Fundamental restoration of the Civic Hospital in Split (1866-1872)

The aim of this study was to investigate the progress of the fundamental restoration and enlargement of the Civic Hospital in Split between 1866 and 1872 on the basis of the previously unexplored materials, such as Shorthand reports of the Dalmatian Parliament in Zadar kept in the Split University Library, and the archival documents about the completion of this renewal preserved in the State Archives in Zadar. The right author of the restoration project and the name of the building manager were found. The data of the renewal beginning were corrected. The findings showed that the renewal of the Civic Hospital in Split started after the decision of the Dalmatian Parliament about its enlargement and restoration on February 9, 1866, according to the project drafted by the Provincial director of the public buildings doctor Ivan Lucchini. On October 7, 1871, the Dalmatian Parliament determined about the way for the continuation of these works. The complete restoration of the Civic Hospital in Split finished in 1872. The study revealed the realization of longtime efforts for the enlargement of hospital capacity in Split. With this restoration and appropriate organizational structure, the Civic Hospital in Split could offer better treatment to the patients, parturient women and foundlings.     

Observations on the history of Dutch physical stature from the late-Middle Ages to the present

In the late-Middle Ages and at the onset of the early modern period, the Dutch population was taller than in the first half of the 19th century. This inference is partially based on skeletal evidence, mainly collected by the Dutch physical anthropologist George Maat and his co-workers. A spectacular increase in Dutch heights began in the second half of the 19th century and accelerated in the second half of the 20th century. At the end of the 20th century, the Dutch became tallest in the world.     

Past and present forest vegetation in NE Slovenia derived from old maps

Abstract. Using old military and cadastral maps and modern vegetation maps, the changes in land use over the past 230 yr were followed. The following maps were used: the military map from the second half of the 18th century, the cadastral map of the ‘Economic cadastral survey for regulation of land taxes’ from the first half of the 19th century, and a field map made in the 1980s. A vegetation map of the area was made on the basis of satellite images. We used basic classification techniques combined with extensive field inspections and aerial photographs. The output of this procedure was verified in the field. Additionally, a comparison of statistical data about land use categories is presented. It was established that the last remaining areas of inundated riverine forest disappeared 200 yr ago, and since then only minor changes in land use have occurred.     

Different subjects: the health care system's participation in the differential construction of the cultural citizenship of Cuban refugees and Mexican immigrants

This paper explores the public health system's differential construction of Mexican and Cuban immigrants' "deservingness" of citizenship benefits and its preparation of them for different roles in U.S. society. Civic institutions such as the public health care system are charged with inculcating normative behavior in immigrants and instilling in them different conceptions about their rights and responsibilities. Faced with limited resources under the implementation of Medicaid managed care, hospital administrators created new categories of "deserving" and "undeserving" immigrants based on neoliberal standards of individual responsibility and self-discipline. As a result, hospital policies construct different types of "cultural citizenship" for Cuban and Mexican immigrants, preparing the former to be active citizens and discouraging the latter from pressing demands on American civil institutions. I show that this negative construction of Mexican immigrants' moral worth leads to unmet health needs and poor health outcomes.     

Duchenne,Charcot and Babinski,three neurologists of La Salpetrière Hospital,and their contribution to concepts of the central organization of motor synergy

Many currently accepted notions of motor control originate from a few seminal concepts developed in the latter half of the 19th century (see Bennett and Hacker, 2002). The goal of this review is to retrace some current ideas about motor control back to the thought of three French neurologists of Hospital of the Salpetrière hospital in Paris during the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century (Fig. 1): Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne (1806–1875), Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), and Babinski, 1886, Babinski, 1896, Babinski, 1898, Babinski, 1899, Babinski, 1900, Babinski, 1902, Babinski, 1903, Babinski, 1909, Babinski, 1913. A common theoretical and methodological thread unites these three men as Charcot was taught neurology by Duchenne, and Babinski was trained by Charcot. The influential concepts developed by these pioneering French neurologists have been neglected for nearly a century and only rediscovered recently. We intend to highlight how these astute clinicians used their meticulous clinical observations of patients to reveal novel and original perspectives of motor co-ordination. Between 1850 and 1930, all three men played a major role in developing and shaping the entire field of normal and pathological motor control in addition to making important contributions to three major scientific issues; the centralist view of muscle sense, the emerging concept of muscle synergy in voluntary movements and in locomotion and finally the specific role of the cerebellum in muscle synergy. The important contributions of these men will be considered in the context of other significant schools of neurology from other countries. Finally, the concept of cerebellar asynergy as proposed by Babinski anticipated the development of the internal models which much later were able to provide a theoretical basis for understanding the mechanism of learned motor co-ordination involving the cerebellum.     

