History Of Disease

The Polemic Regarding Skin Disease in 4QMMT

by Yitzhaq Feder

Dead Sea Discoveries 19 (2012), 55-70

Vrijeme umiranja-Crna smrt u Dubrovniku 1348.-1349.

by Gordan Ravancic

TIME OF DYING – BLACK DEATH IN DUBROVNIK 1348-1349
Summary
Plague epidemic that embraced Europe in the... more TIME OF DYING – BLACK DEATH IN DUBROVNIK 1348-1349
Summary
Plague epidemic that embraced Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, commonly known as the Black Death, did not miss the eastern Adriatic coast. The extant sources witness about the course of events during the period of the plague, at least in the region of Dalmatia. Thus it is rather peculiar that Croatian historiography somehow has not dealt with the questions regarding the Black Death and its consequences on the medieval population in the Croatian lands.
The chief goal of this dissertation was to draw rough sketch of the events during the plague months in medieval Dubrovnik, and to examine the range of the plague consequences. At the same time, the results of the investigation were compared with the results of the similar researches taken in the Italian medieval towns. On the basis of the extant sources and the available literature, the investigation has proved that Dubrovnik example is in many respects analogous to the case studies about the Black Death in the Tuscan cities.
However, the investigation has explained that the question about the long term impact of the Black Death cannot be localized on the epidemics of 1348. Therefore, the statements about the Black Death as the turning-point of social history in Dubrovnik still cannot be proven. Namely, this epidemic provoked a horrible terror, and made majority of people to think about their own fragileness and mortality; especially since most of them saw Black Death as a divine act. Still, it seems that those who survived thought that they managed to escape or to redeem. The actions of Dubrovnik authorities during the plague epidemic that came in 60’s and 70’s of the same century illustrate that they have not learned anything during the previous plague. Thus, the Black Death was only the first strike (or shock) that disturbed mental structures of medieval population of Dubrovnik. The result of a supposed mental change provoked by the plague can be noticed in 1377 – when city of Dubrovnik organized the first health quarantine. Was this accompanied with the change regarding the social and intellectual values still has to be investigated – primarily through the research of the last wills of this period. Since the results of this dissertation has demonstrated that the Dubrovnik case is similar to the examples of the Italian cities, it would not be surprising that regarding this question the results will be comparable.

"Making Yellow Fever American: The Early American Republic, the British Empire and the Geopolitics of Disease in the Atlantic World," Journal of Atlantic Studies, Vol. 7, No. 4, December 2010

by Katherine Arner

Between 1793 and 1822, a series of successive yellow fever outbreaks ravaged the eastern seaboard of the United... more Between 1793 and 1822, a series of successive yellow fever outbreaks ravaged the eastern seaboard of the United States. The outbreaks generated not only the biggest public health crisis in that period but also one of the most pressing and contentious disputes in medical theory. Often told as a national story, this article re-examines that controversy by situating it in the context of outbreaks, research, and debates in other parts of the anglophone Atlantic. It argues that American responses to disease were shaped by the young republic’s post-imperial relations to both Great Britain and the West Indies. On a broader level, this study challenges current approaches in the formation of American natural knowledge and identity during this period. It looks beyond both national boundaries and relations to former metropolitan centers, locating some of the above developments in a more ‘‘multi-centered’’ Atlantic world.

Rheumatoid arthritis, Klippel-Feil syndrome and Pott’s disease in Cardinal Carlo de' Medici (1595-1666)

by Antonio Fornaciari

Co-authored with Valentina Giuffra, Angelica Vitiello, Sara Giusiani, Davide Caramella, Natale Villari and Gino Fornaciari. Published in 'Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology' 2009; 27: 594-602.

A paleopathological study was carried out on the she skeletal remains of Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici (1595-1666), son of... more A paleopathological study was carried out on the she skeletal remains of Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici (1595-1666), son of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I (1549-1609) and Cristina from Lorraine (1565-1636), to investigate the articular pathology described in the archival sources. The skeletal remains of Carlo, buried in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence, have been exhumed and submitted to macroscopic and radiological examination. The skeleton of Carlo revealed a concentration of different severe pathologies. Ankylosis of the cervical column, associated with other facial and spine anomalies suggests a diagnosis of congenital disease: the Klippel-Feil syndrome.
In addition, the cervical segment presents the results of the tuberculosis (Pott’s disease) from which the Cardinal suffered in his infancy. The post-cranial skeleton shows an ankylosing disease, mainly symmetrical and extremely severe, involving the large as well as small articulations, and characterized by massive joint fusion, that totally disabled the Cardinal in his
last years of life. The final diagnosis suggests an advanced, ankylosing stage of rheumatoid arthritis.

