subjects of acquired or hereditary syphilis do not suffer from this
disease; and the average time of onset after infection is ten years (see
NEUROPATHOLOGY). There are three stages: (1) The preataxic, (2) the
ataxic, (3) the bed-ridden paralytic. The duration of the first stage
may be from one or two years, up to twenty years or even longer. In this
stage various symptoms may arise. The patient usually complains of
shooting, lightning-like pains in the legs, which he may attribute to
rheumatism. If a physician examines him he will almost certainly find
the knee-jerks absent and Argyll Robertson pupils present; probably on
inquiry he will ascertain that the patient has had some difficulty in
starting urination, or that he is unable to retain his water or to empty
his bladder completely. In other cases, temporary or permanent paralysis
of one or more muscles of the eyeball (which causes squint and double
vision), a failure of sight ending in blindness, attacks of vomiting (or
gastric crises), painless spontaneous fractures of bones and
dislocations of joints, failing sexual power and impotence, may lead the
patient to consult a physician, when this disease will be diagnosed,
although the patient may not as yet have had locomotor ataxy. All cases,
however, if they live long enough, pass into the second ataxic stage.
The sufferer complains now of difficulty of walking in the dark; he
sways with his eyes shut and feels as if he would fall (Romberg's
symptom); he has the sensation of walking on wool, numbness and
formication of the skin, and many sensory disturbances in the form of
partial or complete loss of sensibility to pain, touch and temperature.
These disturbances affect especially the feet and legs, and around the
trunk at the level of the fourth to the seventh ribs, giving rise to a
"girdle sensation." There may be a numbed feeling on the inner side of
the arm, and muscular incoordination may affect the upper limb as well
as the lower, although there is no wasting or any electrical change. The
ataxic gait is very characteristic, owing to the loss of reflex tonus in
the muscles, and the absence of guiding sensations from all the deep
structures of the limbs, muscles, joints, bones, tendons and ligaments,
as well as from the skin of the soles of the feet; therefore the
sufferer has to be guided by vision as to where and how to place his
feet. This necessitates the bending forward of the body, extension of
the knees and broadening of the basis of support; he generally uses a
walking stick or even two, and he jerks the leg forward as if he were on
wires, bringing the sole of the foot down on the ground with a wide
stamping action. If the arm be affected, he is unable to touch the tip
of his nose with the eyes shut. Sooner or later he passes into the
_third_ bed-ridden stage, with muscles wasted and their tonus so much
lost that he is in a perfectly helpless condition.
The complications which may arise in this disease are intercurrent
affections due to septic conditions of the bladder, bedsores, pneumonia,
vascular and heart affections. About 10% of the cases, at least, develop
general paralysis of the insane. This is not surprising seeing that it
is due to the same cause, and the etiology of the two diseases is such
as to lead many neurologists to consider them one and the same disease
affecting different parts of the nervous system. _Tabes dorsalis_ occurs
with much greater frequency in men than in women (see NEUROPATHOLOGY).
The avoidance of all stress of the nervous system, whether physical,
emotional or intellectual, is indicated, and a simple regular life,
without stimulants or indulgence of the sexual passion, is the best
means of delaying the progress of the disease. Great attention should be
paid to micturition, so as to avoid retention and infection of the
bladder. Drugs, even anti-syphilitic remedies, appear to have but little
influence upon the course of the disease.
LOCO-WEEDS, or CRAZY-WEEDS, leguminous plants, chiefly species of
_Astragalus_ and _Lupinus_, which produce a disease in cattle known as
"loco-disease." The name is apparently taken from the Spanish _loco_,
mad. The disease affects the nervous system of the animals eating the
plants, and is accompanied by exhaustion and wasting.
