variety was considered to be of very good quality, and to possess great
strength. The chief continental hemp-producing countries are Italy,
Russia and France; it is also grown in several parts of Canada and the
United States and India. The Central Provinces, Bengal and Bombay are
the chief centres of hemp cultivation in India, where the plant is of
most use for narcotics. The satisfactory growth of hemp demands a light,
rich and fertile soil, but, unlike most substances, it may be reared for
a few years in succession. The time of sowing, the quantity of seed per
acre (about three bushels) and the method of gathering and retting are
very similar to those of flax; but, as a rule, it is a hardier plant
than flax, does not possess the same pliability, is much coarser and
more brittle, and does not require the same amount of attention during
the first few weeks of its growth.
The very finest hemp, that grown in the province of Piedmont, Italy,
is, however, very similar to flax, and in many cases the two fibres are
mixed in the same material. The hemp fibre has always been valuable for
the rope industry, and it was at one time very extensively used in the
production of yarns for the manufacture of sail cloth, sheeting, covers,
bagging, sacking, &c. Much of the finer quality is still made into
cloth, but almost all the coarser quality finds its way into ropes and
similar material.
A large quantity of hemp cloth is still made for the British navy. The
cloth, when finished, is cut up into lengths, made into bags and tarred.
They are then used as coal sacks. There is also a quantity made into
sacks which are intended to hold very heavy material. Hemp yarns are
also used in certain classes of carpets, for special bags for use in cop
dyeing and for similar special purposes, but for the ordinary bagging
and sacking the employment of hemp yarns has been almost entirely
supplanted by yarns made from the jute fibre.
Hemp is grown for three products--(1) the fibre of its stem; (2) the
resinous secretion which is developed in hot countries upon its leaves
and flowering heads; (3) its oily seeds.
Hemp has been employed for its fibre from ancient times. Herodotus (iv.
74) mentions the wild and cultivated hemp of Scythia, and describes the
hempen garments made by the Thracians as equal to linen in fineness.
Hesychius says the Thracian women made sheets of hemp. Moschion (about
200 B.C.) records the use of hempen ropes for rigging the ship
"Syracusia" built for Hiero II. The hemp plant has been cultivated in
northern India from a considerable antiquity, not only as a drug but for
its fibre. The Anglo-Saxons were well acquainted with the mode of
preparing hemp. Hempen cloth became common in central and southern
Europe in the 13th century.
_Hemp-resin._--Hemp as a drug or intoxicant for smoking and chewing
occurs in the three forms of bhang, ganja and charas.
1. _Bhang_, the Hindustani _siddhi_ or _sabzi_, consists of the dried
leaves and small stalks of the hemp; a few fruits occur in it. It is of
a dark brownish-green colour, and has a faint peculiar odour and but a
slight taste. It is smoked with or without tobacco; or it is made into a
sweetmeat with honey, sugar and aromatic spices; or it is powdered and
infused in cold water, yielding a turbid drink, _subdschi_. _Hashish_ is
one of the Arabic names given to the Syrian and Turkish preparations of
the resinous hemp leaves. One of the commonest of these preparations is
made by heating the bhang with water and butter, the butter becoming
thus charged with the resinous and active substances of the plant.
2. _Ganja_, the guaza of the London brokers, consists of the flowering
and fruiting heads of the female plant. It is brownish-green, and
otherwise resembles bhang, as in odour and taste. Some of the more
esteemed kinds of hashish are prepared from this ganja. Ganja is met
with in the Indian bazaars in dense bundles of 24 plants or heads
apiece. The hashish in such extensive use in Central Asia is often seen
in the bazaars of large cities in the form of cakes, 1 to 3 in. thick, 5
to 10 in. broad and 10 to 15 in. long.
3. _Charas_, or churrus, is the resin itself collected, as it exudes
naturally from the plant, in different ways. The best sort is gathered
by the hand like opium; sometimes the resinous exudation of the plant is
made to stick first of all to cloths, or to the leather garments of men,
or even to their skin, and is then removed by scraping, and afterwards
consolidated by kneading, pressing and rolling. It contains about
one-third or one-fourth its weight of the resin. But the churrus
prepared by different methods and in different countries differs greatly
in appearance and purity. Sometimes it takes the form of egg-like masses
of greyish-brown colour, having when of high quality a shining resinous
fracture. Often it occurs in the form of irregular friable lumps, like
pieces of impure linseed oil-cake.