Deleuze's bodies, philosophical diseases and the thought of illness

by Laura Cull

Like those who inspired him – Spinoza, Nietzsche & Artaud – Deleuze experienced a poor state of health during much... more Like those who inspired him – Spinoza, Nietzsche & Artaud – Deleuze experienced a poor state of health during much of his working life: beginning in 1968 with the first major episode of the pulmonary illness that would dog the philosopher’s body until his fatal defenestration in 1995. But what was the relationship, for Deleuze, between philosophy and illness, between thought and the body in poor health? In his late interview with Claire Parnet, Deleuze proposes that ‘illness sharpens a kind of vision of life or a sense of life’. Rather than merely thinking about one’s illness, one might use a fragile state of health to develop a mode of thought that is more tuned-in to life, Deleuze suggests. Alternatively, in Pure Immanence, Deleuze argues that, for Nietzsche, ‘Illness is not a motive for a thinking subject, nor is it an object for thought: it constitutes, rather, a secret intersubjectivity at the heart of a single individual’. In these ways, and indeed in Nietzsche and Philosophy, Deleuze suggests that illness need not just separate us from our power to act; ‘the same physiological state may weaken some powers but open up new possibilities of feeling or bring about new capacities for acting and being acted upon’. However, in The Logic of Sense, Deleuze also speaks of ‘philosophical diseases’; arguing that idealism, for instance ‘is the illness congenital to the Platonic philosophy’.

This paper will explore the value Deleuze attributes to illness in relation to thought as evidence of his embodied approach to philosophy. Contra Peter Hallward’s recent critique, I will argue against the idea of Deleuze’s thought as an ascetic philosophy that calls for a dissolution of the material self in order to become the adequate vessel for the passage of a dematerialised thought. Rather, I will suggest that the reason why Deleuze is interested in the thought that emerges from illness is because it involves a heightened awareness of our capacity to affect and be affected by other material bodies.

The Mind and Stomach at War: Stress, British Society and the Second World War

by Ian Miller

Medical History, January 2010

Medical professionals are often obliged to engage with unforeseen problems during times of conflict. These typically... more Medical professionals are often obliged to engage with unforeseen problems during times of conflict. These typically emerge and develop unpredictably, giving rise to spates of internal biological disorders that may affect specific body areas or induce problematic forms of psychological behaviour. The phenomena of shell shock and Gulf War syndrome are prominent historical examples of these, both being conditions not usually witnessed during peacetime. However, conflict can also generate changes in pre-existing medical complaints. In this article, I suggest that Britain experienced unexpected changes in abdominal problems during the Second World War. An alarming increase in gastric ailments, most notably dyspepsia, peptic ulcer and duodenal ulcer, was noted from the start of the conflict. There existed rising concern in both the government and the medical profession about the anticipated drain on national manpower and military efficiency. I relate this to the wider process of the incorporation of psychological medicine into the treatment of conditions of the gastrointestinal tract.

More generally, this paper expands upon suggestions that there exists a wide range of chronic disorders that are of potential importance to historians of medicine. In 1979, G H Brieger complained that the significance of the problematic condition of dyspepsia, or indigestion, had been greatly underrated despite the usefulness that a careful study of it would hold for the enhancement of historical understandings of medical theory and practice. However, little else was published on the history of stomach problems until eighteen years later when William F Bynum argued a similar case in Gastroenterology in Britain (1997), an edited volume compiled with the specific aim of outlining some of the area’s main individuals, issues and technical developments. He anticipated that future scholars would expand upon what he considered to be a highly significant, if complex, theme. However, to date, such research has been limited. This article therefore provides one example of how the many experiences of the stomach and its illnesses have occupied prominent positions in society, culture and medicine by locating this organ at the centre of both medical and popular wartime imagination.

The Neo-Columbian Exchange: The Second Conquest of the Greater Caribbean, 1720-1930

by Stuart McCook

Stuart McCook. 2011. “The Neo-Columbian Exchange: The Second Conquest of the Greater Caribbean, 1720-1930.” Latin American Research Review 46 (S): 11-31.