LOCRI, a people of ancient Greece, inhabiting two distinct districts,
one extending from the north-east of Parnassus to the northern half of
the Euboean channel, between Boeotia and Malis, the other south-west of
Parnassus, on the north shore of the Corinthian Gulf, between Phocis and
Aetolia. The former were divided into the northern Locri Epicnemidii,
situated on the spurs of Mount Cnemis, and the southern Locri Opuntii,
so named from their chief town Opus (q.v.): and the name Opuntia is
often applied to the whole of this easterly district. Homer mentions
only these eastern Locrians: their national hero in the Trojan war is
Ajax Oileus, who often appears afterwards on Locrian coins. From
Hesiod's time onwards, the Opuntians were thought by some to be of
"Lelegian" origin (see LELEGES), but they were Hellenized early (though
matriarchal customs survived among them)--, and Deucalion, the father of
Hellen himself, is described as the first king of Opus. The westerly
Locri "in Ozolae" on the Corinthian Gulf, a rude and barbarous people,
make no appearance in Greek history till the Peloponnesian war. It was
believed that they had separated from the eastern Locrians four
generations before the Trojan war; yet Homer has no hint of their
existence. Probably the Locrians were once a single people, extending
from sea to sea, till subsequent immigrations forced them apart into two
separate districts. The Locrian dialect of Greek is little known, but
resembles that of Elis: it has [Greek: st] for [Greek: sth]; uses
[alpha]; and has [Greek: ois] in dat. plur. 3rd decl. A colony of
Locrians (whether from Opus or Ozolae was disputed in antiquity)
settled, about the end of the 8th century B.C., at the south-west
extremity of Italy. They are often called Locri Epizephyrii from Cape
Zephyrion 15 m. S. of the city. Their founder's name was Euanthes. Their
social organization resembled that of the Opuntian Locri, and like them
they venerated Ajax Oileus and Persephone. Aristotle (ap. Polyb. xii. 5
sqq.) records a tradition that these western Locrians were base-born,
like the Parthenians of Tarentum; but this was disputed by his
contemporary Timaeus. See LOCRI (town) below. (J. L. M.)
LOCRI, an ancient city of Magna Graecia, Italy. The original settlers
took possession of the Zephyrian promontory (Capo Bruzzano some 12 m. N.
of Capo Spartivento), and though after three or four years they
transplanted themselves to a site 12 m. farther north, still near the
coast, 2 m. S. of Gerace Marina below the modern Gerace, they still
retained the name of Locri Epizephyrii ([Greek: Lokroi hoi
epizephurioi]), which served to distinguish them from the Ozolian and
Opuntian Locri of Greece itself (see preceding article). The foundation
of Locri goes back to about 683 B.C. It was the first of all Greek
communities to have a written code of laws given by Zaleucus in 664 B.C.
From Locri were founded the colonies of Meisma and Heiponium
(Hipponium). It succeeded in repelling the attacks of Croton (battle on
the river Sagras, perhaps sometime in the 6th century), and found in
Syracuse a support against Rhegium: it was thus an active adversary of
Athenian aggrandisement in the west. Pindar extolls its uprightness and
love of the heroic muse of beauty, of wisdom, and of war, in the 10th
and 11th Olympian Odes. Stesichorus (q.v.) was indeed of Locrian origin.
But it owed its greatest external prosperity to the fact that Dionysius
I. of Syracuse selected his wife from Locri: its territory was then
increased, and the circuit of its walls was doubled, but it lost its
freedom. In 356 B.C. it was ruled by Dionysius II. From the battle of
Heraclea to the year 205 (when it was captured by P. Cornelius Scipio
Africanus Maior, and placed under the control of his legate Q.
Pleminius), Locri was continually changing its allegiance between Rome
and her enemies; but it remained an ally, and was only obliged like
other Greek coast towns to furnish ships. In later Roman times it is
often mentioned, but was apparently of no great importance. It is
mentioned incidentally until the 6th century A.D., but was destroyed by
the Saracens in 915.
Excavations in 1889-1890 led to the discovery of an Ionic temple (the
Doric style being usual in Magna Graecia) at the north-west angle of the
town--originally a cella with two naves, a closed pronaos on the E. and
an adytum at the back (W.), later converted into a hexastyle peripheral
temple with 34 painted terra-cotta columns. This was then destroyed
about 400 B.C. and a new temple built on the ruins, heptastyle
peripteral, with no intermediate columns in the cella and opisthodomos,
and with 44 columns in all. The figures from the pediment of the twin
Dioscuri, who according to the legend assisted Locri against Crotona,
are in the Naples museum (see R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, _Griechische
Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien_, Berlin, 1899, pp. l sqq.).
Subsequent excavations in 1890-1891 were of the greatest importance, but
the results remained unpublished up to 1908. From a short account by P.
