bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The care of victims
Authors: Bisson Jonathan I
Published: November 2023

Victims of violence may experience a variety of emotional and psychiatric reactions to their traumatic experience. Often these represent a post-traumatic stress response, which will spontaneously resolve, but some individuals will develop specific psychi atric disorders requiring treatment. The psychological and psychiatric care of victims of violence should not be considered in isolation from other forms of care. As dis cussed elsewhere in this book, victims of violence may receive care from a variety of different agencies including the police, victim support, general practitioners, and social services. It is likely that many victims will benefit most from a well co-ordinated package of care involving different agencies.
Alport Syndrome
Authors: Flinter Frances
Published: November 2023

Alport syndrome (AS) is the most common hereditary nephropathy, with a gene frequency of 1 in 5000. It causes 0.6 per cent of cases of chronic renal failure in Europe (Rigden et al. 1996). The majority of cases are inherited in an X-linked fashion, with a very variable phenotype in women. During the last decade, the cloning of several genes involved in the assembly of type IV collagen, which is abnormal in patients with AS, has increased our understanding of the pathogenesis of this progressive glomerulonephritis considerably.
The Bardet–Biedl and Alström Syndromes
Authors: Beales Philip L , Parfrey Patrick S , Katsanis Nicholas
Published: November 2023

Six conditions have as their primary features, retinal dystrophy and obesity and the association of retinal dystrophy and renal dysplasia occurs in four disorders (Table 17.1). The Bardet–Biedl and Alström syndromes are associated with all three components; retinal dystrophy (RD), obesity, and renal dysplasia. There are many other similarities between the two entities and both are inherited in an autosomal recessive manner. The clinical manifestations and genetics of both syndromes will be discussed in this chapter.
Von Hippel–Lindau Disease
Authors: Maher Eamonn R
Published: November 2023

Von Hippel–Lindau (VHL) disease is the most common cause of familial clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). VHL disease results from germline mutations in the VHL tumour suppressor gene and is characterized by variable expression and multisite tumour susceptibility (see Table 21.1).
Characteristics of different routes of administration
Authors: Dahlöf Carl G H
Published: November 2023

The availability of several triptan formulations provides an opportunity to tailor therapy to individual patients’ needs. For the majority of patients, tablets, which offer more or less consistent efficacy within 30 min of administration in a convenient dosing form, may be an appropriate choice. Although clinical trials do not demonstrate robust differences in efficacy between triptan tablets, individual patients do distinguish them and often have a preference for one triptan or dose over another. For those having difficulties in swallowing a tablet, the freeze-dried fast-melting tablet that can be taken without water may be an option. This dosage form dissolves instantly on the tongue, and the active agent is swallowed with the saliva and absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. For patients who desire particularly rapid relief that cannot be provided by a tablet form, sumatriptan injection with a 10 min onset of action may be an appropriate choice. Patients with very severe attacks and those with vomiting may also benefit from the injection.
Dialysis-associated amyloidosis
Authors: Bardin Thomas
Published: November 2023

In 1978, Kenzora reported for the first time the identification of amyloid deposition in a carpal tunnel biopsy specimen from a patient undergoing hemodialysis. From this time, dialysis-associated amyloidosis has been recognized as an increasingly significant problem in renal failure patients maintained on long-term dialysis therapy. Amyloid deposits involve mainly articular and periarticular tissues resulting in a disabling arthropathy, the frequency of which increases with length of survival upon dialysis. Amyloid arthropathy is at present considered as one of the main factors limiting the quality of life of long-term survivors. Moreover, systemic deposition and neurological compromise following destructive involvement of spine are rare but potentially life-threatening complications. This review will attempt to picture the features of the disease and to differentiate them from articular symptoms of other etiologies in dialysis patients.
Surgical management
Authors: Sarfati Emile , Drüeke Tilman B
Published: November 2023

The surgical treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism is based on a perfect knowledge of parathyroid anatomy and embryology. Whatever the procedure chosen it is necessary to find and expose all parathyroid glands. The parathyroid glands arise as proliferation of endodermal cells at the lateral tip of the third and fourth pharyngeal pouches. The third pouch gives rise to the inferior parathyroid (PIII) gland and to the thymus. This common origin explains the tight anatomical links of both inferior parathyroids and thymus. The fourth pouch gives rise to the superior parathyroid (PIV) gland. The parathyroid bodies migrate in the 13–14 mm embryonic stage. An important anatomical event occurs with the deflexion of the neck and the descent of the heart and the large vessels. The inferior parathyroid gland (PIII) dragged by the thymic sketch descends toward the upper mediastinum. It is abandoned more or less at the same height as the lower thyroid pole or within the thyro-thymic ligament. During its migration the inferior gland may be left very high above the upper thyroid pole (parathymus) or very low into the anterior and upper mediastinum with the thymus. The migration of the superior gland (PIV) is short and this gland remains close to the posterior part of the middle thyroid lobe. The superior glands are never far from the lower thyroid artery. In 85% of cases they are located less than 2 cm from the crossing between the lower thyroid artery and the inferior laryngeal nerve. This crossing explains the more or less tight links of the superior and inferior glands near the lower thyroid artery.
Overview
Authors: Jha Prabhat , Chaloupka Frank J , Brown Phyllida
Published: November 2023