The landscapes of the Greater Caribbean have been undergoing a process of ecological globalization since the arrival... more The landscapes of the Greater Caribbean have been undergoing a process of ecological globalization since the arrival of European explorers and settlers in the late fifteenth century. The character of this ecological globalization has changed over time. Models of commodity-led economic development drove, directly or indirectly, the neo-Columbian exchanges of the long nineteenth century (roughly 1720-1930). The neo-Columbian exchanges differed from the Columbian exchanges of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in several key ways: They were increasingly mediated by imperial and transnational scientific institutions. The geographical scope of the exchanges grew, and the Greater Caribbean saw many new direct introductions of people, plants, and animals from Asia and the Pacific, as well as from the eastern part of the Atlantic World. A parallel movement of pathogens from Asia and the Pacific also introduced new epidemic diseases—especially crop diseases—to the Greater Caribbean. The neo-Columbian exchange drove the region's dramatic expansion in agricultural production, but this constructed abundance came at the expense of ecological impoverishment and fragility.
Resumen:
El medio ambiente en el Caribe ha experimentado un proceso creciente de globalización desde la llegada de los exploradores y colonos europeos a finales del siglo XV. El carácter de esta globalizacóin ecológica ha ido cambiando a lo largo del tiempo. Los intercambios que se produjeron durante lo que se puede llamar el largo siglo XIX (aproximadamente 1720–1930) fueron consecuencia directa o indirecta de un modelo de desarrollo económico basado en determinados bienes y productos. Dichos intercambios, denominados en el artóículo "The Neo-Columbian Exchange", se diferencian de los que ocurrieron en el siglo XVI y XVII, conocidos en inglés por "the Columbian Exchange", en aspectos claves. Por un lado, estuvieron cada vez más mediados por instituciones cientí: cas de carácter imperial y trasnacional. Por otro, el ámbito geográfico en el que se llevaron a cabo dichos intercambios creció considerablemente y el Caribe asistió a la introducción directa de nuevas poblaciones, plantas y animales provenientes de Asia y el Pacífico así como de la parte oriental del mundo atlántico. Todo ello fue acompañado por un movimiento paralelo de patógenos provenientes de las regiones mencionadas que introdujeron nuevas enfermedades, principalmente en las cosechas. Dichos intercambios constituyeron agentes fundamentales en la dramática expansión de producción agrícola que experimentó la región, pero la abundancia se produjo a costa de una mayor fragilidad y empobrecimiento ecológico.

Avian influenza and events in political biogeography

by David Murakami Wood

Surveilling strange materialities: categorisation in the evolving geographies of FMD biosecurity

by David Murakami Wood

Donaldson, A. and D. Wood (2004) ‘Surveilling Strange Materialities: categorization in the evolving geographies of FMD biosecurity in the UK’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 22(3): 373 – 391.

Cultures of Taste / Theories of Appetite: Eating Romanticism

by Tim Morton

Published by Palgrave (2004).

A collection of essays on food and eating featuring three essays by me: a general introduction; an essay on... more A collection of essays on food and eating featuring three essays by me: a general introduction; an essay on consumerism; and an essay on materialism.

« Robert Koch’s medical expeditions in Africa 1883-1910 : Some research questions. » Fourth Indian Ocean World Centre Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference on Africa, McGill University, Montreal, (May 1, 2011)

by Facil Tesfaye

Paper presented 2011

"Secrets of Place: The Medical Casebooks of Vivant-Augustin Ganiare, ca. 1745-1750",

by Lisa Smith

In E. Leong and A. Rankin, Secrets and Knowledge: Medicine, Science and Commerce, 1500-1800 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011).

