From medicine to psychotherapy: the placebo effect

If placebos have been squeezed out of medicine to the point where their official place in in clinical trials designed to identify their own confounding effect, the placebo effect nevertheless thrives in psychotherapy. Not only does psychotherapy dispose of placebo effects that are less available to medicine as it becomes increasingly technological and preoccupied with body parts, but factors of the sort inhibiting the use of placebos in medicine have no equivalent in psychology. Medicine today is disturbed by the placebo effect in a way psychotherapy is not. Psychotherapy does not have to grapple with such a disconcerting paradox as successful sham surgery, and unlike those physicians who once pretended to treat the patient's body while actually attempting to treat the mind, the psychotherapist can treat the mind in all frankness. Perhaps it is because psychotherapy is less burdened by doubts about the placebo effect that it was able to come to its aid when it was orphaned by medicine. It is vain to expect something with so long a history as the placebo effect to disappear from the practices of healing.     

A 4,000-year-old shaman’s stone cache at Casita de Piedra, western Panama

During new excavations at the preceramic rockshelter of Casita de Piedra in western Panama, a cache of 12 unusual stones was recovered near the back wall, dating to between 4800 and 4000 cal bp. The stones include quartz, pyrite, a chalcedony vein nodule, a bladed quartz and jarosite aggregate and a human-modified dacite cylinder. Based on the unusual lithic types and the context of the cache, we suggest that these stones once belonged to a ritual specialist, such as a healer or shaman. Special stones are frequently mentioned as being an important component of a shaman’s ritual paraphernalia in ethnographic records of various historic Native American groups throughout Central and South America, including the Bribri and Cabécar of southeastern Costa Rica and western Panama (formerly known as the ‘Talamanca’). The cache of stones recovered at Casita de Piedra may represent the earliest material evidence in Central America of shamanistic practice.     

The application of quicklook NOAA AVHRR satellite imagery in Northern Scandinavia for synoptic weather analyses

The suitability of imagery from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on the NOAA series of satellites for the synoptic classification of circulation trends in the European Arctic is assessed with reference to data from three climate stations. Simplified synoptic cyclonic classifications are derived from the satellite imagery and tested against climate data. Five classes of frontal system are derived from the tracking of systems over the UK‐Scandinavia‐Baltic region using 1460 satellite images over two years. An index based on the qualitative interpretation of satellite imagery was related to the reference data. The tracking of the systems in the imagery also facilitates a comparison of travel times across the region and the frequency of occurrence. Frontal systems that remain largely stationary over the Baltic were found to correlate best with precipitation at the reference sites. The paper thus investigates the use of AVHRR imagery for the categorisation of weather patterns towards deriving quantitative relationships between circulation classes and weather elements (such as temperature and precipitation) where, for example, climate data are sparse or where skills required for the interpretation of Height Potential Fields are lacking.     

Glasgow university library Sölch collection : A note

EUROPE

The Soils around Jedburgh and Morebattle. By John W. Muir. 9 ¾×6 ¾. Pp. 878. 2 maps. 20 tables. 11 diagrams. 32 plates. 8 colour plates. Edinburgh : H.M.S.O., 1956. 30s.

The British Moorlands : A problem in land utilisation. By John Fraser Hart. 8 ½×5 ½. Pp. viii+98. 25 figures. University of Georgia Monograph, No. 2. Athens (U.S.A.) : Georgia University Press, 1955. $2.00.

European Refugees : A Study in Forced Population Movement. By Malcolm J. Proudfoot. 5 ½×8 ½. Pp. vi+542. 49 tables. 2 maps. London: Faber &; Faber Ltd, 1957. 52s 6d.

East Norway and its Frontiers. By Frank Noel Stagg. 8 ¾×5 ¾. Pp.285. 15 plates. 6 maps. London : Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1956. 18s.

La Yougoslavie : Aperçu Géographique. By B. Z. Milojevic. Translated by Mila Dordlvic. 9 ¼×6 ½. Pp. xi+89. I folded end map and numerous figures and plates. Beograd : La Commission pour les relations culturelles avec l'étranger, 1956.

ASIA

The Pakistani Way of Life. By I. H. Qureshi. 8 ¾×5 ¾. Pp. xi+81. 23 plates. London : William Heinemann Ltd, 1955. 12s 6d.

Indian Climatology. By S. B. Chattergee. 9 ½×6 ¼. Pp. 417. 36 tables. 80 diagrams. Calcutta : Commercial Printers, 1955. 20s.

Asia : Sketch Map and Exercise Books for upper forms. Book VII. By Thomas Pickles. 7 ¼×9 ¾. Pp.48. London : John Murray Ltd, 1956. 3s.

AMERICA

The Industrial Structure of American Cities : A geographic study of urban economy in the United States. By Gunnar Alexandersson. 10×7 ½. Pp. 134. 40 figs. 13 maps. London : Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1956. 40s.