This book brings together a set of critical reviews of the current status of knowledge on tobacco control. It is intended to provide a sound and comprehensive evidence-base for the design of effective tobacco control policies in any country, with an emphasis on the needs of the low-income and middle-income countries where most smokers live. The structure of the book is as follows. Following the Overview, there are six sections. Section I provides brief descriptive overviews of global trends in smoking and the impact of tobacco on health, as well as a discussion of the costs of tobacco use. Section II provides an economic analysis of tobacco use, focusing on three key issues: tobacco addiction, the costs and benefits of tobacco use, and the economic rationale for government intervention in the tobacco market. Section III reviews the effectiveness of policies intended to reduce demand for tobacco: the provision of consumer information about tobacco; the impact of advertising and promotion; the taxation of tobacco products; clean indoor-air policies and other regulatory measures; and smoking cessation therapies.
Poverty and smoking
Authors: Bobak Martin , Jha Prabhat , Nguyen Son , Jams Martin
Published: November 2023

This chapter examines the association between poverty and tobacco use. It provides a comprehensive review of the data on smoking prevalence and consumption levels in different sodo-economic groups, both within individual countries and internationally. It finds that smoking is more common among poor men (variously defined by income, education, occupation, or sodal class) than rich men in nearly aD countries. In high income countries, the social gradients of smoking are clearly established for men: smoking has been widespread for several decades, and smoking-attributable mortality can be measured reliably. Analyses of smoking-attributable mortality in middle age (defined as ages 35–69) in Canada, England and Wales, Poland, and the United States reveal that smoking is responsible for most of the excess mortality of poor men in these countries. For women, the situation is more variable, partly reflecting the more recent onset of mass smoking by women in certain parts of the world. Why poor people smoke more remains a complex question that requires further research.
A welfare analysis of tobacco use
Authors: Peck Richard , Chaloupka Frank J , Jha Prabhat , Lightwood James
Published: November 2023

This chapter examines the costs and benefits of smoking with the aim of asking whether. in economic terms, tobacco on net makes the world better or worse off. Given that the analysis is relatively complex and technical, we provide a summary for the reader interested in the key findings and an outline of the methods used. Introduction. Like most consumer goods, cigarettes have both costs and benefits. The chief benefits are the satisfaction and enjoyment that smokers receive from smoking. There are also profits to producers. The chief costs are death and disability among smokers themselves. Other costs, which are much smaller, include health damage to non-smokers from passive smoking.
How big is the worldwide cigarette-smuggling problem
Authors: David Merriman , Yurekli Ayda , Chaloupka Frank f.
Published: November 2023

Cigarettes have particular appeal to potential smugglers because taxes often account for a large share of their price, making them a highly profitable product to smuggle. Economic models of smuggling are used to develop techniques for measuring the extent and nature of the worldwide cigarette smuggling problem. We conduct three separate empirical analyses. Our estimates indicate that between 6% and 8.5% of global cigarette consumption is smuggled. The perceived level of corruption, as measured on a published ‘transparency index’ ranging from O (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly dean), statistically explains more of the variance in experts’ estimates of cigarette smuggling than do cigarette prices. Using data on relative cigarette prices and travel between European countries, we estimate the extent of bootlegging (the legal purchase of cigarettes in one country for consumption or resale in another country without paying applicable taxes or duties) in Europe. Simulations show that even when the potential for increased smuggling is taken into account, increases in cigarette tax rates result in increased tax revenue. Coordinated multilateral increases in cigarette taxes would result in significantly more tax revenue and less smuggling than unilateral tax increases.
Strategic priorities in tobacco control for governments and international agencies
Authors: Jha Prabhat , Paccaud Fred , Nguyen Son
Published: November 2023

Any review of strategic priorities in tobacco control will tend to be simplistic, given the variation in factors affecting policy at the local level. The key goal of comprehensive tobacco-control programs is to improve health, but correcting market failures and reducing inequality are other important goals. For short-term progress in reducing mortality, programs need to be focused both on reducing the uptake of smoking by children and on helping adults to quit. Most tobacco-control programs will be a combination of price, information, and regulation interventions, but the relative importance of each of these three components will vary across countries by income level and administrative capacity. Where such combined control programs have been evaluated, they appear to be effective, and they can be implemented at low per capita costs. We examine some responsibilities of the international agencies reviewing their own policies and programs, acting regionally on specific control instruments, and sponsoring research. Finally, the political economy of tobacco control is discussed.
Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity
Authors: Babor Thomas , Caetano Raul , Casswell Sally , Edwards Griffith , Giesbrecht Norman , Graham Kathryn , Grube Joel , Gruenewald Paul , Hill Linda , Holder Harold , Homel Ross , Österberg Esa , Rehm Jürgen , Room Robin , Rossow Ingeborg
Published: November 2023

