Exploring colors from the past: in the steps of eighteenth-century dryers from France and England

No abstract available

Convalescent plasma in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised controlled, open-label, platform trial

SummaryBackground Azithromycin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 on the basis of its immunomodulatoryactions. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.Methods In this randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19Therapy [RECOVERY]), several possible treatments were compared with usual care in patients admitted to hospitalwith COVID-19 in the UK. The trial is underway at 176 hospitals in the UK. Eligible and consenting patients wererandomly allocated to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus azithromycin 500 mg once perday by mouth or intravenously for 10 days or until discharge (or allocation to one of the other RECOVERY treatmentgroups). Patients were assigned via web-based simple (unstratified) randomisation with allocation concealment andwere twice as likely to be randomly assigned to usual care than to any of the active treatment groups. Participants andlocal study staff were not masked to the allocated treatment, but all others involved in the trial were masked to theoutcome data during the trial. The primary outcome was 28-day all-cause mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treatpopulation. The trial is registered with ISRCTN, 50189673, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04381936.Findings Between April 7 and Nov 27, 2020, of 16 442 patients enrolled in the RECOVERY trial, 9433 (57%) wereeligible and 7763 were included in the assessment of azithromycin. The mean age of these study participants was65·3 years (SD 15·7) and approximately a third were women (2944 [38%] of 7763). 2582 patients were randomlyallocated to receive azithromycin and 5181 patients were randomly allocated to usual care alone. Overall,561 (22%) patients allocated to azithromycin and 1162 (22%) patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days(rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·87–1·07; p=0·50). No significant difference was seen in duration of hospital stay (median10 days [IQR 5 to >28] vs 11 days [5 to >28]) or the proportion of patients discharged from hospital alive within 28 days(rate ratio 1·04, 95% CI 0·98–1·10; p=0·19). Among those not on invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, nosignificant difference was seen in the proportion meeting the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilationor death (risk ratio 0·95, 95% CI 0·87–1·03; p=0·24).Interpretation In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, azithromycin did not improve survival or otherprespecified clinical outcomes. Azithromycin use in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should be restrictedto patients in whom there is a clear antimicrobial indication

OF GODS AND GANGS: INDIGO AS A NEW EDUCATIONAL MODEL

In late August 2009, a multi-year educational initiative called Silk Road Connect was launched in five pilot schools in underserved neighbourhoods of New York City as part of its Department of Education’s Campaign for Middle School Success. The brainchild of cellist Yo Yo Ma and his Silk Road Project, Silk Road Connect ‘inspires passion-driven learning by empowering students and educators to seek connections across all areas of study and to follow their interests from the familiar to the foreign. In a spirit of playfulness and investigation, collaboration and creativity, this program invites students to experience learning as a continual process and the foundation for a meaningful life in our complex and interrelated world.’ The topic of indigo (backed by storytelling, music, dance and film) was chosen as an ideal model for interrelated learning. Dating back to the tombs of Ancient Egypt yet also connecting with the personal experiences of students and their blue jeans, indigo provides a ‘through line’ for exploring history, science, geography, music, the visual arts and culture of the rest of the planet. Resources introduced at the first teacher training sessions will continue to be developed by all those involved, including educators in partner institutions, as the project unfolds. The author, indigo consultant to this innovative project, will discuss in her paper the ideas and formation of Silk Road Connect

Dyehouse notes from the Crutchley Archive, 1716 to 1728: five stages of ‘grain’ dyeing for red colours on woven wool fabrics

No abstract available

Dyehouse notes from the Crutchley Archive: ‘grain’ dyeing practices with alum and tin ‘spirits’ for red woollen cloth, 1716 to 1728

