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Heller, Joseph ... Hench, Philip Showalter

Heller, Joseph: American writer whose novel Catch-22 (1961) was one of the most significant works of protest literature to appear after World War II. The satirical novel was a popular success, and ...
Heller, Robert: original name William Henry Palmer British-born magician who popularized conjuring in the United States. Trained as a musician, Heller turned to magic after he saw a performance by the French ...
Heller, Yom Tov Lipmann ben Nathan ha-Levi: Bohemian Jewish rabbi and scholar who is best known for his commentary on the Mishna. His works also indicate that he had extensive knowledge of mathematics, the sciences, and other ...
hellhound: a dog represented in mythology (such as that of ancient Greece and Scandinavia) as standing guard in the underworld. In Greek mythology this was Cerberus, a three-headed, dragon-tailed dog.
Hellman, Lillian: American playwright and motion-picture screenwriter whose dramas forcefully attacked injustice, exploitation, and selfishness.
Hells Canyon: gorge of the Snake River in the United States, forming part of the Idaho-Oregon boundary, between the Seven Devils and Wallowa mountains. It has a total length of 125 miles ...
Hellstrom, Gustaf: Swedish realist novelist, journalist, and literary critic.
Hellweg: plateau and historic corridor in North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), western Germany. It extends east-west from Duisburg to Paderborn, parallel to the northern edge of the Sauerland, and is bounded by ...
Helmand River: river in southwestern Afghanistan and eastern Iran, about 715 miles (1,150 km) long. Rising in the Baba Range in east-central Afghanistan, it flows southwestward across more than half the length ...
helmet: defensive covering for the head, one of the most universal forms of armour. Helmets are usually thought of as military equipment, but they are also worn by firemen, miners, construction ...
helmet shell: any marine snail of the family Cassidae (subclass Prosobranchia, class Gastropoda), characterized by a large, thick shell with a shieldlike inner lip. An example is the 18-centimetre (7-inch) king helmet ...
helmet-shrike: any of nine species of African songbirds (order Passeriformes) characterized by a forwardly directed crest on the forehead. Several Prionops species, often called red-billed shrikes, were formerly separated in the ...
Helmholtz, Hermann von: German scientist and philosopher who made fundamental contributions to physiology, optics, electrodynamics, mathematics, and meteorology. He is best known for his statement of the law of the conservation of energy. ...
Helminthosporium: genus of imperfect fungi (form-class Deuteromycetes, division Mycota) that causes leaf blight, especially of grasses (e.g., bluegrass, corn, oats), in humid areas. Symptoms include grayish green, tan, or brown elliptical ...
Helmold Of Bosau: German historian and priest who wrote Chronica Slavorum (Chronicle of the Slavs). Completed in about 1172, this work was a history of the lower Elbe River region from about 800 ...
Helmond: gemeente (commune), Noord-Brabant provincie, southeastern Netherlands. It lies along the Aa River and the Zuid-Willems Canal east of Eindhoven. It is a modern industrial town with textile factories, iron foundries, ...
Helmont, Jan Baptista van: Belgian chemist, physiologist, and physician who recognized the existence of discrete gases and identified carbon dioxide.
Helmstedt: city, Lower Saxony Land (state), north-central Germany, east of Braunschweig (Brunswick). Probably founded in the 9th century, it was chartered in 1050, joined the Hanseatic League in ...
Helnaes Stone: runic monument found at Fyn, Den., in 1860; it is among the oldest inscriptions with so-called Danish runes and is the first Danish example of a stone with the memorial ...
Heloise: wife of the theologian and philosopher Peter Abelard, with whom she was involved in one of the best known love tragedies of history. Fulbert, Heloise's uncle and a canon of ...
helot: a state-owned serf of the ancient Spartans. The ethnic origin of helots is uncertain, but they were probably the original inhabitants of Laconia (the area around the Spartan capital) who ...
Helou, Charles: president of Lebanon, 1964-70.
Helper, Hinton Rowan: the only prominent American Southern author to attack slavery before the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861-65). His thesis widely influenced Northern opinion and served as an important force ...
Helphand, Alexander Israel: Russian-German socialist who helped enable Lenin to reenter Russia in 1917 from exile in Switzerland, thus helping to ignite the Russian Revolution of October 1917.
Helpmann, Sir Robert: Australian ballet dancer, choreographer, actor, and director. His career encompassed activities in ballet, theatre, and motion pictures.