From a public health perspective, alcohol is no ordinary consumer product. On a global level, it is a major contributor to disease, disability, and premature mortality. It also has an adverse impact on many aspects of social life. Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity – Research and Public Policy describes recent advances in alcohol research that have direct relevance for the development of effective alcohol policies at the local, national and international levels. It covers the search for policies that protect health, prevent disability, and address the social problems associated with the misuse of beverage alcohol. This book is, at its core, a scientific treatise on what alcohol policy is, why it is needed, which interventions are effective, how policy is made, and how scientific evidence can inform the policy-making process. The book opens with an introduction to the policy agenda. The second section then presents a snapshot of drinking patterns and alcohol-related problems throughout the world, providing a global panorama of the challenges faced. The third section critically reviews the evidence for six strategies that have often been used as a basis for alcohol policy: taxation and pricing, regulating the physical availability of alcohol, modifying the drinking context, drinking-driving countermeasures, regulating alcohol promotion, education and persuasion programmes, and treatment and early intervention services. Section four provides an international analysis of the policy making process. The book concludes with a consumer’s guide to effective alcohol policy, synthesising what is known about how communities and nation states can effectively manage this extraordinary commodity.
Regulating the physical availability of alcohol
Authors: Babor Thomas , Caetano Raul , Casswell Sally , Edwards Griffith , Giesbrecht Norman , Graham Kathryn , Grube Joel , Gruenewald Paul , Hill Linda , Holder Harold , Homel Ross , Österberg Esa , Rehm Jürgen , Room Robin , Rossow Ingeborg
Published: November 2023

In this chapter we discuss the physical availability of beverage alcohol. Physical availability refers to the accessibility or convenience of the product, which has policy implications for preventing alcohol-related problems through controls on the conditions of sale to the drinker as a retail customer. Such controls extend back at least as far as recorded human history. The Code of Hammurabi, dating from 3800 years ago, included three articles governing the behaviour of tavern-keepers and their customers in Mesopotamia (Hammurabi 2000). A major aim of these measures throughout history and into modern times has been to reduce the harm from drinking.
Subtypes of vascular dementia and their pathogenesis: a critical overview
Authors: Pantoni Leonardo
Published: November 2023

The general understanding of the role that vascular lesions play in determining cognitive impairment has changed considerably over the last few decades. Originally, narrowing and occlusion of the cervical and large intracranial arteries were considered to be the leading causes of dementia in the elderly (‘arterio-sclerotic dementia’) (Forstl and Howard 1991; Berchtold and Cotman 1998), an assumption often based on reports of cases that were only vaguely characterized from the clinical–pathological point of view.
Treatment of vascular dementias
Authors: Inzitari Domenico , Lamassa Maria , Pantoni Leonardo
Published: November 2023

Vascular cognitive impairment is the second most common form of mental deterioration in the elderly after the degenerative dementias. Therapeutic approaches to vascular dementia rely mainly on the identification and treatment of risk factors.
Prevention
Authors: Gorelick Philip B
Published: November 2023

VCI is common. The population attributable risks of dementia and cognitive impairment in relation to stroke are estimated to be 18.4% and 8.5%, respectively (Zhu et al. 1998).
Infertility and early pregnancy loss
Authors: Lockwood Gillian M
Published: November 2023

To paraphrase Tolstoy, ‘all fertile couples resemble one another, but all infertile couples are unhappy in their own way’. Since about one in six couples seeks specialist help because of difficulty or delay in conceiving a first or subsequent child, the problem of infertility will continue to play a significant and increasing role in the general practitioner (GP)’s consultation load.
Vaginal discharge and sexually transmitted infections
Authors: Oakeshott Pippa
Published: November 2023

Good general practice management of women with vaginal discharge and sexually transmitted infections can make an important difference to their health. It may prevent the potentially devastating consequences of undiagnosed or inadequately treated cervical chlamydia infection. It can also help to reduce the discomfort, embarrassment, and anxiety often associated with genitourinary problems. Not every woman needs investigation. If a woman in a long-term stable relationship develops symptoms of thrush after a course of antibiotics, blind treatment is perfectly reasonable.
Breast disorders
Authors: Power Danielle , Maher* Jane
Published: November 2023

Breast diseases are an increasing issue for general practitioners, who can expect 30 presentations per 1000 women per year, ranging from mild breast pain to breast lumps, but overall only 6% are found to have breast cancer (RCGP and OPCS 1995). Most women referred to specialist services will be reassured that the breast abnormality is due to a benign process. Nevertheless, breast cancer remains a major health issue. The lifetime risk of breast cancer is 11% (1 in 10 women in their lifetime), representing almost 30% of all cancers in women. In 1997 there were 36 100 new registrations of breast cancer in the United Kingdom (Office of National Statistics 2001), with an overall increase of one to two per annum, particularly in the elderly. Breast cancer remains the leading cause of death from malignancy in women, accounting for almost 20% of these deaths in the UK (13 198 deaths in 1998).
Women’s cancer screening: cervical, breast, and ovarian screening
Authors: Bankhead Clare , Austoker Joan
Published: November 2023

