Review of \u3ci\u3eWestering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800-1915\u3c/i\u3e By Sandra L. Myres

When Professor Myres began the research for this survey of women in the American West, many historians believed that there were few manuscript collections documenting the experiences of nineteenth-century women, Such is not the case, Myres concludes. Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800- 1915, the first volume of the Histories of the American Frontier Series devoted to the history of women, treats us to what the late Ray Allen Billington called one of the most remarkable bibliographies to materials in this new area. Myres summarizes her extensive reading in these documents in topical chapters: western women\u27s views of the land; women\u27s views of Indians, Afro-Americans, and Mexicans; their views of classes and religions; homemaking on the frontier; women in western communities; the feminist and woman\u27s movement in the West; and occupations of western women. It is arguable that the primary job of a survey is to broadly introduce topics and materials, and this Myres does well, but these intentions make extended and precise historical argument more difficult to sustain. Myres does, however, have an argument to make, laid out in an opening chapter reviewing images and stereotypes of fronder women. The frontier experience, she believes, provided women with opportunities for economic importance as well as legal and political power. Western migration and frontier conditions seriously threatened to undermine [the] carefully constructed separation of the sexes of Victorian convention, because women had to undertake new tasks and assume new roles. There are serious difficulties with this argument. These tasks and roles, in fact, turn out to be extentions into the late nineteenth century of the gender division of labor and the household economy that prevailed in the colonial period. According to Myres, many women considered their marriages a cooperative economic enterprise, and they certainly did not view their position as \u27second class.\u27\u27\u27 Perhaps not, but many certainly considered themselves the second sex. Myres dismisses the considerable body of material in which rural women complained bitterly about their working roles and their marriages. She sees western women violating and overturning the eastern norm of not participating in public life, but she fails to provide any sustained evidence on this important point and admits that the western woman\u27s movement was extremely weak. Myres is able to point to provocative studies that suggest a greater concentration of western women in certain occupations, but her own work here does not offer much more than some interesting individual cases. Differences of interpretation aside, however, Myres taps a rich store of more than four hundred collections of women\u27s documents-letters, diaries, reminiscences, even interviews conducted by the Federal Writers\u27 Project-and demonstrates that frontier women left an ample archive that will provide historians with the materials for many future controversies

Dirty Deeds: Land, Violence, And The 1856 San Francisco Vigilance Committee

Public Lands, Coercion, and the Revival of San Francisco Vigilance Committee This book originated in a fortuitous discovery. In 2006, while researching another project in the papers of nineteenth-century journalist and historian Theodore S. Hittell (archived at the Sutro Library, a branch of the C...

The impact of rapid malaria diagnostic tests upon anti-malarial sales in community pharmacies in Gwagwalada, Nigeria

Background Rapid diagnostics tests for malaria (RDT) have become established as a practical solution to the challenges of parasitological confirmation of malaria before treatment in the public sector. However, little is known of their impact in private health sector facilities, such as pharmacies and drug shops. This study aimed to assess the incidence of malaria among unwell patients seeking anti-malarial treatment in two community pharmacies in Nigeria and measure the impact RDTs have on anti-malarial sales. Methods This was a comparison study of two pharmacies located in the suburbs of Gwagwalada, in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, between May and July 2012. In the intervention arm, patients seeking to purchase anti-malarials had an RDT performed before treatment while the control pharmacy continued normal routine practice. Results A total of 1,226 participants were enrolled into the study. The incidence of malaria in the intervention arm (n = 619) was 13.6% and adolescent participants had a statistically significant higher incidence (26.0%) compared to adults (11.9%) (P = 0.001). A history of fever in the last 48 hours was associated with a statistically significant higher incidence of malaria (28.3%) (P < 0.001). Having a RDT test reduced the chance of purchasing an anti-malarial by 42% (95% CI: 38%-46%) compared to not having a test. 51.6% (276) of the study participants with a RDT negative result still purchased anti-malarials, especially if anti-malarials had been recommended by a health professional (58.9%) compared to self-referral (44.2%) (P = 0.001). Patients with RDT negative results were also more likely to purchase an anti-malarial if there was a reported malaria positive laboratory test prior to presentation (66.2%; P = 0.007), a history of fever in the last 48 hours (60.5%; P = 0.027), and primary school education or less (69.4%; P = 0.009). After adjusting for age group and gender differences, having at least a secondary school education reduced the chance of buying an anti-malarial (OR 0.504 (95% CI: 0.256-0.993)) compared to having primary education or lower. Conclusion The study highlights the enormous potential for improving appropriate prescription of anti-malarials in pharmacies and preventing unnecessary use of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT)

Emergency Department Ultrasound Is not a Sensitive Detector of Solid Organ Injury

Objective: To estimate the sensitivity and specificity of emergency department (ED) ultrasound for the detection of solid organ injury following blunt abdominal trauma.Methods: A prospective cohort study performed in the ED of an urban Level I trauma center on patients who sustained blunt abdominal trauma. Following initial standard trauma evaluation, patients underwent a secondary ultrasound examination performed specifically to identify injury to the liver or spleen, followed by computed tomography (CT) scan of the abdomen. Ultrasound examinations were performed by emergency medicine residents or attending physicians experienced in the use of ultrasound for detecting hemoperitoneum. Ultrasonographers prospectively determined the presence or absence of liver or spleen injury. CT findings were used as the criterion standard to evaluate the ultrasound results.Results: From July 1998 through June 1999, 152 patients underwent secondary ultrasound examination and CT. Of the 152 patients, nine (6%) had liver injuries and 10 (7%) had spleen injuries. Ultrasound correctly detected only one of the liver injuries for a sensitivity of 11% (95% CI: 0%-48%) and a specificity of 98% (95% CI: 94%-100%). Ultrasound correctly detected eight spleen injuries for a sensitivity of 80% (95% CI: 44%-98%) and a specificity of 99% (95% CI: 95%-100%).Conclusion: Emergency ultrasound is not sensitive or specific for detecting liver or spleen injuries following blunt abdominal trauma.[WestJEM. 2009;10:1-5.