Orsi in _Atti del Congresso Storico_, vol. v. (Archeologia) Rome, 1904,
p. 201, we learn that the exploration of the environs of the temple led
to the discovery of a large number of archaic terra-cottas, and of some
large trenches, covered with tiles, containing some 14,000 scyphoi
arranged in rows. The plan of the city was also traced; the walls, the
length of which was nearly 5 m., consisted of three parts--the fortified
castles ([Greek: phrouria]) with large towers, on three different hills,
the city proper, and the lower town--the latter enclosed by long walls
running down to the sea. In the Roman period the city was restricted to
the plain near the sea. Since these excavations, a certain amount of
unauthorized work has gone on, and some of the remains have been
destroyed. In the course of these excavations some prehistoric objects
have been discovered, which confirm the accounts of Thucydides and
Polybius that the Greek settlers found the Siculi here before them.
(T. As.)
LÖCSE (Ger. _Leutschau_), the capital of the county of Szepes, in
Hungary, 230 m. N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 6845, mostly
Germans and Slovaks. The county of Szepes is the highest part of
Hungary, and its north-western portion is occupied by the Tátra
Mountains. Löcse lies in an elevated position surrounded by mountains,
and is one of the oldest towns of Hungary. The church of St James is a
Gothic structure of the 13th century, with richly carved altar, several
monuments, and a celebrated organ erected in 1623, and long reputed the
largest in Hungary. The old town-hall, restored in 1894, contains a
Protestant upper gymnasium, founded in 1544, and one of the oldest
printing establishments in Hungary, founded in 1585. Bee-keeping and the
raising of garden produce are the chief industries.
Founded by Saxon colonists in 1245, Löcse had by the early part of the
16th century attained a position of great relative importance. In 1599 a
fire destroyed the greater part of the town, and during the 17th century
it suffered repeatedly at the hands of the Transylvanian princes and
leaders.
LOCUS (Lat. for "place"; in Gr. [Greek: topos]), a geometrical term, the
invention of the notion of which is attributed to Plato. It occurs in
such statements as these: the locus of the points which are at the same
distance from a fixed point, or of a point which moves so as to be
always at the same distance from a fixed point, is a circle; conversely
a circle is the locus of the points at the same distance from a fixed
point, or of a point moving so as to be always at the same distance from
a fixed point; and so in general a curve of any given kind is the locus
of the points which satisfy, or of a point moving so as always to
satisfy, a given condition. The theory of loci is thus identical with
that of curves (see CURVE and GEOMETRY: § _Analytical_). The notion of a
locus applies also to solid geometry. Here the locus of the points
satisfying a single (or onefold) condition is a surface; the locus of
the points satisfying two conditions (or a twofold condition) is a curve
in space, which is in general a twisted curve or curve of double
curvature.
LOCUST.[1] In its general acceptation this term is applied only to
certain insects of the order _Orthoptera_, family _Acridiidae_. The
family _Locustidae_ is now viewed zoologically in a sense that does not
admit of the species best known as "locusts" being included therein. The
idea of a very destructive insect is universally associated with the
term; therefore many orthopterous species that cannot be considered true
locusts have been so-called; in North America it has even embraced
certain _Hemiptera-Homoptera_, belonging to the _Cicadidae_, and in some
parts of England cockchafers are so designated. In a more narrow
definition the attribute of migration is associated with the destructive
propensities, and it therefore becomes necessary that a true locust
should be a migratory species of the family _Acridiidae_. Moreover, the
term has yet a slightly different signification as viewed from the Old
or New World. In Europe by a locust is meant an insect of large size,
the smaller allied species being ordinarily known as "grasshoppers,"
hence the "Rocky Mountain locust" of North America is to Eastern ideas
rather a grasshopper than a locust.
In Europe, and a greater part of the Old World, the best known migratory
locust is that which is scientifically termed _Pachytylus cinerascens_
with which an allied species _P. migratorius_ has been often confounded.
