GERA (30), a thriving city on the White Elster, 35 m.  SW. of Leipzig; has broad streets and fine buildings, with a castle; chief manufactures woollen.

GERAINT, SIR, one of the Knights of the Round Table, the husband of Enid, whose fidelity he for a time distrusted, but who proved herself a true wife by the care with which she nursed him when he was wounded.

GERARD, ETIENNE MAURICE, COMTE, marshal of France, born at Damvillers, Lorraine; in 1791 he entered the army and fought under Bernadotte in various campaigns; at Austerlitz he won his brigade, and subsequently fought at Jena, Erfurt, and Wagram; he joined Napoleon after his flight from Elba, and was wounded at Wavre; on the downfall of the Emperor he quitted France, but returned in 1817; in 1822 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, and in 1831 assisted in driving the Dutch out of Flanders; he was War Minister under Louis Philippe (1773-1855).

GERARD, FRANCOIS PASCAL SIMON, BARON, painter, born at Rome, of French and Italian parentage; came to Paris when a youth, where he studied painting under David; in 1795 his “Blind Belisarius” brought him to the front, whilst subsequent work as a portrait-painter raised him above all his contemporaries; his masterpiece, “Entry of Henri IV. into Paris,” brought him a barony at the hands of Louis XVIII.; his historical paintings, characterised by minute accuracy of detail, include “Napoleon in his Coronation Robes,” “Battle of Austerlitz,” &c. (1770-1837).

GERHARDT, KARL FRIEDRICH, chemist, born at Strasburg; after a training at Carlsruhe and Leipzig, worked in Liebig’s laboratory at Giessen; in 1838 he began lecturing in Paris, and made experiments along with Cahours on essential oils, which bore fruit in an important treatise; in 1844 he received the chair of Chemistry at Montpellier, but returned to Paris four years later; there he matured and published his theories of types, homologous series, &c., which have greatly influenced the science of chemistry; in 1855 he became professor of Chemistry in Strasburg (1816-1856).

GERHARDT, PAUL, a celebrated German hymn-writer of the Lutheran Church, born at Graefenhainichen, in Saxony; in 1657 he became dean of St. Nicholas in Berlin, an appointment he held till 1666, when he was deposed for his embittered opposition to the union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches; he was subsequently pastor at Luebben; his hymns, 123 in number, rank amongst the finest of their class (1607-1676).

GERIZZIM, a mountain of 2848 ft. in height in the S. of the valley of Shechem, opposite EBAL (q. v.), and from the slopes of which the blessings were responded to by half the tribes of Israel on their arrival in Canaan (Josh. viii. 30-35); the Samaritans erected a temple on this mountain, ruins of which still remain.

GERM THEORY, the doctrine that certain diseases are due to fermentation caused by the presence of germs in the system in the form of minute organisms called bacteria.