A radiocarbon chronology for Sāmoan prehistory

The corpus of radiocarbon dates for Sāmoan archaeology has grown exponentially since the pioneering work of Green and Davidson in the 1960s, enabling us to re-analyze the archipelago's cultural chronology. A reliable and valid radiocarbon chronology forms the basis for describing and explaining cultural variability and change in the central Pacific. Towards that end, in this paper we compile the available radiocarbon dates from published and unpublished (“grey literature”) sources. We critically evaluate 236 radiocarbon dates following a chronometric hygiene protocol to identify the most secure and reliable age estimates. We accept 147 dates (62.3%) as a means of addressing two significant issues for Sāmoan prehistory: (1) the chronology of settlement and human expansion across the archipelago pre-2000 cal BP, which relates to issues of Lapita colonization, and the effect of island geomorphology on settlement; and (2) analysis of the so-called “Dark Ages” (ca. 1500–1000 cal BP), a period relevant to issues of social complexity and East Polynesian settlement. Our research highlights the need for a rigorous sampling protocol for radiocarbon dating.     

Neurasthenia at Mengo Hospital,Uganda: A Case Study in Psychiatry and a Diagnosis, 1906–50

This article uses a case-study approach to examine the complex and contradictory nature of diagnoses like neurasthenia in colonial Africa. Drawing on the case notes of European and African patients diagnosed with neurasthenia at the Church Missionary Society's Mengo Hospital, Uganda, it argues that in practice, and outside the colonial asylum in particular, ideas about race and mental illness were more nuanced than histories of psychiatry and empire might imply. At Mengo, the tales of pain and suffering recorded by the doctors remind us that there is more to the history of neurasthenia than colonial anxieties and socio-political control. This was a diagnosis that was negotiated in hospital examination rooms as much as in medical journals. Significantly, it was also a diagnosis that was not always reserved exclusively for white colonisers—at Mengo Hospital from the early 1900s neurasthenia was diagnosed in African patients too. It became part of a wider discussion about detribalisation, in which a person's social environment was as important as race.     

The eponymous legacy of Sir William Richard Gowers (1845–1915): A revealing letter

The eponymous legacy of Sir William Richard Gowers (1845–1915) was the subject of a comprehensive appraisal first written for this journal late last year. Since the completion of that work, a revealing February 1903 letter has come to light recording, amongst other things, Gowers’ firsthand and somewhat private opinions concerning some of his own eponymous contributions to medicine. This addendum to the primary author’s original article will review and contextualize this very interesting find as it relates to Gowers’ eponymous legacy. Gowers’ “ataxic paraplegia” (referred to as “Gowers’ disease” in the letter) and “syringal hemorrhage” are specially considered, and his broader neological contributions are also briefly addressed. For completion, a number of other previously unnoticed eponyms are added to the already impressive list of medical entities named in Gowers’ honor, and a more complete collection of eponyms found in Gowers’ Manual are tabulated for consideration.     

Southwestern prehistory: Developing non‐gradualist perspectives

Berry, Michael S. Time, Space, and Transition in Anasazi Prehistory. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1982. xi + 147 pp. including figures, tables, bibliography, index, appendix. $20.00 cloth.     

A Physiologist’s War: Captain T. Graham Brown RAMC (1915–1919)

During the five years before the outbreak of the First World War, Thomas Graham Brown (1882–1965) conducted research into the control of locomotion that gained him a deserved and long-lasting reputation as a neuroscientist and, in 1927, was recognized by election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. In 1915, with the First World War raging, he agonized about continuing his research or joining the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Told by his father to seek a commission, he served two and half years in Macedonia with the British Salonika Force. Whilst in Greece, he kept a daily diary. The entries from June 1916 to May 1917 are extant. They are unpublished and provide the background to the narrative to follow. Casualties with traumatic injury to the brain and spinal cord afforded him the opportunity to carry out careful observations, particularly concerning sensory localization, which resulted in novel findings and his observations on shell shock led to him being called as an expert witness to the national inquiry into the nature and treatment of the condition. In 1920, Graham Brown was appointed to the Chair of Physiology in Cardiff, which he held until 1947.