The medicinal and intoxicating properties of hemp have probably been
known in Oriental countries from a very early period. An ancient Chinese
herbal, part of which was written about the 5th century B.C., while the
remainder is of still earlier date, notices the seed and flower-bearing
kinds of hemp. Other early writers refer to hemp as a remedy. The
medicinal and dietetic use of hemp spread through India, Persia and
Arabia in the early middle ages. The use of hemp (bhang) in India was
noticed by Garcia d'Orta in 1563. Berlu in his _Treasury of Drugs_
(1690) describes it as of "an infatuating quality and pernicious use."
Attention was recalled to this drug, in consequence of Napoleon's
Egyptian expedition, by de Sacy (1809) and Rouger (1810). Its modern
medicinal use is chiefly due to trials by Dr O'Shaughnessy in Calcutta
(1838-1842). The plant is grown partly and often mainly for the sake of
its resin in Persia, northern India and Arabia, in many parts of Africa
and in Brazil.
_Pharmacology and Therapeutics._--The composition of this drug is still
extremely obscure; partly, perhaps, because it varies so much in
individual specimens. It appears to contain at least two
alkaloids--cannabinine and tetano-cannabine--of which the former is
volatile. The chief active principle may possibly be neither of these,
but the substance cannabinon. There are also resins, a volatile oil and
several other constituents. Cannabis indica--as the drug is termed in
the pharmacopoeias--may be given as an extract (dose (1/4)-1 gr.) or
tincture (dose 5-15 minims).
The drug has no external action. The effects of its absorption, whether
it be swallowed or smoked, vary within wide limits in different
individuals and races. So great is this variation as to be inexplicable
except on the view that the nature and proportions of the active
principles vary greatly in different specimens. But typically the drug
is an intoxicant, resembling alcohol in many features of its action, but
differing in others. The early symptoms are highly pleasurable, and it
is for these, as in the case of other stimulants, that the drug is so
largely consumed in the East. There is a subjective sensation of mental
brilliance, but, as in other cases, this is not borne out by the
objective results. It has been suggested that the incoordination of
nervous action under the influence of Indian hemp may be due to
independent and non-concerted action on the part of the two halves of
the cerebrum. Following on a decided lowering of the pain and touch
senses, which may even lead to complete loss of cutaneous sensation,
there comes a sleep which is often accompanied by pleasant dreams. There
appears to be no evidence in the case of either the lower animals or the
human subject that the drug is an aphrodisiac. Excessive indulgence in
cannabis indica is very rare, but may lead to general ill-health and
occasionally to insanity. The apparent impossibility of obtaining pure
and trustworthy samples of the drug has led to its entire abandonment in
therapeutics. When a good sample is obtained it is a safe and efficient
hypnotic, at any rate in the case of a European. The tincture should not
be prescribed unless precautions are taken to avoid the precipitation of
the resin which follows its dilution with water.
See Watt, _Dictionary of the Economic Products of India_.
HEMSTERHUIS, FRANCOIS (1721-1790), Dutch writer on aesthetics and moral
philosophy, son of Tiberius Hemsterhuis, was born at Franeker in
Holland, on the 27th of December 1721. He was educated at the university
of Leiden, where he studied Plato. Failing to obtain a professorship, he
entered the service of the state, and for many years acted as secretary
to the state council of the United Provinces. He died at the Hague on
the 7th of July 1790. Through his philosophical writings he became
acquainted with many distinguished persons--Goethe, Herder, Princess
Amalia of Gallitzin, and especially Jacobi, with whom he had much in
common. Both were idealists, and their works suffer from a similar lack
of arrangement, although distinguished by elegance of form and refined
sentiment. His most valuable contributions are in the department of
aesthetics or the general analysis of feeling. His philosophy has been
characterized as Socratic in content and Platonic in form. Its
foundation was the desire for self-knowledge and truth, untrammelled by
the rigid bonds of any particular system.
