Magendie and the chemists: the earliest chemical analyses of the cerebrospinal fluid

Having described the spinal fluid, Fran?ois Magendie (1783-1855) called upon a number of chemists in Paris to analyze the material, in the effort to decide if it was a special secretion of the nervous system or simply a filtrate of the blood. J.L. Lassaigne (1800-1859) and J.P. Couerbe (1805-1867) responded. Their results, and those of some earlier investigators, are described. In the ensuing years of the nineteenth century, other investigators similarly conducted analyses of spinal fluid, but these were usually of single constituents in poorly defined diagnostic conditions. In 1909-1912, William Mestrezat (1883-1928) took advantage of the recently introduced technique of lumbar puncture, which by now had become hospital routine, and introduced the modern era of systematic analysis of many components of the spinal fluid, correlated with specific disease states.     

The role of women in payment for environmental services programs in Osa,Costa Rica

Costa Rica was the first country in the world to implement a nation-wide payment for environmental services (a.k.a. ‘payment for ecosystem services’), or PES, system in 1996. This research investigates the role of women in PES programs in Costa Rica’s Osa peninsula in response to the current dearth of such gendered research on this topic. Osa, one of the least-developed regions of the country, is still heavily forested and replete with properties under PES contracts which are aimed at forest conservation. Extended, structured interviews of 80 landowners in Osa (40 women and 40 men) culled both quantitative and qualitative information about PES participation, environmental perceptions, and both economic and conservation goals. Salient results were, first, that women see current levels of PES funding as more helpful and useful than do men. Second, women much more often perceive themselves as the sole entity responsible for protecting the environment. Third, women more commonly than men listed ‘helping the environment and animals’ as a personal benefit of their PES participation, while men more commonly focused on financial rewards. Last, according to the study herein, women in PES households currently display less decision-making power than those in non-PES households. This dynamic is analyzed through the lens of patriarchal hierarchies as well as women’s mitigation of those hierarchies through the deployment of ideology and agency. Based on these general findings, the researcher recommends that FONAFIFO, the government agency in charge of PES payments, take specific steps to increase PES funding to female-headed households.     

Liberal internationalism revisited: Grotius,Vattel, and the International order of states1

This essay offers a philosophical critique of modern accounts of liberal internationalism in light of two early modern European formulations of international order developed by Hugo Grotius and Emmerich de Vattel. The major problem in theories of international relations has been the straightforward extension of principles of domestic order to relations between states to achieve a peaceful co-existence. Conventional theories see “international order” in terms either of a hierarchical order in which states pursue a common interest and interact strategically, or an anarchical order in which common purposes are lacking and warfare is paramount. Elements of both views are found in Grotius and Vattel and this allows us to understand the failure of modern accounts of liberal internationalism in order to grasp the global transformation of power between states that is underway at present.