CARTOGRAPHY

Topographical Maps and Photographic Interpretation. By P. T. Silley. 9 ½×6 ½. Pp. vii+76. 8 maps with 8 plates. 3 plates. 53 figs. London: George Philip and Son Ltd, 1955. 10s 6d.

Map and Photo Reading. By T. W. Birch. 10×7 ½. Pp.64. 24 maps and photos. London: Edward Arnold and Co., 1956. 16s.

Mapping the World. By Erwin Raisz. 6 ½×9 ½. Pp. 112. 72 figs and 7 plates. London : Abelard‐Schuman, 1956. 12s 6d.

GEOLOGY AND GEOMORPHOLOGY

Introduction to Physical Geology. By Chester R. Longwell and R. Foster Flint. 9 ¼×6 ½. Pp.vii+432. Plates and figs. 2 end paper maps. London: Chapman and Hall Ltd, 1955. 40s.

Geology and Ourselves. By F. H. Edmunds. 9 ¼×6 ½. Pp. 256. 12 plates. 15 figs. London : Hutchison's Scientific and Technical Publications, 1955. 21s.

Der Bodenfrost als Morphologischer Faktor. By Josef Schmid. 9 ½×7 ½. Pp. viii+144. 27 figs. 5 plates. Heidelberg : Dr Alfred Huthig Verlag, 1955.

Vocabulaire Franco‐anglo‐allemande de Geomorphologie. By Henri Baulig. 9 ½×6 ¼. Pp. xxv+230. Publications de la Faculte des lettres de l'Université de Strasbourg. Fasc. 130. Paris: Société d'edition: Les Belles Lettres, 1956. 1,200 fr.

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

World Economic Geography. By Earl B. Shaw. 8 ¾×6 ½. Pp. vii+582. Maps, diagrams and plates. New York : John Wiley and Sons Inc. London : Chapman and Hall Ltd, 1955. 52s.

Chisholm's Handbook of Commercial Geography. Re‐written by L. Dudley Stamp and S. Carter Gilmour. 15th Edition. 8 ¾×6. Pp. viii+915. 30 maps and diagrams. London : Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd, 1956. 70s.

La Pêche maritime el le Pêcheur en Mer. By Auguste Dupouy. 6 ½×4 ¼. Pp. 216. [Collection Armand Colin, No. 300.] Paris : Librairie Armand Colin, 1955. 250 fr.

GENERAL

A Concise Glossary of Geographical Terms. By J. C. Swayne. 6 ¼×4. Pp. 164. London : George Philip and Son Ltd, 1956. 6s 6d.

Worlds Beyond the Horizon. By Joachim G. Leithauser. Transl. by Hugh Merrick. 9 ½×6. Pp. 371. 46 plates+frontispiece. London : Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1956. 40s.

A Guide to Earth History. By Richard Carrington. 8 ½×5 ½. Pp. xvi+240. 44 figs. 16 plates, including coloured frontispiece, by Maurice Wilson. London : Chatto and Windus Ltd, 1956. 21s.

Puzzle of the Past. By Ronald Jessup. 12 ¾×9 ¾. Pp.68. Illustrations (colour/black and white). London : Rathbone Books, 1956. 15s.

ATLASES AND MAPS

The Oxford Home Atlas of the World. By Geoffrey Cumberlege. 10×7 ¾. Pp. viii+104+xxxi. London: Oxford University Press, 1955. 15s.

Map of Roman Britain : 16 miles to one inch. Third Edition. Text 11×8 ¼. Pp.43. 4 maps+Map of Roman Britain. Chessington : Ordnance Survey, 1956. 7s 6d.

Penguin Atlas. Edited by J. S. Keats. 8×5 ¾. Pp. xv+156. 80 colour maps. Harmondsworth : Penguin Books Ltd, 1956. 10s.

Oxford Regional Economic Atlas of the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. Oxford : Clarendon Press. London : Cumberlege, 1956. 42.s.     

Working with Tradition: Towards a Partnership Model of Fieldwork

This paper explores the interaction between fieldworker and “tradition bearer” over an extended period of time, in the context of an ethnographic study of singing traditions in the southern Pennines of England. Using examples, it examines the negative as well as the positive aspects of the exchange, with particular emphasis on mutuality and reciprocity. It charts the development of key relationships and the ways in which they have come to maturity and achieved equilibrium. Careful thought is given to the role of the fieldworker in respect of active/passive, interventionist/non-interventionist stances. Aspects of performance, commercialisation, networking, promotion, and media relations are discussed. Following a consideration of ethical and moral issues, including exploitation and advocacy, the paper suggests a working model of partnership as a way forward for future productive field-based research into traditional expressive arts.     

Own-child estimates of U.S. white fertility, 1886–99

Abstract

The collapse of empires is exceedingly difficult to understand. The author examined the distribution of imperial lifetimes using a data set that spans more than three millennia and found that it conforms to a memoryless exponential distribution in which the rate of collapse of an empire is independent of its age. Comparing this distribution to similar lifetime distributions of other complex systems—specifically, biological species and corporate firms—the author explores the reasons behind their lifetime distributions and how this approach can yield insights into empires.