His most important works, all of which were written in French, are:
_Lettre sur la sculpture_ (1769), in which occurs the well-known
definition of the Beautiful as "that which gives us the greatest
number of ideas in the shortest space of time"; its continuation,
_Lettre sur les desirs_ (1770); _Lettre sur l'homme et ses rapports_
(1772), in which the "moral organ" and the theory of knowledge are
discussed; _Sopyle_ (1778), a dialogue on the relation between the
soul and the body, and also an attack on materialism; _Aristee_
(1779), the "theodicy" of Hemsterhuis, discussing the existence of God
and his relation to man; _Simon_ (1787), on the four faculties of the
soul, which are the will, the imagination, the moral principle (which
is both passive and active); _Alexis_ (1787), an attempt to prove that
there are three golden ages, the last being the life beyond the grave;
_Lettre sur l'atheisme_ (1787).
The best collected edition of his works is by P. S. Meijboom
(1846-1850); see also S. A. Gronemann, _F. Hemsterhuis, de
Nederlandische Wijsgeer_ (Utrecht, 1867); E. Grucker, _Francois
Hemsterhuis, sa vie et ses oeuvres_ (Paris, 1866); E. Meyer, _Der
Philosoph Franz Hemsterhuis_ (Breslau, 1893), with bibliographical
notice.
HEMSTERHUIS, TIBERIUS (1685-1766), Dutch philologist and critic, was
born on the 9th of January 1685 at Groningen in Holland. His father, a
learned physician, gave him so good an early education that, when he
entered the university of his native town in his fifteenth year, he
speedily proved himself to be the best student of mathematics. After a
year or two at Groningen, he was attracted to the university of Leiden
by the fame of Perizonius; and while there he was entrusted with the
duty of arranging the manuscripts in the library. Though he accepted an
appointment as professor of mathematics and philosophy at Amsterdam in
his twentieth year, he had already directed his attention to the study
of the ancient languages. In 1706 he completed the edition of Pollux's
_Onomasticon_ begun by Lederlin; but the praise he received from his
countrymen was more than counterbalanced by two letters of criticism
from Bentley, which mortified him so keenly that for two months he
refused to open a Greek book. In 1717 Hemsterhuis was appointed
professor of Greek at Franeker, but he did not enter on his duties there
till 1720. In 1738 he became professor of national history also. Two
years afterwards he was called to teach the same subjects at Leiden,
where he died on the 7th of April 1766. Hemsterhuis was the founder of a
laborious and useful Dutch school of criticism, which had famous
disciples in Valckenaer, Lennep and Ruhnken.
His chief writings are the following: _Luciani colloquia et Timon_
(1708); _Aristophanis Plutus_ (1744); _Notae, &c., ad Xenophontem
Ephesium in the Miscellanea critica_ of Amsterdam, vols. iii. and iv.;
_Observationes ad Chrysostomi homilias; Orationes_ (1784); a Latin
translation of the _Birds_ of Aristophanes, in Kuster's edition; notes
to Bernard's _Thomas Magister_, to Alberti's _Hesychius_, to Ernesti's
_Callimachus_ and to Burmann's _Propertius_. See _Elogium T.
Hemsterhusii_ (with Bentley's letters) by Ruhnken (1789), and
_Supplementa annotationis ad elogium T. Hemsterhusii, &c._ (Leiden,
1874); also J. E. Sandys' _Hist. Class. Scholarship_, ii. (1908).
HEMY, CHARLES NAPIER (1841- ), British painter, born at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, was trained in the Newcastle school of art, in the
Antwerp academy and in the studio of Baron Leys. He has produced some
figure subjects and landscapes, but is best known by his admirable
marine paintings. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in
1898, associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in
1890 and member in 1897. Two of his paintings, "Pilchards" (1897) and
"London River" (1904), are in the National Gallery of British Art.
HEN, a female bird, especially the female of the common fowl (q.v.). The
O. Eng. _haen_ is the feminine form of _hana_, the male bird, a
correlation of words which is represented in other Teutonic languages,
cf. Ger. _Hahn_, _Henne_, Dutch _haan_, _hen_, Swed. _hane_, _honne_,
&c. The O. Eng. name for the male bird has disappeared, its place being
taken by "cock," a word probably of onomatopoeic origin, being from a
base _kuk_- or _kik_-, seen also in "chicken." This word also appears in
Fr. _coq_, and medieval Lat. _coccus_.