In early eighteenth-century London, the Crutchley family were amongst many dyers in the business of creating ‘beautiful cullers’ for fashionable textiles. The Crutchleys’ speciality was to dye woollen cloths in scarlet, crimson and other red shades at their dyehouses in Southwark near the River Thames. Nine of their dyers’ books with hundreds of colourful dyed textile ‘patterns’ and handwritten dyeing instructions have survived and are now part of the UNESCO-registered Crutchley Archive in Southwark Archives’ collection. [1] All the instructions in the Crutchley books are for ‘in grain’ and ‘out of grain’ dyeing involving cochineal, madder and occasionally stick lac with alum and tin mordants and permitted additions of brazilwood, logwood and other dyes to create tonal shades and tints. The three oldest books, dated 1716 to 1728, also hold detailed records of dyehouse operations: preand post-dyeing treatments of the cloths; preparing fresh and recycled baths of mordants and dyes; making tin ‘spirits’ (a nitrate solution) with aqua fortis (nitric acid); and selecting dyeing equipment, timings and water sources. The Crutchleys’ battle to prevent ‘white spot’ spoilage of scarlet cloths, a known risk from aqua fortis in tin spirits, highlights the advantages of their dyehouses being near river and well water sources and tenter-fields. In our presentation we share and discuss these Early Modern dyeing practices in the context of the colours produced, and the daily manual labour and sensory skills involved in physical acts that come alive in these masterly notes from experienced dyers. For dye history, these intimate accounts give a rare opportunity of actual dye work practices to compare with published information of the period and surviving material evidence from red wool dyeing contemporaries of the Crutchley family to inform modern perspectives of historical dyeing

The Crutchley Archive. A dyers’ legacy

No abstract available

The Crutchley Archive: Red Colours on Wool Fabrics from Master Dyers, London 1716–1744

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Exploring colors from the past: in the steps of eighteenth-century dyers from France and England

International audienceThis paper presents some aspects of the contribution to the history of colors and dyeing technology to be expected from the comprehensive study of a rare type of historical document, which was not published and exploited until recently. It describes and compares several early– to mid–eighteenth century manuscripts of dye books or treatises on dyeing from England and France, having in common an essential feature: all are illustrated with scores of samples of dyed wool fabric. The French sources are the Memoirs on Dyeing of two dyework owners in wool broadcloth–producing centers in Languedoc in southern France. The English sources belong to the Crutchley Archive and consist of the dye books of a family-run dyed wool fabric business in Southwark, London. In this paper, the authors present the respective color gamuts of the French dyers and their contemporary colleagues in London. The paper begins with the study of corresponding dye recipes and the chromatic specifications of the samples based on color names, which were obtained through colorimetric measurements and expressed in the CIE Lab and CIE LCh systems of color description. Madder red is then proposed as a case study for comparisons of the dyeing processes and resulting chromatic effects in the English and French sources

The mosques of Bayana, Rajasthan, and the emergence of a prototype for the mosques of the Mughals

Bayana’s political autonomy during the sultanate history of Delhi is reflected in its architectural monuments, particularly the mosques. The town, built by Muhammad b. Sām’s governor Bahā al-dīn Tughrul, has preserved his late twelfth-century mosque, which together with its early fourteenth-century extension was praised by Ibn Battūta, but it is the later mosques which show a pattern of continuous independence in architectural style. When in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries arcuate forms imported from Khurāsān flourished in Delhi, the Bayana architects, although aware of the style continued to choose the ancient Indian trabeate system, not as a result of lack of innovation, but as a display of their autonomy. Their design developments in the late fifteenth to sixteenth centuries led to a new concept for mosque plans, where the prayer hall no longer filled the western side, but jutted out into the courtyard, so that the northern and southern walls of the mosque stood within its courtyard. Akbar who had his capitals in Agra and Fathpur Sikri, once two villages in the Bayana territory, also adopted features of the architecture of the region. The new mosque plan first appears to some extent in Shaikh Salīm Chishtī’s Mosque, but the fully-fledged plan becomes a feature of later Mughal mosques of the time of Shāh Jahān and his successors