Diseases of Poverty and Lifestyle, Well-Being and Human Development

by Ajai Singh

Mens Sana Monographs 2008

The problems of the haves differ substantially from those of the have-nots. Individuals in developing societies have... more The problems of the haves differ substantially from those of the have-nots. Individuals in developing societies have to fight mainly against infectious and communicable diseases, while in the developed world the battles are mainly against lifestyle diseases. Yet, at a very fundamental level, the problems are the same-the fight is against distress, disability, and premature death; against human exploitation and for human development and self-actualisation; against the callousness to critical concerns in regimes and scientific power centres.
While there has been great progress in the treatment of individual diseases, human pathology continues to increase. Sicknesses are not decreasing in number, they are only changing in type.
The primary diseases of poverty like TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS-and the often co-morbid and ubiquitous malnutrition-take their toll on helpless populations in developing countries. Poverty is not just income deprivation but capability deprivation and optimism deprivation as well.
While life expectancy may have increased in the haves, and infant and maternal mortality reduced, these gains have not necessarily ensured that well-being results. There are ever-multiplying numbers of individuals whose well-being is compromised due to lifestyle diseases. These diseases are the result of faulty lifestyles and the consequent crippling stress. But it serves no one's purpose to understand them as such. So, the prescription pad continues to prevail over lifestyle-change counselling or research.
The struggle to achieve well-being and positive health, to ensure longevity, to combat lifestyle stress and professional burnout, and to reduce psychosomatic ailments continues unabated, with hardly an end in sight.
We thus realise that morbidity, disability, and death assail all three societies: the ones with infectious diseases, the ones with diseases of poverty, and the ones with lifestyle diseases. If it is bacteria in their various forms that are the culprit in infectious diseases, it is poverty/deprivation in its various manifestations that is the culprit in poverty-related diseases, and it is lifestyle stress in its various avatars that is the culprit in lifestyle diseases. It is as though poverty and lifestyle stress have become the modern "bacteria" of developing and developed societies, respectively.
For those societies afflicted with diseases of poverty, of course, the prime concern is to escape from the deadly grip of poverty-disease-deprivation-helplessness; but, while so doing, they must be careful not to land in the lap of lifestyle diseases. For the haves, the need is to seek well-being, positive health, and inner rootedness; to ask science not only to give them new pills for new ills, but to define and study how negative emotions hamper health and how positive ones promote it; to find out what is inner peace, what is the connection between spirituality and health, what is well-being, what is self-actualisation, what prevents disease, what leads to longevity, how simplicity impacts health, what attitudes help cope with chronic sicknesses, how sicknesses can be reversed (not just treated), etc. Studies on well-being, longevity, and simplicity need the concerted attention of researchers.
The task ahead is cut out for each one of us: physician, patient, caregiver, biomedical researcher, writer/journalist, science administrator, policy maker, ethicist, man of religion, practitioner of alternate/complementary medicine, citizen of a world community, etc. Each one must do his or her bit to ensure freedom from disease and achieve well-being.
Those in the developed world have the means to make life meaningful but, often, have lost the meaning of life itself; those in the developing world are fighting for survival but, often, have recipes to make life meaningful. This is especially true of a society like India, which is rapidly emerging from its underdeveloped status. It is an ancient civilization, with a philosophical outlook based on a robust mix of the temporal and the spiritual, with vibrant indigenous biomedical and related disciplines, for example, Ayurveda, Yoga, etc. It also has a burgeoning corpus of modern biomedical knowledge in active conversation with the rest of the world. It should be especially careful that, while it does not negate the fruits of economic development and scientific/biomedical advance that seem to beckon it in this century, it does not also forget the values that have added meaning and purpose to life; values that the ancients bequeathed it, drawn from their experiential knowledge down the centuries.
The means that the developed have could combine with the recipes to make them meaningful that the developing have. That is the challenge ahead for mankind as it gropes its way out of poverty, disease, despair, alienation, anomie, and the ubiquitous all-devouring lifestyle stresses, and takes halting steps towards well-being and the glory of human development.

Los espectros furiosos como causa de enfermedad en Mesopotamia

by M. Erica Couto-Ferreira

Conceptos de transmisión de la enfermedad en Mesopotamia: algunas reflexiones

by M. Erica Couto-Ferreira

Thalassaemia: its diagnosis and interpretation in past skeletal populations.

by Mary Lewis

To be published shortly in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology

The diagnosis of thalassaemia in archaeological populations has long been hindered by a lack of pathogonomic features,... more The diagnosis of thalassaemia in archaeological populations has long been hindered by a lack of pathogonomic features, and the non-specific nature of cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis. In fact, clinical research has highlighted more specific diagnostic criteria for thalassaemia major and intermedia based on changes to the thorax (‘rib-within-a-rib’ and costal osteomas). A recent re-examination of 364 child skeletons from Romano-British Poundbury Camp, Dorset revealed children with general ‘wasting’ of the bones and three children who demonstrated a variety of severe lesions (e.g. zygomatic bone and rib hypertrophy, porotic hyperostosis, rib lesions, osteopenia and pitted diaphyseal shafts) that are inconsistent with dietary deficiency alone, and more consistent with a diagnosis of genetic anaemia. Two of these children displayed rib lesions typical of those seen in modern cases of thalassaemia. The children of Poundbury Camp may represent the first cases of genetic anaemia in a British archaeological population. As thalassaemia is a condition strongly linked to Mediterranean communities, the presence of this condition in a child from England, found within a mausoleum, suggests that they were born to wealthy immigrant parents living in this small Roman settlement in Dorset. This paper explores the diagnostic criteria for genetic anaemia in the archaeological literature and what its presence in ancient populations can contribute to our knowledge of past human migration.

Saving the involuntary sinner

by Michaël Deinema

The political dimensions of the sinfulness and victimisation of prostitutes for the evangelical antiprostitution movement in The Netherlands, 1846-1911.

MA thesis 2006

Body and soul: disease and impairment in Anglo-Saxon England'.

by Christina Lee

In: CLEGG-HYER, MAREN AND G. OWEN-CROCKER, ed. Daily Living in Anglo-Saxon England. Exeter UP, pp. 293-309

Parrots, artists and false teeth: excavations at St Marylebone School 1993 and 2004-6

by Natasha Powers

Poster presented at BABAO conference

‘Vermin to be Cleared off the Face of the Earth’: Perpetrator Representations of Genocide Victims as Animals

by Rowan Savage

Colin Tatz, Peter Arnold, Sandra Tatz (eds)
Genocide Perspectives III: Essays on the Holocaust and Other... more Colin Tatz, Peter Arnold, Sandra Tatz (eds)
Genocide Perspectives III: Essays on the Holocaust and Other Genocides
Brandl & Schlesinger with the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Sydney
2006
pp. 17-53.