Epilepsia Verminosa

Epilepsy is a major public health threat in the developing world, with much higher prevalence and incidence rates than those observed in developed countries. At present, one of the most common causes for epilepsy worldwide is the parasitic worm, Taenia solium, and the associated neurocysticercosis (NCC) that may often result from this infestation. Worm infestation was already recognized as a cause of epilepsy by the middle of the 18th century. Helminths and their effects on health were a daily medical concern in the 18th and 19th centuries--with prevailing views ranging from the beneficial effects of the presence of adult worms in the gut, to considering them as culprits for a wide variety of diseases. A number of cases followed longitudinally by various nineteenth-century French physicians showed that there was good reason to believe that the verminous influence on seizures was real, as the expulsion of the T. solium often coincided with a notable amelioration of symptoms. Several theories were proposed to account for how the worms could lead to Epilepsia nervosa, including notions of competition for nutritional resources between the host and the parasite, and irritation of the medulla and of peripheral nerve endings predisposing to epileptiform episodes. Recently, after almost a century of quiet, interest in the neurological effects of helminths has been rekindled, due in part to the growing number of cases in the United States with NCC-related neurological disorders. In this article, we review the history of our understanding of the relationship between seizure disorders and parasitic worms, and we relate this history to contemporary epidemiologic and public health issues in developing countries.     

Imagining female citizenship in the "New Spain": gendering the democratic transition, 1975-1978

This article analyses the contestation over female citizenship in Spain's transition to democracy in the mid 1970s. It posits that the transition opened up a discursive space for the construction of a new concept of female citizenship, which was filled with competing images of female citizens, from the Francoist housewife to the consumer activist to the feminist. Through a close reading of the democratic press, the article explores the contradictions and tensions involved in imagining a new female citizen for a democratic Spain. With a focus on the representation of feminist citizenship, the article argues that the central tension surrounding female citizenship was the contradiction between new modes of female participation, new sets of rights and a framework of meaning which could not make sense of these changes. As a result, there was no comfortable place for the female citizen in the emerging master narrative of the transition.     

ARCHAEOMETRIC INVESTIGATIONS OF SGRAFFITO CERAMIC TILES (FIFTEENTH‐SIXTEENTH CENTURIES) RECOVERED FROM EXCAVATIONS IN UDINE (NORTH‐EAST ITALY)*

Most of the Renaissance sgraffito tiles excavated in Udine (Italy) constitute a homogeous group, the tile body having a CaO/MgO molar ratio ?= 3:2. They were produced using a dolomite‐ and calcite‐containing clay fired at 900–950°C. A small group of samples, with a lower firing temperature and a CaO/MgO ratio ?= 2:3, was probably produced in a different factory. Slip and transparent glaze, characterized by optical microscopy and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry, are an illite‐rich clay and a lead silicate, respectively.     

MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY THICKNESS CORRECTIONS FOR SMALL ARTEFACTS AND COMMENTS ON THE EFFECTS OF‘BACKGROUND’MATERIALS*

Correction factors for magnetic susceptibility measurements on thin (<c. 50 mm thick > artefacts have been determined experimentally for a KT‐5 Exploranium G S. instrument using prepared blocks of Whin Sill dolerite. The cor rection factor is large (> 1.4) for samples less than 10mm thick, and reduces to 1 01 for samples of 50mm thickness. Measurements on thin samples can also be affected by the backing or substrate material on which they are measured. ‘Background’material, for example, soil or plaster, can contribute significantly to recorded measurements on artefacts, particularly for thin artefacts with low susceptibilities     

An Application of Canonical Correlation Analysis in Regional Science: TheInterrelationships Between Transport and Development in China's Zhujiang Delta

Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) has the ability to deal with two sets of multivariate variables simultaneously and to produce both structural and spatial meanings. In view of the valuable insights to be gained, in this paper I examine the potential applications of CCA in regional science by describing its algorithm in a regional or spatial context. Next, I apply CCA to explore the mutually interdependent relationship between transport and development inChina's Zhujiang Delta. The results highlight the utility of CCA in revealing the structural and spatial patterns of two dominant and four subdominant transport-development relationships in this growing region of China.     

The Diverging Geographies of Social and Business Interaction Patterns: a Case Study of Rural South Australia

Major changes in personal mobility and in country town service provision have taken place in rural South Australia in the period 1968–69 to 1992–93. The later part of this period was one of major rural recession across Australia as a whole. The impact of this recession is considered by investigating changes in three different geographies of rural South Australians. These are their affective identification with place, their local social interaction and their commercial service consumption. There has been a shift of both commercial and social activity up through the hierarchy of settlement, but this is much more pronounced in the case of commercial activity. These differential rates of change are weakening the once mutually reinforcing links between community self‐identification, social interaction and trading patterns. The full impact of the rural crisis commencing in 1982–83 on social and commercial spatial patterns is unlikely to have been achieved by 1992–93, and adjustment is likely to continue.     

Approaches to violent death: a case study from early medieval Cambridge

This paper examines one of a number of weapon‐injury victims from the cemetery at Church End in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge (Hertfordshire Archaeological Trust/Archaeological Solutions site HAT358), which was in use from the late Anglo‐Saxon period until after the Norman Conquest. Drawing on precedents set by forensic studies, palaeopathology and more traditional spatial cemetery analysis, assertions are made about the nature of the attack and its context. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.