A screening programme invites asymptomatic people in a population at risk to be tested for a disease for which there is an effective treatment. Screening does not diagnose illness. Those who (screen) test positive are sent on for further diagnostic tests to determine whether they do have the disease. Ideally, screening should be able to detect a precursor condition so that the disease can be stopped before it even starts. A good example of this is cervical screening that aims to detect a precancerous lesion called cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). If this condition is detected and treated, cervical carcinoma is very unlikely to develop. Breast screening, however, can detect very early stage breast cancer when the tumour is too small to be felt. Around half the cancers found at screening are still small enough to allow breast-saving surgery and most breast cancers are found at an early stage when there is a good chance of a successful recovery.
Familial cancers and women’s health
Authors: Lucassen Anneke , Watson Eila
Published: November 2023

There have been many recent advances in research into genetic diseases and conditions. More and more genetic tests are becoming available which can provide information about a woman’s health. Although individually many genetic conditions are rare, collectively they account for a significant proportion of the general practitioner’s (GP) workload. This chapter focuses on the genetic aspects of a family history of cancer, as this is the area of genetics influencing women’s health that the GP is most likely to face today (2002). In particular breast, ovarian, endometrial, and colorectal cancers are discussed, each of which can occur in the context of a strong inherited predisposition.
Complementary medicine and women’s health*
Authors: A’Court Christine , Ong Chi Keong , Wootton Jacqueline
Published: November 2023

In the UK, between 1993 and 1995, a 25% increase in sales of alternative medicines was noted (Mintel 1995). Expenditure has been estimated to be about £500 million a year for visits to complementary practitioners (Thomas et al. 2001) and the cost could be as much as £1.5 billion if over-the-counter purchases are included (Ernst and White 2000; Ong and Banks 2003). US expenditure on complementary medicine rose in 1990–97 from $13bn to $38bn a year, and twice as many consultations were with complementary medicine practitioners as with mainstream family doctors (Eisenberg et al. 1998). Australia has also witnessed an increase in usage, with four times as much public expenditure on complementary, as on conventional, medicines (MacLennan et al. 1996).
Anglo-Saxon England
Authors: Stenton F M
Published: November 2023

‘outstanding ... one of the most valuable contributions ever made to our knowledge of the history of our own land’ English Historical Review This book covers the emergence of the earliest English kingdoms to the establishment of the Anglo-Norman monarchy in 1087. Professor Stenton examines the development of English society, from the growth of royal power to the establishment of feudalism after the Norman Conquest. He also describes the chief phases in the history of the Anglo-Saxon church, including the Conversion of the various English kingdoms, and the unification of Britain by the kings of Mercia and completed by the kings of Wessex. Drawing on many diverse examples-place-names, coins and charters, wills and pleas, archaeology, and the laws of the Anglo-Saxons-the result is a fascinating insight into this period of English history.
Life in the Third Reich
Authors: Bessel Richard
Published: November 2023

The Third Reich, a regime which instigated the most destructive war in modern history, still evokes fascination and horror today. Yet how were the lives of ordinary German people of the 1930s and 1940s affected by the politics of Hitler and his folllowers? Looking beyond the catalogue of events, this book reveals that daily life involved a complex mixture of bribery and terror, of fear and concessions, of barbarism and appeals to conventional moral values, employed to maintain a grip upon society. The essays presented here by eight leading historians shed fresh light on familiar topics, the role of political violence in Nazi seizure of power, the German view of Hitler himself, and also focus upon less well-known aspects of life in the Third Reich, such as village life, the treatment of 'social outcasts', and the Germans own retrospective view of this period of their history.
Good Times, Badtimes: Memories of the Third Reich
Authors: Herbert Ulrich
Published: November 2023

As late as 1951 almost half of those citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany questioned in a public opinion survey described the period between 1933 and 1939 as the one in which things had gone best for Germany. All ‘politics’ aside, for a large part of the population the image of National Socialism was characterised principally not by terror, mass murder and war but by reduction of unemploy ment, economic boom, tranquillity and order. In 1949 the lnsti tut fur Demoskopie (Public Opinion Institute) summarised the result of its survey of the ‘Consequences ofNational Socialism’. There was ‘no more talk of German rebirth or of racial awaken ing among the population; these bits of Third Reich decor are antiquated, worn out, finished’. On the other hand, memories of the ‘positive’ aspects ofNational Socialism were still as fresh as ever.
Tashkent
Authors: Bailey Lt.-Col. F M
Published: November 2023