Another locust found in Europe and neighbouring districts is _Caloptenus
italicus_, and still another, _Acridium peregrinum_, has once or twice
occurred in Europe, though its home (even in a migratory sense) is more
properly Africa and Asia. These practically include all the locusts of
the Old World, though a migratory species of South Africa known as
_Pachytylus pardalinus_ (presumed to be distinct from _P. migratorius_)
should be mentioned. The Rocky Mountain locust of North America is
_Caloptenus spretus_, and in that continent there occurs an _Acridium_
(_A. americanum_) so closely allied to _A. peregrinum_ as to be scarcely
distinct therefrom, though there it does not manifest migratory
tendencies. In the West Indies and Central America _A. peregrinum_ is
also reported to occur.
The females excavate holes in the earth in which the eggs are deposited
in a long cylindrical mass enveloped in a glutinous secretion. The young
larvae hatch and immediately commence their destructive career. As these
insects are "hemimetabolic" there is no quiescent stage; they go on
increasing rapidly in size, and as they approach the perfect state the
rudiments of the wings begin to appear. Even in this stage their
locomotive powers are extensive and their voracity great. Once winged
and perfect these powers become infinitely more disastrous, redoubled by
the development of the migratory instinct. The laws regulating this
instinct are not perfectly understood. Food and temperature have a great
deal to do with it, and there is a tendency for the flights to take a
particular direction, varied by the physical circumstances of the
breeding districts. So likewise each species has its area of constant
location, and its area of extraordinary migration. Perhaps the most
feasible of the suggestions as to the causes of the migratory impulse is
that locusts naturally breed in dry sandy districts in which food is
scarce, and are impelled to wander to procure the necessaries of life;
but against this it has been argued that swarms bred in a highly
productive district in which they have temporarily settled will seek the
barren home of their ancestors. Another ingenious suggestion is that
migration is intimately connected with a dry condition of the
atmosphere, urging them to move on until compelled to stop for food or
procreative purposes. Swarms travel considerable distances, though
probably generally fewer than 1000 m., though sometimes very much more.
As a rule the progress is only gradual, and this adds vastly to the
devastating effects. When an extensive swarm temporarily settles in a
district, all vegetation rapidly disappears, and then hunger urges it on
another stage. The large Old World species, although undoubtedly
phytophagous, when compelled by hunger sometimes attack at least dry
animal substances, and even cannibalism has been asserted as an outcome
of the failure of all other kinds of food. The length of a single flight
must depend upon circumstances. From peculiarities in the examples of
_Acridium peregrinum_ taken in England in 1869, it has been asserted
that they must have come direct by sea from the west coast of Africa;
and what is probably the same species has been seen in the Atlantic at
least 1200 m. from land, in swarms completely covering the ship; thus,
in certain cases flight must be sustained for several days and nights
together. The height at which swarms fly, when their horizontal course
is not liable to be altered by mountains, has been very variously
estimated at from 40 to 200 ft., or even in a particular case to 500 ft.
The extent of swarms and the number of individuals in a swarm cannot be
accurately ascertained. They come sometimes in such numbers as to
completely obscure the sun, when the noise made by the rustling of the
wings is deafening. Nevertheless some idea on this point may be formed
from the ascertained fact that in Cyprus in 1881, at the close of the
season, 1,600,000,000 egg-cases, each containing a considerable number
of eggs, had been destroyed; the estimated weight exceeding 1300 tons.
Yet two years later, it is believed that not fewer than 5,076,000,000
egg-cases were again deposited in the island.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--_Pachytylus migratorius_. This and the other
figures are all natural size.]
In Europe the best known and ordinarily most destructive species is
_Pachytylus cinerascens_, and it is to it that most of the numerous
records of devastations in Europe mainly refer, but it is probably not
less destructive in many parts of Africa and Asia. That the arid
steppes of central Asia are the home of this insect appears probable;
still much on this point is enveloped in uncertainty. In any case the
area of permanent distribution is enormous, and that of occasional
distribution is still greater. The former area extends from the
parallel of 40° N. in Portugal, rising to 48° in France and
Switzerland, and passing into Russia at 55°, thence continuing across
the middle of Siberia, north of China to Japan; thence south to the
Fiji Islands, to New Zealand and North Australia; thence again to
Mauritius and over all Africa to Madeira. The southern distribution is
uncertain and obscure. Taking exceptional distribution, it is well
known that it occasionally appears in the British Isles, and has in
them apparently been noticed as far north as Edinburgh; so also does
it occasionally appear in Scandinavia, and it has probably been seen
up to 63° N. in Finland. Looking at this vast area, it is easy to
conceive that an element of uncertainty must always exist with regard
to the exact determination of the species, and in Europe especially is
this the case, because there exists a distinct species, known as _P.
migratorius_, the migratory area of which appears to be confined to
Turkestan and eastern Europe.
