ATHERTON

atherton, or chowbent, an urban district in the leigh parliamentary division of lancashire, england, 13 m. w.n.w. of manchester on the london & north-western and lancashire & yorkshire railways. pop. (1901) 16,211. the cotton factories are the principal source of industry; there are also iron-works and collieries. the manor was held by the local family of atherton from john's reign to 1738, when it passed by marriage to robert gwillym, who assumed that name. in 1797 his eldest daughter and co-heiress married thomas powys, afterwards the second lord lilford. up to 1891 the lord of the manor held a court-leet and court-baron annually in november, but in that year lord lilford sold to the local board the market tolls, stallages and pickages, and since this sale the courts have lapsed. the earliest manufactures were iron and cotton. silk-weaving, formerly an extensive industry, has now almost entirely decayed. the first chapel or church was built in 1645. james wood, who became nonconformist minister in the chapel at atherton in 1691, earned fame and the familiar title of "general" by raising a force from his congregation, uncouthly armed, to fight against the troops of the pretender (1715). athetosis (gr. [greek: hathetos], "without place"), the medical term applied to certain slow, purposeless, deliberate movements of the hands and feet. the fingers are separately flexed and extended, abducted and adducted in an entirely irregular way. the hands as a whole are also moved, and the arms, toes and feet may be affected. the condition is usually due to some lesion of the brain which has caused hemiplegia, and is especially common in childhood. it is occasionally congenital (so called), and is then due to some injury of the brain during birth. it is more usually associated with hemiplegia, in which condition there is first of all complete voluntary immobility of the parts affected: but later, as there is a return of a certain amount of power over the limbs affected, the slow rhythmic movements of athetosis are first noticed. this never develops, however, where there is no recovery of voluntary power. its distribution is thus nearly always hemiplegic, and it is often associated with more or less mental impairment. the movements may or may not continue during sleep. they cannot be arrested for more than a moment by will power, and are aggravated by voluntary movements. the prognosis is unsatisfactory, as the condition usually continues unchanged for years, though improvement occasionally occurs in slight cases, or even complete recovery.