At the time of our arrival Tashkent had been under the Bolsheviks for nearly a year. Trams and horse cabs plied, and a few things could still be bought in the shops. In our hotel we could get quite good meals, and life generally at this time was not very different from what it must have been before the revolution. But the position rapidly deteriorated. Hotels and restaurants were closed or turned into Soviet institutions meagrely patronized by the proletariat. All motor cars had been commandeered for the Bolshevik officials. Theatres were still open. While we were in Tashkent an Englishman passed through with a troupe of performing elephants! These he was taking to Kashgar over the none too easy Terek Dawan. Everywhere one saw Austrian prisoners of war. ·Many still in their uniforms with F.J.I. on their hats. In all cafes and restaurants an orchestra of Austrians played. The most fashionable restaurant was the Chashka Chai (Cup of Tea). We were very soon known to the band here and they used to break off their tune and play ‘Tipperary’ as we entered! Under the deep shade of the karagach (a kind of elm) or acacia we would eat ices and drink beer, or one of the substitutes for tea or coffee, to the pleasant sound of running water in the street gutters.
Alone
Authors: Bailey Lt.-Col. F M
Published: November 2023

About this time one rather unpleasant incident occurred which might have led to serious consequences. Mrs. Stephanovitch, who had come with us from Kashgar, wanted to return, and had been refused permission. The Bolsheviks wished to arrest her husband who had returned to Kashgar from Andijan, and had an idea of using her as a decoy. The Armenian assistant in the bank at Kashgar had written to the Soviet authorities in Tashkent denouncing certain Russians in Kasghar as counter-revolutionaries, among them, not incorrectly, her· husband. Mrs. Stephanovitch decided to try to slip away from Tashkent without permission. Though I had frequently asked Dama-gatsky for permission to send messages out of the country, I had been given no opportunity to do so. I therefore decided to send a short message out by her. The message was on a tiny piece of paper. I had given it to her, but I did not know where she had concealed it.
Arrested
Authors: Bailey Lt.-Col. F M
Published: November 2023

I Had been continually pressing Damagatsky to allow me to communicate with Kashgar and at last I was told I could have one courier sent from Kashgar on condition that no cipher messages were enclosed. I telegraphed to Etherton in Kashgar and on October 13th a sealed bag arrived intact, much to my surprise. The courier was an ex-soldier from the 11th Bengal Lancers. He had had some adventures on the way. In spite of his papers, showing him to be a British courier, he had been arrested in Kokhand and had spent two days in gaol there. He was detained for a day in the guard-room on Chernyayevo station but he had again been allowed to proceed. Arriving at Tashkent at daybreak, he had walked out of the station without anyone questioning him. I am certain that it was the intention of the authorities to inspect this bag before delivering it to me, but the police were slack and lazy at that early hour.
The Bee-Farm
Authors: Bailey Lt.-Col. F M
Published: November 2023

We had several falls of snow about November 23rd and the following days. This made it easy to track the wild boars, but Lipski and I had no luck. Besides these wild pig there were said to be ibex in the higher hills, but I never saw any. There were also flocks of the very tame chukor.
In Troitskoe
Authors: Bailey Lt.-Col. F M
Published: November 2023

I Stayed a few days in the meteorological station, trying to make arrangements to go to Tashkent. One day Garibaldi passed through. It is an instance of the care we took to keep our business concealed from others that although we all had our midday meal together neither Edwards nor Merz knew who he was, nor that he had been in the mountains with me. We were very comfortable and well fed here, though the bread was not as good as Garibaldi’s baking. The Soviet bread was a mixture of maize and other flour and was suspected to contain a proportion of sawdust. We had the luxury of paraffin oil to burn. In our hut up the hill our only light had been pieces of cotton wool laid in a saucer of cotton oil. Later this was all anyone had in Tashkent when, as frequently happened, the electric light was cut off. One day some hunters arrived with four camels. They were part of a kind of commercial company which had been formed to kill pigs and other game for sale in the town. One of these was Colonel Yusupov with whom I had stopped on November 7th and who, of course, knew me. I was not to see him again till we met in Bokhara ten months later. We had a lot of snow here and it was very cold and windy. The temperature sank below zero, Fahrenheit. In fact it was much colder than at the bee-farm in our sheltered valley three thousand feet higher. While staying here we heard rumours of disturbances in Tashkent. The news was that the Bolsheviks had been over-thrown. I did not believe this, but my companions were on the top of the wave and already looking forward to the joys of a free normal life with its many pleasures.
Introduction
Authors: Evangelisti Silvia
Published: November 2023

