ALBI, a city of France, capital of the department of the Tarn, is situated on the river Tam, 41 miles N.E. of Toulouse. It is a place of great antiquity, and was a stronghold of the early French Protestants, giving its name to the Albigenses. It is the seat of an archbishop, and has a chamber of commerce and a public library of 12,000 volumes. The cathedral, dedicated to St Cecilia, is a magnificent Gothic edifice, in the style of the 13th century, and has one of the finest choirs in France. Here there is a very valuable silver shrine, of exquisite mosaic work, containing the relics of St Clair, the first bishop of the see. The environs are charming, and the promenade of La Lice, without the city, is a beautiful terrace bordered with two rows of very fine trees. At one end is the convent of the Dominicans. Albi has woollen and linen manufactures; coal, iron, and copper are wrought in the vicinity; and the surrounding district is very fertile, producing much grain and fruit. Population (1872), 17,469.

ALBIGENSES, a sect opposed to the Church of Rome, which derives its name from Albiga (the modern Albi, noticed above), either because its doctrines were expressly condemned at a council held there, or, more probably, because its adherents were to be found in great numbers in that town and its neighbourhood. The Albigenses were kindred in origin and more or less similar in doctrine to the sects known in Italy as Paterins, in Germany as Catharists, and in France as Bulgarians, but they are not to be entirely identified with any of these. Still less ought they to be confounded, as has frequently been the case, with the Waldenses, who first appear at a later period in history, and are materially different in their doctrinal views. The descent of the Albigenses may be traced with tolerable distinctness from the Paulicians, a sect that sprang into existence in the Eastern Church during the 6th century. (See Paulicians.) The Paulicians were Gnostics, and were accused by their enemies and persecutors of holding Manichaean doctrines, which, it is said, they vehemently disowned. Their creed, whatever it was precisely, spread gradually westward through Europe. In the 9th century it found many adherents in Bulgaria, and 300 years later it was maintained and defended, though not without important modifications, by the Albigenses in the south of France. The attempt to discover the precise doctrinal opinions held by the Albigenses is attended with a double difficulty. No formal creed or definite doctrinal statement framed by themselves exists, and in default of this it is impossible to depend on the representations of their views given by their opponents in the Church of Rome, who did not scruple to exaggerate and distort the opinions held by those whom they had branded as heretics. ...

See WALDENSES.

ALBINO. The name Albinism, or Leucopathia, is applied to a remarkable peculiarity in the physical constitution of certain individuals, which consists in the skin and hair being perfectly white. The earliest accounts we have of it refer to its being observed among the negroes of West Africa by the Portuguese, who called the persons so affected Albinοes. They have also been called Leucoethiopes, i. e., white negroes. Albinism is most common and most marked in the negro and Indian races, but it occurs in all parts of the world and among all the varieties of the human race. The appearance arises from the absence of the minute particles of colouring matter which ordinarily occur in the lowest and last-deposited layers of the epidermis or outer skin, and to the presence of which the skin owes its colour. With very rare exceptions, it affects the entire body, and continues through life. The skin of the albino is of a dull milky or pearly colour, unrelieved by the slightest tint of red or brown, and is generally of rough texture. All the hair on the body is of the same dull hue, and is commonly soft and silky. Another peculiarity that invariably accompanies this whiteness of skin and hair is an affection of the eyes: the pupil is a bright red, and the iris (or white of the eye) that surrounds it is of a pale rose colour. This redness is attributable to the absence of a colouring matter, the pigmentum nigrum of the membrane of the eye, which serves to protect the retina. In consequence of this defect, the eye of an albino cannot bear a strong light. Albinism is hereditary in the same limited degree as blindness, deafness, &c. See on this Darwin’s Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (chap. xii.), where mention is made that “two brothers married two sisters, ...

ALBINUS (originally Weiss), Bernard Siegfried, a celebrated anatomist, born in 1697 at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where his father was professor of the practice of medicine. In 1702 the latter was transferred to a professorship at Leyden, and it was there that Bernard Siegfried commenced his studies, having for his teachers such men as Boërhaave, Bidloo, and Rau. His great ability, especially in surgery and anatomy, was early recognised, and Rau, so justly celebrated as a lithotomist, is said to have seldom performed an important operation without inviting him to be present. Having finished his studies at Leyden, he went to Paris, where, under the instruction of Vaillant, Winslow, and others, he devoted himself especially to anatomy and botany. After a year’s absence, he was, on the recommendation of Boerhaave, recalled in 1719 to Leyden to be a lecturer on anatomy and surgery. Two years later he succeeded his father in the professorship of these subjects, and delivered an address at his installation which was received with universal approbation. Albinus speedily became one of the most famous teachers of anatomy in Europe, his classroom being resorted to not only by students, but by many practising physicians. With little original genius, and no special talent for exposition, he possessed those habits of accurate observation and patient research which are the best qualification for his department of study. The engravings of bones and muscles executed by Wandelaar for the treatise of Albinus on these organs were far superior in clearness and exactness to anything that had previously been produced. In 1745 Albinus was appointed professor of the practice of medicine, being succeeded in the anatomical chair by his brother Frederick Bernard, who, as well as another brother, ...