Death of a president and his assassin--errors in their diagnosis and autopsies

On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot President James Abram Garfield in the right flank. The President died because of infection produced by the unsterile fingers and probes repeatedly inserted into the wound. The major complaint of the wounded President was intractable pain in his legs and feet. This symptom failed to alert the doctors to the possibility of vertebral and spinal cord injury. Garfield died with sepsis after 80 days of intense national concern, and for the patient there was psychological, physical, and nutritional deprivation. His autopsy revealed the bullet was not in the pelvis as his doctors had expected, but adjacent to the first lumbar vertebra it had shattered. The trial and execution of Guiteau split the medical community into those that considered him insane and those who felt execution was justified. Guiteau was delusional and his brain revealed chronic inflammation and histological features suggestive of syphilis. At the time, and since, the propriety of the execution has been questioned.     

古罗马之前的意大利

古代意大利民族早在公元前4世纪罗马人统治意大利前,就已在这块土地上蓬勃发展,他们包括了阿普利亚人,翁布里亚人、萨漠奈人等。这些文化各有自己的语言。艺术、风欲和武器,例如图中（上）这面公元前8世纪的青铜制护心甲、铜甲上装饰着神话中的野兽。[编者按]     

二十世纪的历史科学——国际背景评述(续三)

第二部分 从历史社会学到“语言学的转向”。晚近二十年间的历史理论与历史编纂学 1.回到叙述的艺术 1979年Past and Present[《过去与现在》]杂志上发表了劳伦斯·斯通的文章《回到叙述的艺术。对一种新的旧历史编纂学的思考》这份杂志     

动物睡眠

生存不易,哺乳动物需要靠睡眠来熬过艰难时世。但为什么花粟鼠每天要酣睡15个小时。长颈鹿却只要4．5个小时呢？加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校的睡眠研究专家杰尔姆·西格尔认为,原因可能在于不同的动物已经进化出了保证精力充沛和自身安全的不同方式。     

Bernstein's long path to membrane theory: radical change and conservation in nineteenth-century German electrophysiology

This article aims at illustrating the historical circumstances that led Julius Bernstein in 1902 to formulate a membrane theory on resting current in muscle and nerve fibers. It was a truly paradigm shift in research into bioelectrical phenomena, if qualified by the observation that, besides Bernstein, many other electrophysiologists between 1890 and 1902 borrowed ideas from the recent ionistic approach in the physical-chemistry domain. But Bernstein's subjective perception of that paradigm shift was that it constituted a mere reinterpretation of the so-called preexistence theory advanced by his teacher Emil du Bois-Reymond in the first half of the nineteenth century.     

Ready, willing, and able to divorce: an economic and cultural history of divorce in twentieth-century Sweden

This study outlines a long history of divorce in Sweden, recognizing the importance of considering both economic and cultural factors in the analysis of marital dissolution. Following Ansley Coale, the authors examine how a framework of multiple theoretical constructs, in interaction, can be applied to the development toward mass divorce. Applying a long historical perspective, the authors argue that an analysis of gendered aspects of the interaction between culture and economics is crucial for the understanding of the rise of mass divorce. The empirical analysis finds support for a marked decrease in legal and cultural obstacles to divorce already during the first decades of the twentieth century. However, economic structures remained a severe obstacle that prohibited significant increases in divorce rate prior to World War II. It was only during the 1940s and 1960s, when cultural change was complemented by marked decreases in economic interdependence between spouses, that the divorce rate exhibited significant increases. The authors find that there are advantages to looking at the development of divorce as a history in which multiple empirical factors are examined in conjunction, recognizing that these factors played different roles during different time periods.     

Biodiversity for billionaires: capitalism, conservation and the role of philanthropy in saving/selling nature

This article examines the role of philanthropy in conservation as a way of exploring how and why conservation might be becoming more neoliberal. It describes how conservation philanthropy supports capitalism both discursively and in more practical ways. Philanthropy is examined in terms of the two forces considered to be driving the neoliberalization of conservation — the need for capitalism to find new ways of making money, and the desire of conservationists to engage with capitalism as the best way of getting things done. It demonstrates how philanthropy can speak to both of these logics simultaneously, particularly through emerging ideas of philanthrocapitalism, which may be enhancing the neoliberalization of both philanthropy and conservation.     

An old hypothesis and new tools: Alfred Fessard's approach to the problem of consciousness

In 1954, a symposium was held in Canada on "Brain Mechanisms and Consciousness." It was a time for the promotion of international and interdisciplinary scientific cooperation, of new technological expectation, and of speculating about complex human behavior. Alfred Fessard's lecture on "Mechanisms of Nervous Integration and Conscious Experience" was one of the outstanding presentations, rich in critical analysis of the then available experimental data and in working hypothesis proposals. Reading the concept expressed by Fessard, it was found that several of his ideas had anticipated data obtained in modern research with new technologies.