well of the hernia,” says the aphorism, “which has been little handled.”
The taxis to be successful should be made in a direction opposite to the one in which the hernia has come down. The inguinal hernia should be pressed upwards, outwards and backwards, the femoral hernia downwards, backwards and upwards. The larger the hernia the greater is the chance of success by taxis, and the smaller the hernia the greater the risk of its being injured by manipulation and delay. In every case the handling must be absolutely gentle. If taxis does not succeed the surgeon must at once cut down on the tumour, carefully dividing the different coverings until he reaches the sac. The sac is then opened, the constriction divided, care being taken not to injure the bowel. The bowel must be examined before it is returned into the abdomen, and if its lustreless appearance, its dusky colour, or its smell, suggests that it is mortified, or is on the point of mortifying, it must not be put back or perforation would give rise to septic peritonitis which would probably have a fatal ending. In such a case the damaged piece of bowel must be resected and the healthy ends of the bowel joined together by fine suturing. Matted or diseased omentum must be tied off and removed. Should peritonitis supervene after the operation on account of bacillary infection, the bowels should be quickly made to act by repeated doses of Epsom salts in hot water.
A person who is the subject of a reducible hernia should take great care to obtain an accurately fitting truss, and should remember that whenever symptoms resembling in any degree those of strangulation occur, delay in treatment may prove fatal. A surgeon should at once be communicated with, and he should come prepared to operate. (E. O.*)
HERNICI, an ancient people of Italy, whose territory was
in Latium between the Fucine Lake and the Trerus, bounded
by the Volscian on the S., and by the Aequian and the Marsian
on the N. They long maintained their independence, and in
486 B.C. were still strong enough to conclude an equal treaty
with the Latins (Dion. Hal. viii. 64 and 68). They broke away
from Rome in 362 (Livy vii. 6 ff.) and in 306 (Livy ix. 42), when
their chief town Anagnia (q.v.) was taken and reduced to a
praefecture, but Ferentinum, Aletrium and Verulae were
rewarded for their fidelity by being allowed to remain free
municipia, a position which at that date they preferred to the
civitas. The name of the Hernici, like that of the Volsci, is
missing from the list of Italian peoples whom Polybius (ii. 24)
describes as able to furnish troops in 225 B.C.; by that date,
therefore, their territory cannot have been distinguished from
Latium generally, and it seems probable (Beloch, Ital. Bund,
p. 123) that they had then received the full Roman citizenship.
The oldest Latin inscriptions of the district (from Ferentinum,
C.I.L. x. 5837–5840) are earlier than the Social War, and present
no local characteristic.
For further details of their history see C.I.L. x. 572.
There is no evidence to show that the Hernici ever spoke a really different dialect from the Latins; but one or two glosses indicate that they had certain peculiarities of vocabulary, such as might be expected among folk who clung to their local customs. Their name, however, with its Co-termination, classes them along with the Co-tribes, like the Volsci, who would seem to have been earlier inhabitants of the west coast of Italy, rather than with the tribes whose names were formed with the No-suffix. On this question see Volsci and Sabini.
See Conway’s Italic Dialects (Camb. Univ. Press, 1897), p. 306 ff., where the glosses and the local and personal names of the district will be found. (R. S. C.)
HERNÖSAND, a seaport of Sweden, chief town of the district
(län) of Vesternorrland on the Gulf of Bothnia. Pop. (1900)
7890. It stands on the island of Hernö (which is connected
with the mainland by bridges) near the mouth of the Ångerman
river, 423 m. N. of Stockholm by rail. It is the seat of a bishop
and possesses a fine cathedral. There are engine-works, timber-yards
and saw-mills. The harbour is good, but generally ice-bound
from December to May. Timber, iron and wood-pulp are
exported. There are a school of navigation and an institute for
pisciculture. Hernösand was founded in 1584, and received its
first town-privileges from John III. in 1587. It was the first
town in Europe to be lighted by electricity (1885). The poet
Franzen (q.v.), Bishop of Hernösand, is buried here.
HERO (Gr. ἥρως), a term specially applied to warriors of extraordinary strength and courage, and generally to all who were distinguished from their fellows by superior moral, physical or intellectual qualities. No satisfactory derivation of the word has been suggested.
In ancient Greece, the heroes were the object of a special cult, and as such were intimately connected with its religious life. Various theories have been put forward as to the nature of these heroes. According to some authorities, they were idealized historical personages; according to others, symbolical representations of the forces of nature. The view most commonly held is that they were degraded or “depotentiated” gods, occupying a position intermediate between gods and men. According to E. Rohde (in Psyche) they are souls of the dead, which after separation from the body enter upon a higher, eternal existence. But it is only a select minority who attain to the rank of heroes after death, only the distinguished men of the past. The worship of these heroes is in reality an ancestor worship, which existed in pre-Homeric times, and was preserved in local cults. Instances no doubt occur of gods being degraded to the ranks of heroes, but these are not the real heroes, the heroes who are the object of a cult. The cult-heroes were all persons who had lived the life of man on earth, and it was necessary for the degraded gods to pass through this stage. They did not at once become cult-heroes, but only after they had undergone death like other mortals. Only one who has been a man can become a hero. The heroes are spirits of the dead, not demi-gods; their position is not intermediate between gods and men, but by the side of these they exist as a separate class.
In Homer the term is applied especially to warrior princes, to kings and kings’ sons, even to distinguished persons of lower rank, and free men generally. In Hesiod it is chiefly confined to those who fought before Troy and Thebes; in view of their supposed divine origin, he calls them demi-gods (ἡμίθεοι). This name is also given them in an interpolated passage in the Iliad (xii. 23), which is quite at variance with the general Homeric idea of the heroes, who are no more than men, even if of divine origin and of superior strength and prowess. But neither in Homer nor in Hesiod is there any trace of the idea that the heroes after death had any power for good or evil over the lives of those who survived them; and consequently, no cult. Nevertheless, traces of an earlier ancestor worship appear, e.g. in funeral games in honour of Patroclus and other heroes, while the Hesiodic account of the five ages of man is a reminiscence of the belief in the continued existence of souls in a higher life. This pre-historic worship and belief, for a time obscured, were subsequently revived. According to Porphyry (De abstinentia, iv. 22), Draco ordered the inhabitants of Attica to honour the gods and heroes of their country “in accordance with the usage of their fathers” with offerings of first fruits and sacrificial cakes every year, thereby clearly pointing to a custom of high antiquity. Solon also ordered that the tombs of the heroes should be treated with the greatest respect, and Cleisthenes (q.v.) sought to create a pan-Athenian enthusiasm by calling his new tribes after Attic heroes and setting up their statues in the Agora. Heroic honours were at first bestowed upon the founders of a colony or city, and the ancestors of families; if their name was not known, one was adopted from legend. In many cases these heroes were purely fictitious; such were the supposed ancestors of the noble and priestly families of Attica and elsewhere (Butadae at Athens, Branchidae at Miletus Ceryces at Eleusis), of the eponymi of the tribes and demes. Again, side by side with gods of superior rank, certain heroes were worshipped as protecting spirits of the country or state; such were the Aeacidae amongst the Aeginetans, Ajax son of Oïleus amongst the Epizephyrian Locrians and Hector at Thebes. Neglect of the worship of these heroes was held to be