HENAULT, CHARLES JEAN FRANCOIS (1685-1770), French historian, was born
in Paris on the 8th of February 1685. His father, a farmer-general of
taxes, was a man of literary tastes, and young Henault obtained a good
education at the Jesuit college. Captivated by the eloquence of
Massillon, in his fifteenth year he entered the Oratory with the view of
becoming a preacher, but after two years' residence he changed his
intention, and, inheriting a position which secured him access to the
most select society of Paris, he achieved distinction at an early period
by his gay, witty and graceful manners. His literary talent, manifested
in the composition of various light poetical pieces, an opera, a tragedy
(_Cornelie vestale_, 1710), &c., obtained his entrance to the Academy
(1723). _Petit-maitre_ as he was, he had also serious capacity, for he
became councillor of the _parlement_ of Paris (1705), and in 1710 he was
chosen president of the court of _enquetes_. After the death of the
count de Rieux (son of the famous financier, Samuel Bernard) he became
(1753) superintendent of the household of Queen Marie Leszczynska, whose
intimate friendship he had previously enjoyed. On his recovery in his
eightieth year from a dangerous malady (1765) he professed to have
undergone religious conversion and retired into private life, devoting
the remainder of his days to study and devotion. His religion was,
however, according to the marquis d'Argenson, "exempt from fanaticism,
persecution, bitterness and intrigue"; and it did not prevent him from
continuing his friendship with Voltaire, to whom it is said he had
formerly rendered the service of saving the manuscript of _La Henriade_,
when its author was about to commit it to the flames. The literary work
on which Henault bestowed his chief attention was the _Abrege
chronologique de l'histoire de France_, first published in 1744 without
the author's name. In the compass of two volumes he comprised the whole
history of France from the earliest times to the death of Louis XIV. The
work has no originality. Henault had kept his note-books of the history
lectures at the Jesuit college, of which the substance was taken from
Mezeray and P. Daniel. He revised them first in 1723, and later put them
in the form of question and answer on the model of P. le Ragois, and by
following Dubos and Boulainvilliers and with the aid of the abbe Boudot
he compiled his _Abrege_. The research is all on the surface and is only
borrowed. But the work had a prodigious success, and was translated into
several languages, even into Chinese. This was due partly to Henault's
popularity and position, partly to the agreeable style which made the
history readable. He inserted, according to the fashion of the period,
moral and political reflections, which are always brief and generally as
fresh and pleasing as they are just. A few masterly strokes reproduced
the leading features of each age and the characters of its illustrious
men; accurate chronological tables set forth the most interesting events
in the history of each sovereign and the names of the great men who
flourished during his reign; and interspersed throughout the work are
occasional chapters on the social and civil state of the country at the
close of each era in its history. Continuations of the work have been
made at separate periods by Fantin des Odoards, by Anguis with notes by
Walckenaer, and by Michaud. He died at Paris on the 24th of November
1770.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Henault's _Memoires_ have come down to us in two
different versions, both claiming to be authentic. One was published
in 1855 by M. du Vigan; the other was owned by the Comte de Coutades,
who permitted Lucien Perey to give long extracts in his work on
President Henault (Paris, 1893). The memoirs are fragmentary and
disconnected, but contain interesting anecdotes and details concerning
persons of note. See the _Correspondance_ of Grimm, of Madame du
Deffand and of Voltaire; the notice by Walckenaer in the edition of
the _Abrege_; Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. xi.; and the
_Origines de l'abrege_ (_Ann. Bulletin de la Societe de l'histoire de
France_, 1901). Also H. Lion, _Le President Henault_ (Paris, 1903).
