little town and its pleasant surroundings have been praised by many, among others by Victor Hugo, who resided here on several occasions. During his last visit he wrote his fine work L'Année terrible. In the time of the Romans the Vianden valley was covered with vineyards, but at the present day its chief source of wealth is derived from the rearing of pigs.
VIANNA DO CASTELLO, a seaport and the capital of the district of Vianna do Castello, Portugal; at the mouth of the river Lima, which is here crossed by the iron bridge of the Oporto-Valença do Minho railway. Pop. (1900) 10,000. Vianna do Castello has manufactures of lace and dairy produce. Its fisheries are important. Salmon and lampreys are exported, both fresh and preserved. The administrative district of Vianna do Castello coincides with the northern part of the ancient province of Entre Minho e Douro (q.v.). Pop. (1900) 215,267; area, 857 sq. m.
VIAREGGIO, a maritime town and sea-bathing resort of Tuscany, Italy, in the province of Lucca, on the Mediterranean, 13 m. N.W. of Pisa by rail, 7 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1906) 14,863 (town); 21,557 (commune). Being sheltered by dense pine-woods on the north, and its malaria having been banished by drainage, it is frequented as a winter resort, and in summer by some thousands for its sea-bathing. In 1740 the population was only 300, and in 1841, 6549. The body of Shelley was burned on the shore near Viareggio after his death by drowning in 1822. The town possesses a school of navigation and a technical school, and carries on some shipbuilding.
VIATICUM (a Latin word meaning “provision for a journey”; Gr. τὰ ἐφόδια), is often used by early Christian writers to denote the sacrament of the Eucharist, and is sometimes also applied to baptism. Ultimately it came to be employed in a restricted sense to denote the last communion given to the dying. The 13th canon of the council of Nicaea is to the effect that “none, even of the lapsed, shall be deprived of the last and most necessary viaticum (ἐφοδίον),” and that the bishop, on examination, is to give the oblation to all who desire to partake of the Eucharist on the point of death. The same principle still rules the canon law, it being of course understood that penitential discipline, which in ordinary circumstances would have been due for their offence, is to be undergone by lapsed persons who have thus received the viaticum, in the event of recovery. In extreme cases it is lawful to administer the viaticum to persons not fasting, and the same person may receive it frequently if his illness be prolonged. The ritual to be observed in its administration does not differ from that laid down in the office for the communion of the sick, except in the words of the formula, which is “accipe, carissime frater (carissima soror), viaticum corporis nostri Jesu Christi, quod te custodial ab hoste maligno, protegat te, et perducat te ad vitam aeternam. Amen.” Afterwards the priest rinses his fingers in a little water, which the communicant drinks. The viaticum is given before extreme unction, a reversal of the medieval practice due to the importance of receiving the Eucharist while the mind is still clear. In the early centuries the sick, like those in health, generally received both kinds, though there are instances of the viaticum being given under one form only, sometimes the bread and sometimes, where swallowing was difficult, the wine. In times of persecution laymen occasionally carried the viaticum to the sick, a practice that persisted into the 9th century, and deacons continued to do so even after the Council of Ansa (near Lyons) in 990 restricted the function to priests.
VIBORG, a town of Denmark, capital of the amt (county) of its name, lying in the bleak midland district of Jutland, though the immediate situation, on the small Viborg lake, is picturesque. Pop. (1901) 8623. It has a station on the railway running east and west between Langaa and Vemb. The most notable building is the cathedral (1130–1169, restored 1864–1876). The Black Friars' church is of the 13th century, and the museum possesses specimens of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, also medieval antiquities. The Borgevold Park borders the lake on the site of a former castle. The industries embrace distilleries, iron foundries and manufactures of cloth. The country to the south attains to a certain degree of beauty near Lake Hald, where the ground is slightly elevated.