A clinical alternative to the public health approach to mental illness: a forgotten social experiment

In the last half of the 20th century, the community mental health movement, based on a public health model, came to dominate patterns of care for mental patients. In the process, brutal deinstitutionalization of very ill patients took place, at least in the United States. These events were not inevitable. In 1949, the Menningers of Topeka, Kansas, began administering Topeka State Hospital, which was in deplorable condition. By concentrating expenditures on clinical personnel, the Menningers humanely deinstitutionalized many patients before chlorpromazine, before the entitlement programs of the U.S. federal government such as Medicaid (1965), and before the community psychiatry movement got under way. Topeka State Hospital furnished a model of mental health care that centered a whole system on a last-resort, large, specialized state mental hospital. This inadvertent social experiment suggests that a clinical approach to mental health care offers a hard-headed alternative to present arrangements.     

History of the Department of Pediatrics Yale University School of Medicine.

The history of pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine can be divided into eight historical eras. The "Paleohistorical Era" included colonial figures such as Governor John Winthrop and Hezekiah Beardsley who wrote about children''s disease in colonial times. Eli Ives, Professor of the Diseases of Children at Yale Medical School gave the first systematic pediatric course in America in the first half of the nineteenth century. During the second era, from 1830-1920, the New Haven Hospital was opened. An affiliation between Yale University and the New Haven Hospital led to the formal establishment of clinical departments including pediatrics in the early 20th century. Six eras coinciding with successive pediatric chairman have led the department to its present respected position in American pediatrics. The department''s 75th anniversary in 1996 is an occasion to recognize many of the department''s accomplishments and leaders over the years. It is also a time to reaffirm the mission of the department: to the health needs of the children of Connecticut and beyond, to the advancement of scientific knowledge of infants and children and their diseases, and to the training and educational of the pediatric clinicians, educators and investigators of the future.     

Preliminary studies of an interdisciplinary inquiry of the body height proportions of Germans in the 19th century and of the influence of living conditions. II. Original preliminary studies for Baden, Alsace-Lorraine, Bavaria, the whole German Reich, summarizing evaluation, historical nutritional references, literature

In Part I of this examinations, preliminary original researches about the constitutional situations in Germany from the North to the kingdom Württemberg has been presented. In this part II, such preliminary researches follow for the other southern part of the German settlement. With references to Baden, Alsace-Lorraine, and Bavaria first since the second part of the 19th century, comprehensive anthropological data exist, but these contain valuable and differentiated data material. A first analysis for this German data material does not reveal regular relation-ships between body-height, urban and rural life, and geographical altitude. But there are relation-ships between wealthy and poor social classes and between educated and heavily working people, and there exists a negative trend in the body-height-means from the North and South to the middle of the German settlement with minima in Saxony and in several regions in Southern Germany. As spread for the different means about 160 to more than 170 cm is to estimate. The spread seems to be broader in the second half of the 19th century, presumably because the better life-conditions does not hold for all Germans in the same manner. About of the beginning of the 20th century, the body-height-means show an increase with may by interpreted as an kind of rehabilitation after times of emergency in the early industrialization and of difficulties in food supply.     

The earliest days of first aid.

First aid, as a profession in its own right, has a history of only 120 years. It evolved from the teachings of the Royal Humane Society and military surgeons, who saw the wisdom of training in splinting and bandaging for battlefield wounds. In 1878 two Aberdeenshire military officers, Surgeon-Major Peter Shepherd of the Royal Herbert Military Hospital, Woolwich, London, and Colonel Francis Duncan established the concept of teaching first aid skills to civilians. This radical new enterprise, conducted under the auspices of the newly formed St John Ambulance Association, was a natural evolution from the body''s philanthropic and ambulance transport work. Shepherd conducted the first class in the hall of the Presbyterian school in Woolwich using a comprehensive first aid curriculum that he had developed. Within months of that first class, local Woolwich civilians used their skills when the pleasure boat Princess Alice sank in the Thames at Woolwich, killing 600 people. Within a decade, the new discipline of first aid spread rapidly throughout the world, and by the end of the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of St John first aid certificates had been awarded in four continents. Shepherd''s pioneering classes changed the world''s concept of the need for the provision of skilled prehospital care.     