HENBANE (Fr. _jusquiaume_, from the Gr. [Greek: hyoskuamos], or
hog's-bean; Ital. _giusquiamo_; Ger. _Schwarzes Bilsenkraut_,
_Huhnertod_, _Saubohne_ and _Zigeuner-Korn_ or "gipsies' corn"), the
common name of the plant _Hyoscyamus niger_, a member of the natural
order Solanaceae, indigenous to Britain, found wild in waste places, on
rubbish about villages and old castles, and cultivated for medicinal use
in various counties in the south and east of England. It occurs also in
central and southern Europe and in western Asia extending to India and
Siberia, and has long been naturalized in the United States. There are
two forms of the plant, an annual and a biennial, which spring
indifferently from the same crop of seed--the one growing on during
summer to a height of from 1 to 2 ft., and flowering and perfecting
seed; the other producing the first season only a tuft of radical
leaves, which disappear in winter, leaving underground a thick fleshy
root, from the crown of which arises in spring a branched flowering
stem, usually much taller and more vigorous than the flowering stems of
the annual plants. The biennial form is that which is considered
officinal. The radical leaves of this biennial plant spread out flat on
all sides from the crown of the root; they are ovate-oblong, acute,
stalked, and more or less incisely-toothed, of a greyish-green colour,
and covered with viscid hairs; these leaves perish at the approach of
winter. The flowering stem pushes up from the root-crown in spring,
ultimately reaching from 3 to 4 ft. in height, and as it grows becoming
branched, and furnished with alternate sessile leaves, which are
stem-clasping, oblong, unequally-lobed, clothed with glandular clammy
hairs, and of a dull grey-green, the whole plant having a powerful
nauseous odour. The flowers are shortly-stalked, the lower ones growing
in the fork of the branches, the upper ones sessile in one-sided leafy
spikes which are rolled back at the top before flowering, the leaves
becoming smaller upwards and taking the place of bracts. The flowers
have an urn-shaped calyx which persists around the fruit and is strongly
veined, with five stiff, broad, almost prickly lobes; these, when the
soft matter is removed by maceration, form very elegant specimens when
associated with leaves prepared in a similar way. The corollas are
obliquely funnel-shaped, of a dirty yellow or buff, marked with a close
reticulation of purple veins. The capsule opens transversely by a convex
lid and contains numerous seeds. Both the leaves and the seeds are
employed in pharmacy. The Mahommedan doctors of India are accustomed to
prescribe the seeds. Henbane yields a poisonous alkaloid, _hyoscyamine_,
which is stated to have properties almost identical with those of
atropine, from which it differs in being more soluble in water. It is
usually obtained in an amorphous, scarcely ever in a crystalline state.
Its properties have been investigated in Germany by T. Husemann,
Schroff, Hohn, &c. Hohn finds its chemical composition expressed by
C18H28N2O3. (Compare Hellmann, _Beitrage zur Kenntnis der physiolog.
Wirkung des Hyoscyamins_, &c., Jena, 1874.) In small and repeated doses
henbane has been found to have a tranquillizing effect upon persons
affected by severe nervous irritability. In poisonous doses it causes
loss of speech, distortion and paralysis. In the form of extract or
tincture it is a valuable remedy in the hands of a medical man, either
as an anodyne, a hypnotic or a sedative. The extract of henbane is rich
in nitrate of potassium and other inorganic salts. The smoking of the
seeds and capsules of henbane is noted in books as a somewhat dangerous
remedy adopted by country people for toothache. Accidental poisoning
from henbane occasionally occurs, owing sometimes to the apparent
edibility and wholesomeness of the root.
See Bentley and Trumen, _Medicinal Plants_, 194 (1880).
HENCHMAN, originally, probably, one who attended on a horse, a groom,
and hence, like groom (q.v.), a title of a subordinate official in royal
or noble households. The first part of the word is the O. Eng.
_hengest_, a horse, a word which occurs in many Teutonic languages, cf.
Ger. and Dutch _hengst_. The word appears in the name, Hengest, of the
Saxon chieftain (see HENGEST AND HORSA) and still survives in English in
place and other names beginning with Hingst- or Hinx-. Henchmen, pages
of honour or squires, rode or walked at the side of their master in
processions and the like, and appear in the English royal household from
the 14th century till Elizabeth abolished the royal henchmen, known also
as the "children of honour." The word was obsolete in English from the
middle of the 17th century, and seems to have been revived through Sir
Walter Scott, who took the word and its derivation, according to the
_New English Dictionary_, from Edward Burt's _Letters from a Gentleman
in the North of Scotland_, together with its erroneous derivation from
"haunch." The word is, in this sense, used as synonymous with "gillie,"
the faithful personal follower of a Highland chieftain, the man who
stands at his master's "haunch," ready for any emergency. It is this
sense that usually survives in modern usage of the word, where it is
often used of an out-and-out adherent or partisan, ready to do anything.