VIBORG (Finnish Viipuri), capital of a province of the same name in Finland, is situated at the head of the Bay of Viborg in the Gulf of Finland, at the mouth of the Saima Canal and on the railway which connects St Petersburg with Helsingfors. Population of the town (1904) 34,672, of the province 458,269. The Saima Canal (37 m. long), a fine engineering work, connects with the sea Lake Saima—the principal lake of Finland, 249 ft. above sea-level—and a series of others, including Puruvesi, Orivesi, Höytiänen and Kallavesi, all of which are navigated by steamers, as far north as Iisalmi in 63° 30′ N. lat. Viborg is thus the seaport of Karelia and eastern Savolaks, with the towns of Vilmanstrand (2393 inhabitants in 1904), St Michel (3933), Myslott (2687), Kuopio (13,519) and Iisalmi, with their numerous saw-mills and iron-works. Viborg stands most picturesquely on the glaciated and dome-shaped granite hills surrounding the bay, which is protected at its entrance by the naval station of Björkö and at its head by several forts. The castle of Viborg, built in 1293 by Marshal Torkel Knutson, was the first centre for the spread of Christianity in Karelia, and for establishing the power of Sweden; it is now used as a prison. Its lofty and elegant tower has fallen into decay. The court-house (1839), the town-house, the gymnasium (1641; with an excellent library), and the museum arc among the principal buildings of the city. There are also a lyceum and two higher schools for girls, a school of navigation and several primary schools, both public and private, a literary and an agricultural society, and several benevolent institutions. There are foundries, machine works and saw-mills, and a considerable export of timber and wood products. The coasting trade is also considerable.
The environs are most picturesque and are visited by many tourists in the summer. The park of Monrepos (Old Viborg), in a bay dotted with dome-shaped islands, is specially attractive. The scenery of the Saima Canal and of the Finnish lakes with the grand ås of Pungaharju; the Imatra rapids, by which the Vuoksen discharges the water of Lake Saima into Lake Ladoga, with the castle of Kexholm at its mouth; Serdobol and Valamo monastery on Lake Ladoga—all visited from Viborg—attract many tourists from St Petersburg as well as from other parts of Finland.
VIBURNUM, in medicine, the dried bark of the black haw or Viburnum prunifolium, grown in India and North America. The black haw contains viburnin and valerianic, tannic, gallic, citric and malic acids. The British Pharmacopoeial preparation is the Extractum Viburni Prunifolii liquidum; the United States preparation is the fluid extract prepared from the Viburnum opulus. The physiological action of viburnum is to lower the blood pressure. In overdose it depresses the motor functions of the spinal cord and so produces loss of reflex and paralysis. Therapeutically the drug is used as an antispasmodic in dysmenorrhoea and in menorrhagia.
VICAIRE, LOUIS GABRIEL CHARLES (1848–1900), French poet, was born at Belfort on the 25th of January 1848. He served in the campaign of 1870, and then settled in Paris to practise at the bar, which, however, he soon abandoned for literature. His work was twice “crowned” by the Academy, and in 1892 he received the cross of the Legion of Honour. Born in the Vosges, and a Parisian by adoption, Vicaire remained all his life an enthusiastic lover of the country to which his family belonged—La Bresse—spending much of his time at Ambérieu. His freshest and best work is his Émaux bressans (1884), a volume of poems full of the gaiety and spirit of the old French chansons. Other volumes followed: Le Livre de la patrie, L'Heure enchantée (1890), À la bonne franquette (1892), Au bois joli (1894) and Le Clos des fées (1897). Vicaire wrote in collaboration with Jules Truffier two short pieces for the stage, Fleurs d'avril (1890) and La Farce du mars refondu (1895); also the Miracle de Saint Nicolas (1888). With his friend Henri Beauclair he produced a parody of the Decadents entitled Les Déliquescences and signed Adoré Floupette. His fame rests on his Émaux bressans and on his Rabelaisian drinking songs; the religious and fairy poems