_P. cinerascens_ is certainly the most common of the "locusts"
occasionally found in the British Isles, and E. de Selys-Longchamps is
of opinion that it breeds regularly in Belgium, whereas the true _P.
migratorius_ is only accidental in that country.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Acridium peregrinum_.]
A South African species allied to the preceding and provisionally
identified as _Pachytylus salcicollis_ is noteworthy from the
manifestation of the migratory instinct in immature wingless
individuals. The families of young, after destroying the vegetation of
a district, unite in a vast army and move away in search of fresh
pastures, devastating the country as they go and proceeding of
necessity on foot, hence they are known to the Dutch as "voetgangers."
Travelling northwards towards the centre of the continent, the home of
their parents before migration, they are diverted from their course by
no obstacles. Upon reaching a river or stream they search the bank for
a likely spot to cross, then fearlessly cast themselves upon the water
where they form floating islands of insects, most of which usually
succeed in gaining the opposite bank, though many perish in the
attempt.
_Acridium peregrinum_ (fig. 2) can scarcely be considered even an
accidental visitor to Europe; yet it has been seen in the south of
Spain, and in many examples spread over a large part of England in the
year 1869. It is a larger insect than _P. migratorius_. There is every
reason to believe that it is the most destructive locust throughout
Africa and in India and other parts of tropical Asia, and its ravages
are as great as those of _P. migratorius_. Presumably it is the
species occasionally noticed in a vast swarm in the Atlantic, very far
from land, and presumably also it occurs in the West Indies and some
parts of Central America. In the Argentine Republic a (possibly)
distinct species (_A. paranense_) is the migratory locust.
_Caloptenus italicus_ (fig. 3) is a smaller insect, with a less
extended area of migration; the destruction occasioned in the
districts to which it is limited is often scarce less than that of its
more terrible allies. It is essentially a species of the Mediterranean
district, and especially of the European side of that sea, yet it is
also found in North Africa, and appears to extend far into southern
Russia.
_Caloptenus spretus_ (fig. 4) is the "Rocky Mountain locust" or
"hateful grasshopper" of the North American continent. Though a
comparatively small insect, not so large as some of the grasshoppers
of English fields, its destructiveness has procured for it great
notoriety. By early travellers and settlers the species was not
recognized as distinct from some of its non-migratory congeners. But
in 1877, Congress appointed a United States Entomological Commission
to investigate the subject. The report of the commissioners (C. V.
Riley, A. S. Packard and C. Thomas) deals with the whole subject of
locusts both in America and the Old world. _C. spretus_ has its home
or permanent area in the arid plains of the central region east of the
Rocky Mountains, extending slightly into the southern portion of
Canada; outside this is a wide fringe to which the term sub-permanent
is applied, and this is again bounded by the limits of only occasional
distribution, the whole occupying a large portion of the North
American continent; but it is not known to have crossed the Rocky
Mountains westward, or to have extended into the eastern states.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--_Caloptenus italicus_.]
As to remedial or preventive measures tending to check the ravages of
locusts, little unfortunately can be said; but anything that will
apply to one species may be used with practically all. Something can
be done (as is now done in Cyprus) by offering a price for all the
egg-tubes collected, which is the most direct manner of attacking
them. Some little can be done by destroying the larvae while in an
unwinged condition, and by digging trenches in the line of march into
which they can fall and be drowned or otherwise put an end to. Little
can be done with the winged hordes; starvation, the outcome of their
own work, probably here does much. In South Africa some success has
attended the spraying of the swarms with arsenic. It has been shown
that with all migratory locusts the breeding-places, or true homes,
are comparatively barren districts (mostly elevated plateaus); hence
the progress of colonization, and the conversion of those heretofore
barren plains into areas of fertility, may (and probably will)
gradually lessen the evil.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Rocky Mountain Locust (_Caloptenus spretus_).
(After Riley.)