The history of bronchial asthma from the Renaissance till the beginning of the twentieth century

The aim of the paper is to give an overview of the history of knowledge on asthma from the Renaissance till the beginning of the 20th century. During this period the clinical picture of bronchial asthma and some etiological factors--like familiarity of the disease, the role of the pollen, psychological factors were cleared. The disease was relatively rare in these periods--the epidemiological explosion came only in the second half of the 20th century. Data on pediatric asthma, before all in Hungary are demonstrated mostly based on the works of Schoepf and Bókai senior in the first half of the 19th century.     

Politics and pellagra: the epidemic of pellagra in the U.S. in the early twentieth century.

The epidemic of pellagra in the first half of this century at its peak produced at least 250,000 cases and caused 7,000 deaths a year for several decades in 15 southern states. It also filled hospital wards in other states, which had a similar incidence but refused to report their cases. Political influences interfered, not only with surveillance of the disease, but also in its study, recognition of its cause, and the institution of preventive measures when they became known. Politicians and the general public felt that it was more acceptable for pellagra to be infectious than for it to be a form of malnutrition, a result of poverty and thus an embarrassing social problem. Retrospectively, a change in the method of milling cornmeal, degermination, which began shortly after 1900, probably accounted for the appearance of the epidemic; such a process was suggested at the time, but the suggestion was ignored.     

Valdoltra and osteoarticular tuberculosis among Slovenians--the 100th anniversary of the Valdoltra Hospital

The 100th anniversary of the hospital in Valdoltra, Slovenia, on the northeastern Adriatic coast near the Italian frontier--where borders have frequently changed (the town has belonged to Austria-Hungary, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Slovenia) and which experienced military occupation in the interwar period--offers an opportunity to review the professional path of this institution. The hospital was established in 1909 as an act of charity by the Trieste Friends of Children Society due to the high incidence of scrofula as well as bone and extrapulmonary tuberculosis among Trieste children. With 270 beds, it provided medical assistance to sick children and also later to adults. After the First World War, its management was assumed by the Italian Red Cross, which built an additional wing in 1934 and increased the hospital's capacity to 340 beds. After Italy's capitulation, German soldiers occupied the hospital and left it in shambles at the end of the war. In September 1945, the hospital was renovated and taken over by the Slovenian healthcare system; 400 beds were again available for treating bone tuberculosis patients. This did not last for long. By 1947, after the Treaty of Peace with Italy was signed and Valdoltra became the central Yugoslav institution for treating bone tuberculosis, the hospital had to be relocated to Rovinj, Croatia due to the political division of the Trieste region into Zones A and B. Only in 1952 did the hospital return to Valdoltra and continue its mission. In the twentieth century, tuberculosis was treated similarly everywhere until antitubercular agents were discovered. At first, conservative climatic and hygiene-dietary methods, orthopedic aids, plaster corsets, and physiotherapy were used to treat bone tuberculosis. This was followed by surgical treatment, which came into vogue after 1945, when it was supported by antibiotic treatment, and (postoperative) physiotherapy and rehabilitation. Chemotherapeutic agents and preventive outpatient BCG-vaccination proved successful in curing bone tuberculosis and other forms of tuberculosis, and the number of consumptive patients continued to decrease. The Valdoltra hospital has preserved its tradition of treating osteoarticular pathologies and has been the main Slovenian orthopedic hospital since 1961.     

Empiric physiology in epidemiologic doctrines of the 18th century, Hungarian General Norm of Health in 1770

According to standard textbooks, the last episode of European New Age plague pandemic died out by 1720 in Marseilles. Despite this allegation, the pandemic continued in well-documented new outbreaks, which attacked and devastated Central and Eastern Europe throughout the first half of the 18th century. At the beginning, military campaigns spread the infection out of the Ottoman Empire. Later on commercial goods took over this role via land or sea from Asia or out of the eastern Mediterranean region. Finally, the plague in Europe--except Russia and the Ottoman Empire--"died out" virtually by the end of the 18th century. Explaining this, there many scientific reasons were suggested: 1. Oriental rat fleas as main vectors of infection could not tolerate any more the European weather conditions (although there were no virtual climate changes in the last 300 years). 2. Black rats that lived in close proximity to man, were being outplayed by brown rats living rather outside of human habitats; 3. There emerged less virulent Yersinia strains that caused natural human immunisation. In spite of these suggestions, which may have contributed to the success, joint civil and military health authorities blocked the plague indeed, as a result of disciplined and relentless law enforcement. In Hungary, respectively in the Hapsburg Empire, well-advised health legislation backed up the effectiveness of local authorities. Following the last great devastation in 1738-1740, the General Norm of Health Service--a voluminous decree--summed up by 1770 all the time honoured empiric rules of foregoing centuries. It can be excellently demonstrated, how exactly the empiric rules discovered a century later met scientific facts of physiology and microbiology.     

