EMPYEMA (from Gr. ἐν, within, and πῦον, pus), a term in medicine applied to an accumulation of purulent fluid within the cavity of the pleura (see Lung: Surgery).
EMPYREAN (from the Med. Lat. empyreus, an adaptation
of the Gr. ἔρπνρος, in or on the fire, πῦρ), the place in the
highest heaven, which in ancient cosmologies was supposed to
be occupied by the element of fire. It was thus used as a name
for the firmament, and in Christian literature for the dwelling-place
of God and the blessed, and as the source of light. The word
is used both as a substantive and as an adjective. Having the
same Greek origin are the scientific words “empyreuma” and
“empyreumatic,” applied to the characteristic smell of burning
or charring vegetable or animal matter.
EMS, a river of Germany, rising on the south slope of the
Teutoburger Wald, at an altitude of 358 ft., and flowing generally
north-west and north through Westphalia and Hanover to the
east side of the Dollart, immediately south of Emden. After
passing through the Dollart the navigable stream bifurcates,
the eastern Ems going to the east, and the western Ems to the
west, of the island of Borkum to the North Sea. Length, 200 m.
Between 1892 and 1899 the river was canalized along its right bank for a distance of 43 m. At the same time, and as part of the same general plan, a canal, the Dortmund-Ems Canal, was dug to connect the river (from Münster) with Herne in the Westphalian coal-field. At Henrichenburg a branch from Herne (5 m. long) connects with another branch from Dortmund (1012 m. long). Another branch, from Olfen (north of Dortmund), connects with Duisburg, and so with the Rhine. There is, however, a difference in elevation of 46 ft. between the two branches first named, and vessels are transferred from the one to the other by means of a huge lift. The canal, which was constructed to carry small steamers and boats up to 220 ft. in length and 750 tons burden, measures 169 m. in length, of which 10812 m. were actually dug, and cost altogether £3,728,750. The surface width throughout is 9812 ft., the bottom width 59 ft., and the depth 816 ft.
See Victor Kurs, “Die künstlichen Wasserstrassen des deutschen Reichs,” in Geog. Zeitschrift (1898), pp. 601–617 and 665–694; and Deutsche Rundschau f. Geog. und Stat. (1898), pp. 130-131.
EMS, a town and watering-place of Germany, in the Prussian
province of Hesse-Nassau, romantically situated on both banks
of the Lahn, in a valley surrounded by wooded mountains and
vine-clad hills, 11 m. E. from Coblenz on the railway to Cassel
and Berlin. Pop. 6500. It has two Evangelical, a Roman
Catholic, an English and a Russian church. There is some
mining industry (silver and lead). Ems is one of the most
delightful and fashionable watering-places of Europe. Its
waters—hot alkaline springs about twenty in number—are
used both for drinking and bathing, and are efficacious in chronic
nervous disorders, feminine complaints and affections of the liver
and respiratory organs. On the right bank of the river lies the
Kursaal with pretty gardens. A stone let into the promenade
close by marks the spot where, on the 13th of July 1870, King
William of Prussia had the famous interview with the French
ambassador Count Benedetti (q.v.) which resulted in the war
of 1870–1871. A funicular railway runs up to the Malberg
(1000 ft.), where is a sanatorium and whence extensive views
are obtained over the Rhine valley. Ems is largely frequented in
the summer months by visitors from all parts of the world—the
numbers amounting to about 11,000 annually—and many
handsome villas have been erected for their accommodation.
In August 1786 Ems was the scene of the conference of the
delegates of the four German archbishops, known as the congress
of Ems, which issued (August 25) in the famous joint pronouncement,
known as the Punctation of Ems, against the interference
of the papacy in the affairs of the Catholic Church in Germany
(see Febronianism).
See Vogler, Ems, seine Heilquellen, Kureinrichtungen, &c. (Ems, 1888); and Hess, Zur Geschichte der Stadt Ems (Ems, 1895).