Helsingborg: city and seaport, Skane lan (county), southern Sweden, at the narrowest part of The Sound (Oresund), opposite the Danish town of Helsingor (Elsinore). It is the most convenient place for ...
Helsingin Sanomat: morning daily newspaper published in Helsinki, the largest paper in Finland and the only one of substance that remains free of political-party control.
Helsingr: city, northeastern Denmark. It lies on the northeast coast of Zealand (Sjaelland), at the narrowest part of The Sound (Oresund), opposite Helsingborg, Sweden, with which it is connected by ferry. ...
Helsinki: capital of Finland. It is the leading seaport and industrial city of the nation. Helsinki lies in the far south of the country, on a peninsula that is fringed by ...
Helsinki Accords: (August 1, 1975), major diplomatic agreement signed in Helsinki, Finland, at the conclusion of the first Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE; now called the Organization for Security ...
Helst, Bartholomeus van der: Baroque painter who was one of the leading portrait painters of Amsterdam in the mid-17th century.
Helstein, Ralph: American labour union official who was president of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) from 1946 to 1968.
Helston: town ("parish"), Kerrier district, administrative and historic county of Cornwall, England. In the 13th century Helston, lying in the extreme southwest of England, was western Cornwall's most important town, having ...
Helvetic Confession: either of two confessions of faith officially adopted by the Reformed Church in Switzerland. The First Helvetic Confession (also called the Second Confession of Basel) was composed in 1536 by ...
Helvetic Republic: republic constituting the greater part of Switzerland, founded on March 29, 1798, after the country had been conquered by Revolutionary France. The new republic excluded both Geneva, which was annexed ...
Helvetii: a Celtic people who, under pressure from Germanic peoples in the 2nd century BC, migrated from southern Germany into what is now northern Switzerland. In 61 BC, still pressed upon ...
Helvetius, Claude-Adrien: philosopher, controversialist, and wealthy host to the Enlightenment group of French thinkers known as Philosophes. He is remembered for his hedonistic emphasis on physical sensation, his attack on the religious ...
Helvidius Priscus: a Roman Stoic who forcefully upheld his principle that the emperor should act only with the consent of the Senate.
Helwingia: genus of three species of shrubs, constituting the family Helwingiaceae, native to the Himalayas and eastern Asia. All have simple leaves and an unusual manner of flower growth. The plants ...
Helwys, Thomas: English Puritan leader, member of a Separatist group that emigrated to Amsterdam (1608), where he helped organize the first Baptist church.
Helyot, Hippolyte: French historian and Franciscan monk whose greatest work provides the definitive and most detailed source of information on Roman Catholic religious orders and lay congregations up to the end of ...
Hemacandra: teacher of the Shvetambara ("White-robed") sect of Jainism who gained privileges for his religion from Siddharaja Jayasimha, one of the greatest kings of Gujarat. Eloquent and erudite, Hemacandra also succeeded ...
hemangioma: a congenital, benign tumour, made up of new-formed blood vessels of the skin. There are three main types.
Hemans, Felicia Dorothea: nee Browne English poet who owed the immense popularity of her poems to a talent for treating Romantic themes-nature, the picturesque, childhood innocence, travels abroad, liberty, the heroic-with a fluency ...
hematite: heavy and relatively hard oxide mineral, ferric oxide (Fe₂O₃), that constitutes the most important iron ore because of its high iron content (70 percent) and its abundance. Many of the ...
hematocrit: diagnostic procedure for the analysis of blood. The name is also used for the apparatus used in this procedure and for the results of the analysis. In the procedure, an ...
hematology: branch of medical science concerned with the nature, function, and diseases of the blood. The first step toward scientific knowledge of the composition of the blood was taken in the ...
hematuria: presence of blood in the urine, an indication of injury or disease of the kidney or some other structure of the urinary tract; in males blood in the urine can ...
Hembyze, Jan van: Calvinist leader who overthrew Ghent's Roman Catholic-dominated government (1577) during the Netherlands' struggle for freedom from Spanish control.
Hemel Hempstead: town, Dacorum district, administrative and historic county of Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London. The first charter was granted in 1539. The new town, one of eight designed by British planners ...