For many of us, nuns are a remote reality, detached from the world. But we are all more or less familiar with the sight of convents. Convents are part of both the urban setting and the rural landscape of a number of Western countries. Some still exist, while others have been turned into museums and become part of the national heritage, or have been transformed into schools, university departments, hotels, or—less happily—into hospitals, prisons, and army quarters. We are also familiar with the inside of these places: small rooms, internal cloisters, corridors, austere and imposing refectories, all spaces that often boast an impressive range of frescos, paintings, and architectural features. We may have visited these buildings or stayed in them, or simply learnt about them in novels, specialized publications, paintings, and Wlms. This book deals with the women who lived in such places before they became what they are now. It invites the readers to go back a few centuries to discover what life was like in these communities, and to see how nuns, despite their small numbers, took on crucial social roles. Hopefully the following pages will persuade them that nuns’ lives were not at all remote from those of their contemporaries. Their history is as remote from us as any other part of the past can often be—a faraway land, inexplicable but partly accessible.
Theatre and Music
Authors: Evangelisti Silvia
Published: November 2023

[Antwerp] January 2 [1617/18] Here there has been much gaiety, for I had [the nuns] doing all sorts of nonsense; and they made sport of Monsior de Beruel and his associates, and Madame Acarie played Dionisia so that we were dying of laughter; and Angelito did Ymon, to the same eVect. Angelito played the Prioress on the feast of the Holy Innocents, and did it famously I tell you this to give you some recreation, and hope you are amused; and be sure that I love you well and fondly, my Daughter. May you be with God. When Ana de San Bartolomé wrote this letter to her friend Ana de la Ascensión, the two of them were both living in Antwerp, in the Spanish and English Carmelite convents respectively, Ana de la Ascensión being the prioress of the latter.
The Visual Arts
Authors: Evangelisti Silvia
Published: November 2023

Anyone visiting the old Franciscan church and convent of the Corpus Domini in Bologna, located in a narrow street at the heart of the old city centre, will be able to see the body of its founder, the famous visionary saint Caterina Vigri, whom we have already encountered in this book. A rather slight female Wgure, whose complexion has been darkened by the centuries, Caterina ’s body is enclosed in a small chapel next to the main church of this large architectural complex. She sits on a throne, surrounded by relics and pictorial images which furnish the chapel. The nuns jealously preserve her cruciWx, her violin, her breviary, and twenty-one small panels illustrating her life, death, and miracles, painted by Giulio Morina around 1594, more than a century after her death. Venerated as a living saint, Caterina ’s existence was a proliWc series of ecstasies, prophecies, and miracles. In Morina ’s panels, these extraordinary episodes become vivid images of the nuns in their habits, veils, and clogs, busy with their daily duties while witnessing her exceptional life.
Expansion: Nuns across the Globe
Authors: Evangelisti Silvia
Published: November 2023

The powerful image of women living in sacred cloistered spaces, dressed in their religious garb and veils, active in their spiritual and domestic duties, creative in all the arts, and sometimes endowed with mystical gifts, is now Wrmly established in our mind. There is, however, another equally powerful image which captures the nature of female monastic life: that of the founding nun. There are numerous examples of very determined nuns leaving their convents and moving to other cities, and even other countries, in order to found new communities.
The human dimension
Authors: Wolff Stefan
Published: November 2023

Among the events shaping international affairs, ethnic conflict is one that seems particularly difficult to grasp for many people in the western world. Not only does it seem irrational to kill people or force them from their homelands just because they belong to a different ethnic group, it also appears so wasteful of human and material resources in the light of the problems and challenges faced by most of the countries in which such conflicts occur, especially in the developing world.
Ethnicity and nationalism
Authors: Wolff Stefan
Published: November 2023

Let us begin our exploration of ethnicity and nationalism with two tales to illustrate how ethnic identities ‘come into being’ and con­ tribute to the formation of groups that, in some but by no means even the majority of cases, eventually engage in violent conflict with one another. Our first tale begins in Rwanda around 2000 BC. By then the first inhabitants of the territory of today’s Rwanda had arrived in the area. They were hunter-gatherers and forest dwellers. Although the oldest of Rwanda’s inhabitants, their present-day descendants, the Twa, are only a very small minority of around 1 per cent of Rwanda’s total population. About 1,000 years later, farmers began to migrate to the area. Clearing forests and cultivating the land, they quickly grew in numbers, partially displacing the original settlers.
What causes ethnic conflicts?
Authors: Wolff Stefan
Published: November 2023

The province of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea comprises two large islands—Buka and Bougainville—as well as a number of smaller groups of islands, and hosts a population of a little more than 150,000 people. It is one of the country’s most remote provinces, being located some 600 miles from Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. Although Bougainvilleans can be broadly characterized as Melanesians, unlike the rest of Papua New Guinea’s citizens they bear an unmistakable mark of distinction from them in that the colour of their skin is much darker.
Dawn of the Scientific Age: the Road to the Scaffold
Authors: Gratzer Walter
Published: November 2023

