Inheriting library cards to Babel and Alexandria: Contemporary metaphors for the digital library

Librarians have been consciously adopting metaphors to describe library concepts since the nineteenth century, helping us to structure our understanding of new technologies. We have drawn extensively on these figurative frameworks to explore issues surrounding the digital library, yet very little has been written to date which interrogates how these metaphors have developed over the years. Previous studies have explored library metaphors, using either textual analysis or ethnographic methods to investigate their usage. However, this is to our knowledge the first study to use bibliographic data, corpus analysis, qualitative sentiment weighting and close reading to study particular metaphors in detail. It draws on a corpus of over 450 articles to study the use of the metaphors of the Library of Alexandria and Babel, concluding that both have been extremely useful as framing metaphors for the digital library. However, their longstanding use has seen them become stretched as metaphors, meaning that the field’s figurative framework now fails to represent the changing technologies which underpin contemporary digital libraries

Neuroanatomy and cadaver dissection in Italy: History, medicolegal issues, and neurosurgical perspectives.

Despite the significant Italian tradition of important anatomical studies, an outdated law historically influenced by the Catholic church restricts the use of cadavers for teaching and scientific purposes. The object of the present paper was to trace the historical evolution of the Italian anatomical tradition, particularly neuroanatomical studies, in relation to the juridical regulations on the use of cadavers today. Special attention was paid to the opportunities offered to neurosurgery by using cadavers and to the scientific and social issues in neurosurgical training in the twenty-first century. Considering the new Common European Constitution, the authors advocate a political solution from the European community to improve the quality of training in the disciplines with a social impact such as neurosurgery

A remarkable case of gout in the Imperial Rome. Surgery and diseases in Antiquity by osteoarchaeological, paleopathological and historical perspectives

This study is the result of a multidisciplinary team approach and focuses on a case of considerable historical and medical interest. The work originally stemmed from findings at a funerary site in the area of Casal Bertone in Rome (Italy), regarding an individual in a tomb identified simply by the number “75”. The skeletal alterations that were later discovered gave rise a debate among the members of the team. Challenges in identifying the pathology have brought historians, anthropologists and radiologists into the field with the use of sophisticated equipment, including CT scans and X-ray equipment, as well as some analyses carried out with the latest spectrometers. Consequently, the most likely diagnostic hypothesis resulted in gout. During this work, each area of study dealt with the problem in a different manner, allowing for a greater understanding of gout at this point in history, how this pathology might have influenced a person’s life, as well as the medical approaches and techniques used to treat it in the imperial age of the II century BCE

Prosper Aquitanus , Epigrammata et poema

ARISTOTELES. De elementisISIDORUS HISPALENSIS (s.). Quaestiones in Vetus TestamentumExtraits. Poema conjugis ad uxoremNumérisation effectuée à partir d'un document de substitution.F. 1 Fragments d'homiliaires du XII e s. avec notes de BERNARD ITIER (XIII e s.). F. 3 Commentarii in Psalmos et Cantica (incompl.) : « ... IX. Ps. David. Propheta hic loquitur... — ... Dominus ulscicetur quicquid in... » (XII e s.). F. 60 Glose sur Johannitius, Isagoge au « Liber Tegni » de Galien : « Quoniam Galienus inter copiosam... Isagoge sunt introductiones... — ... quia discer[nere] est. » F. 67 PSEUDO-ARISTOTELES, De elementis : « Elementum in mundo... — ... ab altero nasci videmus. » Cf. Haskins, Studies in hist. of mod. science , 94. F. 67v Recettes de médecine. F. 68 GARIOPONTUS, Passionarius : « Liber iste a diversis auctoribus... — ... nisi per calorem. » Cf. Thorndike et Kibre, Catal. of incipits , 371. F. 70v Glosa super Passioniarium Galieni : « Iste liber quia de passionibus loquitur... — ... emissio sanguinis... » F. 74 CICERO, De amicitia (XI e s.). (Ms. p de l'édit. Simbeck, Leipzig, 1917). Cf. Laurand, dans Musée belge , XXX, 1926, 131-136 ; Châtelain, Pal. des class. lat ., I, 11, pl. XLI. F. 92 Étymologies latines : « Consules vocati sunt vel a consulendo... — ... eo quod electis militibus constat. » (XI e s.). F. 92v, 113v-114v Chronique de Saint-Martial de Limoges (XIII e s.) (édit. Duplès-Agier, XXXVI, XXXVIII, 110-112, 322-323). F. 94-114 Traité de logique incomplet, avec glose : « Propositum tamen est praedicamentorum... — ... Sexta propositio est a. » (XII e s.). Cf. Thurot, dans Rev. critique (1867), 201, n° 3. F. 115, 119v, 120v Trois opuscules de prosodie ou grammaire, dont le premier en vers : « Regule splendescit... », « A finale declinabilis... », « Barbarismus est una pars orationis... » Cf. Thurot, dans Not. et extr ., XXII, II, 427, n° 2. F. 124 « Glosule ab ea figura que dicitur Zeuma. Zeuma vel conjunctio dicitur... — ... non metacismum. » (XII e s.). Cf. Thurot, ibid ., 10. F. 126v ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS, Quaestiones in lib. Judicum (XII e s.) ( P. L. , LXXXIII, 379-390) ; F. 128 Quaestiones in Genesim (incompl.) : « Joseph pascebat gregem... — ... in parte electorum insuperabile... » (XII e s.) ( P. L. , LXXXIII, 271). F. 131-133v et 138-139 Notes de philosophie : « Utrum omne privatorium... — ... in ambiguitate vel tracte ut dubie. » (XII e s.). F. 134v-136v Fragments d'arithmétique, avec tableau : « Descripcio per quam doceatur... — ... continet annus solaris menses. » (XII e s.). F. 141-142v Prière en vers (1 ère strophe notée) : « O mi custos... » (X e s.). Cf. Chevalier, n° 13262. F. 143 PROSPER AQUITANUS, Epigrammata, avec prologue et gloses (X e s.) ( P. L. , LI, 498-532); F. 163 Poema conjugis ad uxorem : « Age jam precor... » (X e s.) ( P. L. , LI, 611-616). Ce manuscrit a fait l’objet d’une notice dans le cadre du projet MANNO (Manuscrits notés en neumes en Occident).Provient de l'abbaye de Saint-Martial de Limoges