see was suppressed, the region being then transferred to the diocese of Gap, so that the once metropolitan cathedral church is now simply a parish church. The town was sacked in 1585 by the Huguenots and in 1692 by the duke of Savoy. Henri Arnaud (1641–1721), the Waldensian pastor and general, was born at Embrun.

See A. Albert, Histoire du diocèse d’Embrun (2 vols., Embrun, 1783); M. Fornier, Histoire générale des Alpes Maritimes ou Cottiennes et particulière de leur métropolitaine Embrun (written 1626–1643), published by the Abbé Paul Guillaume (3 vols., Paris and Gap, 1890–1891); A. Fabre, Recherches historiques sur le pèlerinage des rois de France à N. D. d’Embrun (Grenoble, 1859); A. Sauret, Essai historique sur la ville d’Embrun (Gap, 1860).  (W. A. B. C.) 


EMBRYOLOGY. The word embryo is derived from the Gr. ἔμβρυον, which signified the fruit of the womb before birth. In its strict sense, therefore, embryology is the study of the intrauterine young or embryo, and can only be pursued in those animals in which the offspring are retained in the uterus of the mother until they have acquired, or nearly acquired, the form of the parent. As a matter of fact, however, the word has a much wider application than would be gathered from its derivation. All animals above the Protozoa undergo at the beginning of their existence rapid growth and considerable changes of form and structure. During these changes, which constitute the development of the animal, the young organism may be incapable of leading a free life and obtaining its own food. In such cases it is either contained in the body of the parent or it is protruded and lies quiescent within the egg membranes; or it may be capable of leading an independent life, possessing in a functional condition all the organs necessary for the maintenance of its existence. In the former case the young organism is called an embryo,[1] in the latter a larva. It might thus be concluded that embryology would exclude the study of larvae, in which the whole or the greater part of the development takes place outside the parent and outside the egg. But this is not the case; embryology includes not only a study of embryos as just defined, but also a study of larvae. In this way the scope of the subject is still further widened. As long as embryology confines its attention to embryos, it is easy to fix its limits, at any rate in the higher animals. The domain of embryology ceases in the case of viviparous animals at birth, in the case of oviparous animals at hatching; it ceases as soon as the young form acquires the power of existing when separated from the parent, or when removed from the protection of the egg membranes. But as soon as post-embryonic developmental changes are admitted within the scope of the subject, it becomes on close consideration difficult to limit its range. It must include all the developmental processes which take place as a result of sexual reproduction. A man at birth, when he ceases to be an embryo, has still many changes besides those of simple growth to pass through. The same remark applies to a young frog at the metamorphosis. A chick even, which can run about and feed almost immediately after hatching, possesses a plumage very different from that of the full-grown bird; a starfish at the metamorphosis is in many of its features quite different from the form with which we are familiar. It might be attempted to meet this difficulty by limiting embryology to a study of all those changes which occur in the organism before the attainment of the adult state. But this merely shifts the difficulty to another quarter, and makes it necessary to define what is meant by the adult state. At first sight this may seem easy, and no doubt it is not difficult when man and the higher animals alone are in question, for in these the adult state may be defined comparatively sharply as the stage of sexual maturity. After that period, though changes in the organism still continue, they are retrogressive changes, and as such might fairly be excluded from any account of development, which clearly implies progression, not retrogression. But, as so often happens in the study of organisms, formulae which apply quite satisfactorily to one group require modifications when others are considered. Does sexual maturity always mark the attainment of the adult state? Is the Axolotl adult when it acquires its reproductive organs? Can a larval Ctenophore, which acquires functional reproductive glands and still possesses the power of passing into the form ordinarily described as adult in that group, be considered to have reached the end of its development? Or—to take the case of those animals, such as Amphioxus, Balanoglossus, and many segmented worms in which important developmental processes occur, e.g. formation of new gill slits, of gonadial sacs, or even of whole segments of the body, long after the power of reproduction has been acquired—how is the attainment of the adult state to be defined, for it is clear that in them the attainment of sexual maturity does not correspond with the end of growth and development? If, then, embryology is to be regarded as including not only the study of embryos, but also that of larvae, i.e. if it includes the study of the whole developmental history of the individual—and it is impossible to treat the subject rationally unless it is so regarded—it becomes exceeding difficult to fix any definite limit to the period of life with which embryology concerns itself. The beginning of this period can be fixed, but not the end, unless it be the end of life itself, i.e. death. The science of embryology, then, is the science of individual development, and includes within its purview all those changes of form and structure, whether embryonic, larval or post-larval, which characterize the life of the individual. The beginning of this period is precise and definite—it is the completion of the fertilization of the ovum, in which the life of the individual has its start. The end, on the other hand, is vague and cannot be precisely defined, unless it be death, in which case the period of life with which embryology concerns itself is coincident with the life of the individual. To use the words of Huxley (“Cell Theory,” Collected Works, vol. i. p. 267): “Development, therefore, and life are, strictly speaking, one thing, though we are accustomed to limit the former to the progressive half of life merely, and to

  1. In the mammalia the word foetus is often employed in the same signification as embryo; it is especially applied to the embryo in the later stages of uterine development.