Hemery, David: English hurdler who held the 400-metre-hurdles world record of 48.1 sec (1968-72). In 1969 he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
hemicellulose: any of a group of complex carbohydrates that, with other carbohydrates (e.g., pectins), surround the cellulose fibres of plant cells. The most common hemicelluloses contain xylans (many molecules of the ...
hemichordate: any of a group of wormlike marine invertebrates closely related to the chordates and sometimes considered to constitute a phylum, Hemichordata. The term Hemichordata-from the Greek hemi, meaning "half," and ...
hemimorphite: one of two minerals formerly called calamine in the U.S., a white silicate mineral that is an important zinc ore. A secondary mineral formed from the alteration of sphalerite, it ...
Heminge, John: British actor who, with Henry Condell, prepared and oversaw the First Folio (1623), a collection of Shakespeare's plays.
Hemingway, Ernest: American novelist and short-story writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writing and for his adventurous and widely ...
hemiplegia: paralysis of the muscles of the lower face, arm, and leg on one side of the body. The most common cause of hemiplegia is damage to the corticospinal tracts in ...
hemipode: (Greek: "half foot"), generally any bird of the suborder Turnices (order Gruiformes), which includes the plains wanderer (q.v.; family Pedionomidae), the button quail, and the lark quail (family Turnicidae), but ...
Hemiptera: order of insects that is alternatively termed Heteroptera by some authorities. See heteropteran.
hemlock: any of about 14 species of coniferous evergreen trees comprising the genus Tsuga of the family Pinaceae, native to North America and central and eastern Asia. Some ...
hemochromatosis: inborn metabolic defect characterized by an increased absorption of iron, which accumulates in body tissues. The clinical manifestations include skin pigmentation, diabetes, enlargement of the spleen and liver, heart failure, ...
hemochromogen: compound of the iron-containing pigment heme with a protein or other substance. The hemochromogens include hemoglobin, found in red blood cells, and the cytochromes, which are widely distributed compounds important ...
hemoglobin: protein in the blood of many animals-in the red blood cells (erythrocytes) of vertebrates-that transports oxygen to the tissues. Hemoglobin forms an unstable, reversible bond with oxygen; in the oxygenated ...
hemoglobinopathy: any of a group of disorders caused by the presence of variant hemoglobin in the red blood cells. Variant-hemoglobin disorders occur geographically throughout the Old World in a beltlike area ...
hemolysis: breakdown or destruction of red blood cells so that the contained hemoglobin is freed into the surrounding medium. Antibody (lysin) attaches to the red cell but cannot cause bursting in ...
Hemon, Louis: French author of Maria Chapdelaine, the best known novel of French-Canadian pioneer life.
hemophilia: hereditary bleeding disorder caused by a deficiency of a substance necessary for blood clotting. In the classical form of hemophilia, the missing substance is factor VIII, or antihemophilic globulin (AHG). ...
hemorrhoid: mass formed by distension of the network of veins under the mucous membrane that lines the anal channel or under the skin lining the external portion of the anus. A ...
hemothorax: collection of a bloody fluid in the pleural cavity, between the membrane lining the thoracic cage and the membrane covering the lung. Hemothorax may result from injury, especially when there ...
hemp: (species Cannabis sativa), plant of the family Cannabaceae and its fibre, one of the bast fibre group. The plant is also grown for its seed, which contains ...
Hempel, Carl Gustav: German-born American philosopher, formerly a member of the Berlin school of logical positivism, a group that viewed logical and mathematical statements as revealing only the basic structure of language, but ...
Hempstead: town (township), Nassau county, New York, U.S. Situated in the west-central part of Long Island, it comprises 22 incorporated villages and 34 unincorporated communities. The city of Long Beach fronts ...
hen-and-chickens: any of a number of succulent plants of the genera Echeveria (q.v.) and Sempervivum, the latter commonly known as houseleek (q.v.).
henbane: (Hyoscyamus niger), any plant of the family Solanaceae (q.v.), indigenous to Great Britain and found growing wild in waste places and on rubbish heaps. It also occurs in central and ...
Henbury Craters: group of 13 meteorite craters in a desert area 8 mi (13 km) west-southwest of Henbury, Northern Territory, central Australia, within the Henbury Meteorite Conservation Park. The craters, recognized in ...
Hench, Philip Showalter: American physician who with Edward C. Kendall in 1948 successfully applied an adrenal hormone (later known as cortisone) in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. With Kendall and Tadeus Reichstein of ...