Anacortes
a city of Washington, in Skagit co., about 90 miles N. of Seat tle. It is on the Great Northern railroad, and is a port of call for boats of the Inland Navigation Co., the Pacific Coast Steamship Co., the Alaska Pacific S. S.
Co., and the Island Navigation Co. The city has important industries, including lumber mills, salmon canneries, box factories, shipyards, etc. There are two parks and a library. Pop. (1910) 4,168; (1920) 5,284.
ANACREON (a-nak'rē-on), a renowned lyric poet of Greece, born at Teos in Ionia, 562 B. C. He enjoyed the patronage of Polycrates, autocrat of Samos; and, while at his court, composed most of the odes in praise of wine and women which won for him pre-eminence among singers. A few of his authentic compositions have come down to us. He died 477 B. C.
ANADYR (an-ä'der), the most easterly of the larger rivers of Siberia and of all Asia; rises in the Stanovoi Mountains, and falls into the Gulf of Anadyr; length, 600 miles.
ANÆMIA, bloodlessness; a morbid state of the system produced by loss of blood, by deprivation of light and air in coal mines, or causes more obscure. The ANÆSTHESIA patient is characterized by a great paleness, and blood vessels, easily traceable at other times, become unseen after great hemorrhage, or in cases of anæmia.
ANÆSTHESIA (Greek, "lack of sensation"), a term used to express a loss of sensibility to external impressions, which may involve a part of the whole surface of the body. It may occur naturally as the result of disease, or may be produced artificially by the administration of anæsthetics. In ancient writers, we read of insensibility or indifference to pain being obtained by means of Indian hemp (cannabis indica), either smoked or taken into the stomach. The Chinese, more than 1,500 years ago, used a preparation of hemp, or ma-ya, to annul pain. The Greeks and Romans used mandragora for a similar purpose (poiein anaisthesian); and, as late as the 13th century, the vapor from a sponge filled with mandragora, opium, and other sedatives was used. In 1784, Dr. Moore, of London, used compression on the nerves of a limb requiring amputation, but this method was in itself productive of much pain. In 1800, Sir Humphrey Davy, experimenting with nitrous oxide or laughing-gas, suggested its usefulness as an anæsthetic; and in 1828 Dr. Hickman suggested carbonic acid gas. As early as 1795, Dr. Pearson had used the vapor of sulphuric ether for the relief of spasmodic affections of the respiration. The fact that sulphuric ether could produce insensibility was shown by the American physicians, Godwin (1822), Mitchell (1832), Jackson (1833), Wood and Bache (1834); but it was first used to prevent the pain of an operation in 1846, by Dr.
Morton, a dentist of Boston. The news of his success reached England on Dec. 17, 1846; on the 22d, Mr. Robinson, a dentist, and Dr. Liston, the eminent surgeon, operated on patients rendered insensible by the inhalation of sulphuric ether. This material was extensively used for a year, when Sir J. Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh, discovered the anæsthetic powers of chloroform and introduced the use of it into his special department, midwifery. Since that time, chloroform has been the anæsthetic in general use in Europe, but ether is preferred in the United States. Other substances have been used by inhalation, such as nitrous oxide gas, which is the best and safest anæsthetic for operations that last only one or two minutes, as in the extraction of teeth; bichloride of methylene and tetrachloride of carbon have also been employed.
Local anæsthesia, artificially produced, is of great value in minor operations, ANAGNI and in painful affections of limited as the wing of a bird and that of a butareas of the body. It depends upon a paralysis of the sensory nerves of the part, and may be induced by the application of cold, or of medical agents. Of medical agents the best is cocaine , prepared from the coca shrub of Peru (erythroxylon coca). Eucaine, thymol, menthol, aconite, belladonna, chloroform (the last three as the well-known A. B.
C. liniment), phenol, chloral, and Indian hemp, have also a local anæsthetic action if rubbed on the skin, or applied to abraded surfaces, but most are too irritating to be of any great value. ANAGNI (an-än'yē), a town of Italy, on a hill, 40 miles E. S. E. of Rome. The seat of a bishop since 487, it has an old, an old , but much modernized cathedral, and was the birthplace of four popes-Innocent III., Gregory IX., Alexander IV., and Boniface VIII. The chief city of the Hernici, it was a place of importance during the whole period of Roman history. Vergil calls it "wealthy Anagnia." Pop. about 10,000.