The gradual eclipse of the Galenic doctrine, the authority of which remained unquestioned for 15 centuries, was hastened by the great Andreas Vesalius, seen as the founder of modern medicine. He was born in Brussels in 1514, and came from a long line of doctors. His father had served as apothecary to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian and to his grandson, Charles V. Vesalius was admired for his deep knowledge and elegant use of the classical languages, which he absorbed in his studies at the University of Louvain (Leuven). He went on to study medicine at the Sorbonne, returning to Louvain in 1536 when war broke out between France and the Holy Roman Empire, with which he was identified. But soon, having apparently quarrelled with the medical faculty, he moved to Padua, and it was at the university there that the bulk of his great work was done.
The Savants’ Disputes
Authors: Gratzer Walter
Published: November 2023

It was probably the illustrious savant with the mellifluous name of René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur who made the first careful attempt to see, rather than merely imagine, what goes on in a stomach. Réaumur’s activities were numerous. He was born in 1683 in La Rochelle, and studied law before his interest in science prevailed. His first notable work concerned the manufacture of steel. He showed that it contains carbon, and developed a procedure for manufacture of steel from cast iron, thereby initiating the steel industry in France. He interested himself in other practical crafts, including production of glass and porcelain. He devised the alcohol thermometer and invented the temperature scale, long favoured in France, which bears his name. (The freezing-point of water was 0° and its boiling-point 90°R.)
Fads and Quacks
Authors: Gratzer Walter
Published: November 2023

There is nothing new about dietary fads. One might argue that the Galenic theories about the kinds of foods suitable for the young, the old, or the sick (Chapter 3) amounted to little else. Nor for that matter do the dietary rules prescribed by religions, which have (and had) little to do with the preservation of health. But the 19th century saw the flowering of science, and with it of pseudo-science, and this, allied to the growth of prosperity, at least in Europe and North America, diverted people’s minds from the problems of staying alive to the allure of staying alive for ever. So, expedited by an irrepressible advertising industry, the golden age of fads and quackery was ushered in, and it envelops us still. One fad that pre-dates all is vegetarianism in its extreme form.
Against an Ideology of Human Rights
Authors: Zizek Slavoj
Published: November 2023

The critique of the notion of universal human rights usually invokes two arguments. The first is based on the well-known Marxist symptomal reading which endeavours to render visible the particular content which gives the specific ‘bourgeois’ ideological spin to the notion of human rights: ‘universal human rights are effectively the right of the white male private owners to exchange freely on the market, exploit workers and women, as well as exert political domination …’ Tendentially, at least, this approach considers the hidden ‘pathological’ spin as constitutive of the very form of the Universal.
Border Crossings
Authors: Phillips Caryl
Published: November 2023

And then, of course, it happens much as it always happens. The driver turns to me and says, ‘Mr Caryl, please you can maybe help me?’ I wait for a beat and then he continues. ‘I have a form for the visa lottery. I think it is for 2–0–0–5 but I don’t know how to fill it. I would like to go out of this place.’ Awuje has been driving me for four days now, and I had half- expected this moment from the beginning. But he certainly chose his location well. We are in the small town of Elmina on the West Coast of Africa. The site of one of the largest and most impressive of the slave forts, those troubling edifices from whose dungeons millions of Africans were shipped in conditions of unspeakable misery, across the broad expanse of the Atlantic Ocean and deposited into the new American world.
chapter V
Authors: Burnaby Frederick
Published: November 2023

THE shades of evening were falling fast as we rode through the town. Presently, leaving behind the dirty lanes and filthy streets, the main features of Scutari, we emerged upon the open country. The road was in a dreadful state, at least a foot of black mud was piled on the strata below. In order the better to avoid the dirt we rode along a raised path which overhung the highway, Osman and Radford each leading a baggage-horse. In about half an hour we arrived at a place where the highway ascended rapidly for a few hundred yards. The footpath rose yet more abruptly, and here and there large sections of it had fallen into the road below. We were passing by the cemetery at Scutari. Thousands of grave-stones which mark the resting-place of departed Turks lay scattered here and there. A deep silence reigned around, and the place appeared a desert, tenanted only by the dead. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me; a sound of horse’s hoofs striking violently against some hard substance. I looked round. The first thing which met my gaze was the horse Obadiah, the source of all our previous difficulties, with his pack-saddle under the girth. In the hurry of resaddling him at Scutari the yarn breastplate and crupper had not been well adjusted, nor had they been properly buckled. The saddle had turned, and Obadiah was amusing himself by a second time kicking at my cartridge-boxes, gun-case, and tins of tea and sugar. Clash went his iron hoof against one of the cases, away flew the white sugar into the black mud. A bang resounded from the gun-case, and that went spinning in another direction. Fortunately the boxes of cartridges had
chapter XII
Authors: Burnaby Frederick
Published: November 2023

THE Pacha’s carriage was a funny-looking old vehicle. It gave me the idea of a broken-down four-wheeler, which had been taken to pieces and converted into an Irish car. There were no springs. My bones were nearly dislocated as we drove down the main street, to the Consul’s house.

