AUSCULTATION (auscultare, to listen), among physicians, is a method of distinguishing internal diseases by observing the sounds in the different organs by means of a tube applied to the surface. See STETHOSCOPE.
AUSESSES (Αὐσέσες), an ancient and very savage people of Libya. Herodotus tells us that they had all their women in common. The children were brought up by their mothers till they were able to walk; after which they were intro-
Austria II Australasia. duced to an assembly of the men, who met every three months, and the man to whom any child first spoke acknowledged himself its father. They celebrated annually a feast in honour of Minerva, in which the girls, dividing into two companies, fought with sticks and stones, and those who died of their wounds were concluded not to have been virgins.