Search results for "plague"
showing 7 items of 47 documents
Biedermeierowskie świadectwo zarazy - "Granit" Adalberta Stiftera
2021
The following article is an introduction to the Adalbert Stifter’s short story entitled Granite in Polish translation. The article explains the political and cultural origin of the work, its poetical form, its ethical and philosophical meaning. The Granite, included in the short story collection (Colorful Stones, 1853) is considered to be an important declaration of Biedermeier movement in Austria, its aesthetic as well as its ethic tradition, manifest of which was so-called „Gentle Law” (das sanfte Gesetz), i.e. an ordered existence harmony and an unspectacular, daily practising the humanism in the personal, country and social life. In Stifter’s piece it concerns also an extraordinary case…
From Myth to Science. A Short Survey on Heredity and Its Causes in Ancient Greece
2017
In this contribution, I deal with the notion of “cause” concerning hereditary diseases in ancient Greece. A notion of hereditary disease is already foreshadowed in myths, where guilt is often depicted as a pathologic contamination (miasma) affecting both the individual and his offspring (ghenos). The notion of miasma especially concerns diseases whose signs are not visible: in such cases, either gods or maleficent daemons were believed to harass human beings and inflict them punishments that took the shape of diseases. Contamination mainly spreads itself by means of blood-shedding: the slaughter of kinsmen (especially the murder of one’s parents) was widely considered as a main cause of man…
Paper contagions
2022
Over the weeks of forced self-confinement imposed on us by the pandemic, many of us discovered a sort of thematic library, one which this exceptional and dramatic event seems to have generated by itself: novels, stories, and creative writing more generally that tell of epidemics and quarantines, contagions and pandemics.
Modeling the epidemiological history of plague in Central Asia: Palaeoclimatic forcing on a disease system over the past millennium
2010
Abstract Background Human cases of plague (Yersinia pestis) infection originate, ultimately, in the bacterium's wildlife host populations. The epidemiological dynamics of the wildlife reservoir therefore determine the abundance, distribution and evolution of the pathogen, which in turn shape the frequency, distribution and virulence of human cases. Earlier studies have shown clear evidence of climatic forcing on contemporary plague abundance in rodents and humans. Results We find that high-resolution palaeoclimatic indices correlate with plague prevalence and population density in a major plague host species, the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus), over 1949-1995. Climate-driven models trained…
Los orígenes de los estudios sobre la salud pública en la España renacentista
2006
José María López Piñero (Jose.M.Lopez-Pinero@uv.es) Se sintetizan muy brevemente los resultados de las investigaciones históricas que el autor inició hace más de cuatro décadas sobre los orígenes de los estudios en torno a la salud pública en la España renacentista. Sucesivamente se considera la función desempeñada por el poder real, desde la perspectiva de los orígenes del Estado moderno, la influencia del ambientalismo hipocrático, el mantenimiento para privilegiados de la higiene a nivel individual, los inicios de la higiene colectiva en relación con las epidemias de peste y las aportaciones sobre la asistencia médica condicionadas por el cambio de valores acerca de la pobreza.
SALUTE PUBBLICA E GOVERNO DELL’EMERGENZA: LA PESTE DEL 1575 A PALERMO/PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY: PALERMO AND THE PLAGUE OF 1575
2016
Il saggio esamina il contributo della Sicilia all'elaborazione di procedure e strategie di controllo della peste nel contesto del XVI secolo, in particolare in occasione dell’ondata che colpì Palermo nel 1575, quando le autorità municipali assunsero importanti provvedimenti e organizzarono un efficace apparato di salute pubblica per governare l’emergenza, sotto la guida del celebre medico Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia. La ricerca consente di ripensare l’opinione generalmente diffusa di un ritardo del Regno di Sicilia rispetto alle aree la cui organizzazione sanitaria è considerata tra le più avanzate, come quelle dell'Italia centro-settentrionale. The essay focuses on Sicily’s contribution to …
Current situation and historical evolution of the study and research of blackflies (Diptera: Simuliidae) in Spain. A tale of bleeding bites
2019
The black flies are nematocerous dipterans belonging to the Simuliidae family. This group of insects has become highly relevant in certain regions of the country since 1995. These insects, considered typical in natural lotic environments of clean fresh water, have colonized water channels of very different dimensions. They are currently present in most of the water courses around the country, as demonstrated in the Valencian Autonomous Region, where they can be found in headwaters, middle stretches and river mouths, as well as in irrigation systems with greater or lesser water permanence, such as irrigation reservoirs, channels and ditches. Since 2017 different regions of the country have i…