The coachman turned out to be not an Englishman, but an Irishman. He had lost all signs of the native drollery. Four years spent in Turkey seemed to have taken the life out of him. He had been sent home to Ireland during the previous summer, to buy some carriagehorses for his master. On returning with his purchases, a storm arose in the Bay of Biscay. The captain of the vessel had been obliged to order the crew to throw the horses overboard. This, and the absence of all female society, had weighed upon Paddy’s mind. He only brightened up for one moment when the Consul, giving him a glass of whisky, desired him to drink it in honour of Ould Ireland and of Christmas Day. For it was Christmas Day in Angora, and the Consul’s good wife was busily engaged in all the mysteries of the cuisine.
The voyage out
Authors: Robinson Jane
Published: November 2023

It was so boring. That is the overriding memory of one group of emigrant diarists of the voyage out from Britain. Weeks, months, sometimes more than half a year, in the same small space with the same small people and the same small amusements day after day. This group only includes those who could afford the luxury of tedium, however. They were emigrant ladies, rather than women, who were used to better things, and whose principal discomforts on board ship involved the general lack of high-calibre company.
A Ride to Khiva
Authors: Burnaby Frederick
Published: November 2023

A Ride to Khiva recounts Captain Burnaby's strictly unofficial mission in 1875 to investigate the motives behind Russia's exclusion of foreigners from Central Asia. Forced to travel in winter, he journeyed through blizzards and snowdrifts to reach the mysterious caravan city of Khiva, his adventures extending from surviving the Cossack's treatment for frostbite to taking tea with the Khan. Burnaby's account of his `one-man Great Game mission' was hugely successful, reprinting eleven times in its first year of publication, and A Ride to Khiva continues to make gripping reading today. Now reissued with a new introduction by the highly acclaimed author, Peter Hopkirk.
Luigi Federzoni Fascism as the VICtory of the New Italy
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: November 2023

In the face of the profound crisis of conscience and loss of direction which is afflicting our Country at this time, Nationalism must take its responsibilities seriously. Up to now all Nationalism has had a history of being isolated, rejected, derided, and disregarded. It was treated like a prophet simply ignored as a nuisance when it urged the Italians to prepare their weapons and spirits for the inevitable ordeal of a war, a war which most believed was the morbid dream of perverse imaginations. Ignored when it reminded the nation ofits historical tasks to complete the integration of its territory and pursue political expansion within a more just hierarchy of power; when it provided sound critical foundations for the struggle against democratic reformism, humanitarian anti-militarism, universalism, and Masonic anticlericalism.
Filippo t. marinetti, A Futurist Portrait of the New Prime Minister of Italy
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: November 2023

Vittorio Veneto’9 and the coming to power of Fascism represent the realization of the minimum Futurist programme (which has a maximum programme yet to be achieved) launched fourteen years ago by a group of daring young men who put forward convincing arguments to indict the whole nation, brought low by a senility and mediocrity which made it afraid of the foreigner.
Italian fasci abroad, Fascist Mysticism
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: November 2023

This anonymous article, published in a magazine written for consumption by Fasci set up by expatriates outside Italy, illustrates a major aspect of Fascist and fascist thought and exhibits anunmistakable symptom of its charismatic style of politics, namely the appropriation of religious language and mystical imagery to shroud the regime’s institutions and actions in a pseudo-spirituality. The resulting travesty is particularly grotesque in this case
Benito mussolini, ,The Strength in Numbers
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: November 2023

The way the book demonstrates that a drop in birth-rates initially affects the power which peoples exercise and eventually leads to their death is irrefutable. It even gives a precise overview of the various phases of this process of disease and death, and the author gives them names which sum up everything: urbanization or metropolitanism.
Mino maccari, The Anti-Modemist Aesthetic of Strapaese
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: November 2023

We have nodesire to ·abolish’ modernity; we are not nostalgic for any past century; it is just that we would like to see a modernity which is more Italian than American or German, and our century more in harmony with the traditional Italian spirit, with customs, with a mentality, with habits which are peculiar to our people and rooted in generations ofltalians.
Benito mussolini, The Greatest Massacre of All Time: Democracy
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: November 2023

At the meeting of Verona the Fascist Republican Party set out its founding principles. If the events of the war have delayed the application of some of them, this does not mean they are changed. They remain. To those who still ask ·what do you want?’ we answer with three words which sum up our programme. They are these: Italy, Republic, socialization.
Benito mussolini, What Might have Been: Axis Europe
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: November 2023

In this inte1view, given eight days before he was shot by partisans, mussolini evokes his grandiose vision of what an axis victory would have achieved. As the hegemonic nation in the south of a europe divided into two vast geopolitical spheres, italy would finally have gained the wealth and power so far denied it by the old plutocracies. Noteworthy are his admission that even in these conditions it would have then taken italy a hundred years of
Julius Langbehn, The Rebirth Of German Genius
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: November 2023

In particular, art and science must settle their differences to decide which of them is to exert dominion over German spiritual life; the contest must be fought out with honour; and the German people will judge its outcome. Its word decides.