Menstrual cups and sanitary pads to reduce school attrition, and sexually transmitted and reproductive tract infections: a cluster randomised controlled feasibility study in rural Western Kenya

Objectives: Conduct a feasibility study on the effect of menstrual hygiene on schoolgirls’ school and health (reproductive/sexual) outcomes. Design: 3-arm single-site open cluster randomised controlled pilot study. Setting: 30 primary schools in rural western Kenya, within a Health and Demographic Surveillance System. Participants: Primary schoolgirls 14–16 years, experienced 3 menses, no precluding disability, and resident in the study area. Interventions: 1 insertable menstrual cup, or monthly sanitary pads, against ‘usual practice’ control. All participants received puberty education preintervention, and hand wash soap during intervention. Schools received hand wash soap. Primary and secondary outcome measures: Primary: school attrition (drop-out, absence); secondary: sexually transmitted infection (STI) (Trichomonas vaginalis, Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoea), reproductive tract infection (RTI) (bacterial vaginosis, Candida albicans); safety: toxic shock syndrome, vaginal Staphylococcus aureus. Results: Of 751 girls enrolled 644 were followed-up for a median of 10.9 months. Cups or pads did not reduce school dropout risk (control=8.0%, cups=11.2%, pads=10.2%). Self-reported absence was rarely reported and not assessable. Prevalence of STIs in the end-of-study survey among controls was 7.7% versus 4.2% in the cups arm (adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR) 0.48, 0.24 to 0.96, p=0.039), 4.5% with pads (aPR=0.62; 0.37 to 1.03, p=0.063), and 4.3% with cups and pads pooled (aPR=0.54, 0.34 to 0.87, p=0.012). RTI prevalence was 21.5%, 28.5% and 26.9% among cup, pad and control arms, 71% of which were bacterial vaginosis, with a prevalence of 14.6%, 19.8% and 20.5%, per arm, respectively

Stem End Blockage in Cut Grevillea 'Crimson Yul-lo' Inflorescences

Grevillea Crimson Yul-lo inflorescences have cut flower potential, but their vase life is short. End of vase life is characterised by early wilting. The possibility of physiologically mediated stem end blockage was investigated. Hydraulic conductance of 2 cm long stem end segments declined rapidly and remained lower throughout vase life than that of 2 cm long stem segments from immediately above. Re-cutting daily to remove basal 2 cm stem ends increased solution uptake, delayed declines in inflorescence water potential and water content, and improved inflorescence vase life. S-Carvone is a potential inhibitor of wound related suberin formation, via inhibition of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, and vase solution treatments with S-carvone (0.318 and 0.636 mM) delayed the decline in hydraulic conductance of basal 2 cm long stem end segments and decreases in vase solution uptake and relative fresh weight of cut stems, and extended vase life. Treatments with the catechol oxidase inhibitor 4-hexylresorcinol (2.5-10 mM) also delayed stem end blockage. These findings suggest that stem end blockage in cut G. Crimson Yul-lo stems is physiologically mediated

“There was something very peculiar about Doc…”: Deciphering Queer Intimacy in Representations of Doc Holliday

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in American Nineteenth-Century History on 8-12-14, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664658.2014.971481This essay discusses representations of male intimacy in life-writing about consumptive gunfighter John Henry “Doc” Holliday (1851-1887). I argue that twentieth-century commentators rarely appreciated the historical specificity of Holliday’s friendships in a frontier culture that not only normalized but actively celebrated same-sex intimacy. Indeed, Holliday lived on the frayed edges of known nineteenth-century socio-sexual norms, and his interactions with other men were further complicated by his vicious reputation and his disability. His short life and eventful afterlife exposes the gaps in available evidence – and the flaws in our ability to interpret it. Yet something may still be gleaned from the early newspaper accounts of Holliday. Having argued that there is insufficient evidence to justify positioning him within modern categories of hetero/homosexuality, I analyze the language used in pre-1900 descriptions of first-hand encounters with Holliday to illuminate the consumptive gunfighter’s experience of intimacy, if not its meaning

A cluster randomised trial to evaluate the effectiveness of household alcohol-based hand rub for the prevention of sepsis, diarrhoea, and pneumonia in Ugandan infants (the BabyGel trial): a study protocol

Background: Infections are one of the leading causes of death in the neonatal period. This trial aims to evaluate if the provision of alcohol-based hand rub (ABHR) to pregnant women for postnatal household use prevents severe infections (including sepsis, diarrhoea, pneumonia, or death) among infants during the first three postnatal months. Methods: Through a cluster-randomised trial in eastern Uganda, 72 clusters are randomised in a 2-arm design with rural villages as units of randomisation. We estimate to include a total of 5932 pregnant women at 34 weeks of gestation. All women and infants in the study are receiving standard antenatal and postnatal care. Women in the intervention group additionally receive six litres of ABHR and training on its use. Research midwives conduct follow-up visits at participants’ homes on days 1, 7, 28, 42, and 90 after birth and telephone calls on days 14, 48, and 60 to assess the mother and infant for study outcomes. Primary analyses will be by intention to treat. Discussion: This study will provide evidence on the effectiveness of a locally available and low-cost intervention in preventing neonatal sepsis and early infant infections. If ABHR is found effective, it could be implemented by adding it to birthing kits. Trial registration: Pan African Clinical Trial Registry, PACTR202004705649428. Registered 1 April 2020, https://pactr.samrc.ac.za/