EMSER, JEROME, or Hieronymus (1477–1527), antagonist
of Luther, was born of a good family at Ulm on the 20th of
March 1477. He studied Greek at Tübingen and jurisprudence
at Basel, and after acting for three years as chaplain and secretary
to Raymond Peraudi, cardinal of Gurk, he began lecturing on
classics in 1504 at Erfurt, where Luther may have been among
his audience. In the same year he became secretary to Duke
George of Albertine Saxony, who, unlike his cousin Frederick
the Wise, the elector of Ernestine Saxony, remained the stanchest
defender of Roman Catholicism among the princes of northern
Germany. Duke George at this time was bent on securing the
canonization of Bishop Benno of Meissen, and at his instance
Emser travelled through Saxony and Bohemia in search of
materials for a life of Benno, which he subsequently published
in German and Latin. In pursuit of the same object he made
an unsuccessful visit to Rome in 1510. Meanwhile he had also
been lecturing on classics at Leipzig, but gradually turned his
attention to theology and canon law. A prebend at Dresden
(1509) and another at Meissen, which he obtained through
Duke George’s influence, gave him means and leisure to pursue
his studies.
At first Emser was on the side of the reformers, but like his patron he desired a practical reformation of the clergy without any doctrinal breach with the past or the church; and his liberal sympathies were mainly humanistic, like those of Erasmus and others who parted company with Luther after 1519. As late as that year Luther referred to him as “Emser noster,” but the disputation at Leipzig in that year completed the breach between them. Emser warned his Bohemian friends against Luther, and Luther retorted with an attack on Emser which outdid in scurrility all his polemical writings. Emser, who was further embittered by an attack of the Leipzig students, imitated Luther’s violence, and asserted that Luther’s whole crusade originated in nothing more than enmity to the Dominicans, Luther’s reply was to burn Emser’s books along with Leo X.’s bull of excommunication.
Emser next, in 1521, published an attack on Luther’s “Appeal to the German Nobility,” and eight works followed from his pen in the controversy, in which he defended the Roman doctrine of the Mass and the primacy of the pope. At Duke George’s instance he prepared, in 1523, a German translation of Henry VIII.’s “Assertio Septem Sacramentorum contra Lutherum,” and criticized Luther’s “New Testament.” He also entered into a controversy with Zwingli. He took an active part in organizing a reformed Roman Catholic Church in Germany, and in 1527 published a German version of the New Testament as a counterblast to Luther’s. He died on the 8th of November in that year and was buried at Dresden.
Emser was a vigorous controversialist, and next to Eck the most eminent of the German divines who stood by the old church. But he was hardly a great scholar; the errors he detected in Luther’s New Testament were for the most part legitimate variations from the Vulgate, and his own version is merely Luther’s adapted to Vulgate requirements.
Bibliography.—Waldau, Nachricht von Hieronymus Emsers Leben und Schriften (Anspach, 1783); Kawerau, Hieronymus Emser (Halle, 1898); Akten und Briefe zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs von Sachsen (Leipzig, 1905); Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vi. 96–98 (1877). All histories of the Reformation in Germany contain notices of Emser; see especially Friedensburg, Beiträge zum Briefwechsel der katholischen Gelehrten Deutschlands im Reformationszeitalter. (A. F. P.)
ENAMEL (formerly “amel,” derived through the Fr. amail,
esmal, esmail, from a Latin word smaltum, first found in a 9th-century
life of Leo IV.), a term, strictly speaking, given to the
hard vitreous compound, which is “fused” upon the surface
of metallic objects either for the purpose of decoration or
utility. This compound is a form of glass made of silica, minium
and potash, which is stained by the chemical combination of
various metallic oxides whilst in a melted condition in the
crucible. This strict application of the term was widened to
signify the metal object coated with enamel, so that to-day the
term “an enamel” generally implies a work of art in enamel
upon metal. The composition of the substance enamel which
is used upon metal does not vary to any great extent from the
enamels employed upon pottery and faience. But they differ
in this respect, that the pottery enamel is usually applied to the