The main trends in the palaeodemography of the 7th-18th century population of Latvia

The study represents palaeodemographic research of osteological material of 3304 individuals from the funds of the Anthropological Laboratory of the Institute of History of the University of Latvia in Riga, dating from the 7th to the 18th century AD. Compensated life expectancy at birth is varying between 20.3 and 22.2 years during the research period. Crude mortality has changed between 49.3 and 45% per hundred. In the early period (7th-13th century) there is a significant male prevalence (2.2-1.4); female life expectancy at the age of 20 is on average 6.6 years less than for males. This difference decreases to 5.4 years in the 13th-18th century. According to historical demography, female life span exceeded male only in the 2nd half of 19th century. The palaeodemographic data indicate that in the 7th-18th century, women in Latvia gave birth to a mean of 4-5 children (the figure includes childless women), of whom half, at most 2-2.5, reached reproductive age, on account of high child mortality. The net reproductive rate R0 (the number of descendants per individual of the parents' generation) varies between 1 and 1.25 in the study period. Concerning the completely excavated cemeteries of Lejasbiteni (7th-10h century) and Daudziesi (16th-17th century), it was possible to calculate the size and structure of the populations that had used these cemeteries. They were similar, having 45.3-49.9% of children up to an age of 14 and 24-28% individuals over the age of 30. According to historical demography, radical improvement of the demographic situation in Latvia began in the second half of the 19th century, when the process of demographic transition in Latvia started.     

Nostalgia,Memory, and Modernity: Bridal Portraits in Contemporary Beijing

This article examines the multiple ways in which persons of mixed descent were invisible in most New Zealand cities during the first half of the 20th century. It is argued that living as mixed descent was a highly visible experience during the 19th century, but this increasingly gave way to invisibility during an era of state-sponsored assimilation. Invisibility was a strategy for survival and success in the mainstream society, but was often accompanied by cultural loss. It is argued that oral histories, in conjunction with the family photograph album, provide an important way in which to recover lost histories, and that the descendants of persons who disappeared into urban New Zealand in the first half of the twentieth century are employing the family photograph album to assert their Māori identity and overcome a history of dispersal and loss.     

Using stable isotope analysis to examine the effect of economic change on breastfeeding practices in Spitalfields, London, UK

Breastfeeding patterns were subject to a number of fads in 18th and 19th century Britain. Feeding infants by hand, rather than maternal breastfeeding or wet-nursing, became more prevalent among both the wealthy and poor. Substitute foods may have been a convenient alternative for mothers employed away from the household. This study used stable isotope ratio analysis to examine the weaning schedule in the 18th and 19th century skeletal assemblage from Spitalfields, London, UK. Analysis of 72 juvenile ribs revealed δ(15) N elevations of 2-3‰ above the adult mean for individuals up to the age of two, while elevations of 1-2‰ were observed in δ(13) C for the first year of life. This suggests that the introduction of solid foods took place before the end of the first year, and that breastfeeding had entirely ceased by 2 years of age. The age at death of many of these infants is known from historical records, and can be used to pinpoint the amount of time required for the breast milk signal to be observed in the stable isotope ratios of rib collagen. Results show that a δ(15) N elevation can be detected in the ribs of individuals who died as young as 5-6 weeks. Not all individuals at Spitalfields were breastfed, and there may not have been a single uniformly practiced weaning scheme. There is, however, more evidence for prolonged breastfeeding during the 19th century than the 18th century.     

The Rockefeller University Hospital (1910-2010): creating the science of medicine

The year 2010 marked the centennial of the Rockefeller University Hospital, one of the great philanthropic achievements of 20th-century science. For 100 years, the Hospital played a central role in the development and growth of medical science by enabling physician-scientists to make intensive study of human biology and disease. With ingenuity and devotion, they greatly enriched clinical medicine as well as basic biological science. This account emphasizes the founding and first half-century of the Hospital as it became a germinal center for clinical investigation. The second half of the century saw rapid change in medicine and health care with vexing problems, many yet unsolved. This history should serve as a call to arms for maintaining the linkage of science and medicine, supporting patient-oriented research as a basic discipline of medicine.     

Opportunity for selection in the parish of Tuna, Sweden

This article is part of a series of studies on the opportunity for selection in Swedish populations. The study concerns women who, with some exceptions, were born during the first half of the 19th century. A modified form of Crow's index has been used to estimate the upper limit of natural selection. The average index for the period 1805-1850 was I = 1.136, which value falls within the limits of what has been found for the other Swedish populations that have been studied.