EPISODE  , an incident occurring in the

history of a nation, an institution or an individual, especially with the significance of being an interruption of an ordered course of events, an irrelevance . The word is derived from a word (bretcmbos) with a technical meaning in the ancient Greek tragedy . It is defined by Aristotle (Poetics, 12) as µEpos 6Xov rpawbias TO µera b 6Xwv xopuawv µeArav, all the scenes, that is, which fall between the choric songs. eiaobos, or entrance, is generally applied to the entrance of the chorus, but the reference may be to that of the actors at the close of the choric songs . In the early Greek tragedy the parts which were spoken by the actors were considered of subsidiary importance to those sung by the chorus, and it is from this aspect that the meaning of the word, as some-thing which breaks off the course of events, is derived (see A . E . Haigh, The Tragic Drama of the Greeks, 1896, at p . 353) . EPISTA%IS (Gr . Eat, upon, and ar4erv, to drop), the medical term for bleeding from the nose, whether resulting from local injury or some constitutional condition . In persistent cases of nose-bleeding, various measures are adopted, such as holding the arms over the head, the application of ice, or of such astringents as zinc or alum, or plugging the nostrils .