557 research outputs found
Healing Bodies: the ancient origins of massages and Roman practices
The practice of body manipulation with therapeutic aims has been used in the Western world since
the origins of Hippocratic medicine. By retracing the therapeutic use of massage as a therapeutic, preventive
and educational practice, the authors attempt to highlight the concepts, techniques and methods of massage
and the manipulation of the body in order to offer a valuable and useful historical reconstruction concerning
ancient medicine. The study on the relationship between culture, diseases and medicine constitute a significant
part of the historical medical research carried out within the Research Project of National Interest PRIN
entitled âDisease, health and lifestyles in Rome: from the Empire to the early Middle Agesâ funded by the
Ministry of Education, MIUR University Research in 201
The spanish influenza pandemic: a lesson from history 100 years after 1918
In Europe in 1918, influenza spread through Spain, France, Great Britain and Italy, causing havoc with military operations during the First World War. The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more than 50 million people worldwide. In addition, its socioeconomic consequences were huge. "Spanish flu", as the infection was dubbed, hit different agegroups, displaying a so-called "W-trend", typically with two spikes in children and the elderly. However, healthy young adults were also affected. In order to avoid alarming the public, several local health authorities refused to reveal the numbers of people affected and deaths. Consequently, it was very difficult to assess the impact of the disease at the time. Although official communications issued by health authorities worldwide expressed certainty about the etiology of the infection, in laboratories it was not always possible to isolate the famous Pfeiffer's bacillus, which was, at that time, deemed to be the cause of influenza. The first official preventive actions were implemented in August 1918; these included the obligatory notification of suspected cases and the surveillance of communities such as day-schools, boarding schools and barracks. Identifying suspected cases through surveillance, and voluntary and/or mandatory quarantine or isolation, enabled the spread of Spanish flu to be curbed. At that time, these public health measures were the only effective weapons against the disease, as no vaccines or antivirals were available. Virological and bacteriological analysis of preserved samples from infected soldiers and other young people who died during the pandemic period is a major step toward a better understanding of this pandemic and of how to prepare for future pandemics
L'astragalo di Dario
After hunting, the king of Persians Darius I gets off a horse in a quite rough way and gets a sprain in
which the astragalus becomes dislocated. The wise Egyptian physicians on duty at his court cannot
heal the shooting pain which keeps him awake for a week. By chance, Democedes, the famous
physician from Croton, happens to be at Persian court as a slave and Darius, finding out about it,
doesnât esitate to commit himself to his healing which turns out to be providential. This tale, which
in its richest and most interesting version came to us thanks to the Greek historian Herodotus,
allows not only a reflection upon the ancient therapeutical approaches to the sprains, thanks to
the comparison with Hippocratic treaties on fractures and articulations, but also some anatomical
considerations on the interaction between astragalus and the articulations it is connected with
Storia e medicina di genere
La salute non Ăš un campo neutrale. Il concetto di
diversitĂ , declinato sui temi del sesso e del genere, Ăš
uno degli strumenti della riflessione clinica, ma anche
di quella bioetica - quando discute, in particolare, del
principio di uguaglianza. Il tema ha una storia medica
recente. Proviamo rapidamente, attraverso un riesame
della letteratura, a verificare se, in prospettiva storica,
questa affermazione di âcontemporaneitĂ â sia effettivamente
condivisibile
Children in Greco-Roman society. Age, development, work and nosological relevance. A historico-medical perspective
The definition of childhood in historical studies is as recent
a problem as the attention devoted by scholars to this age
group. A reflection on the nomenclature used in Greek and
Latin literary, epigraphic, legal and properly medical sources
and the comparison with paleopathological studies allows us
to interpret the historical perception of childhood in terms
of incompleteness. In the Hippocratic and Galenic tradition
this incompleteness unites children to fragile and marginalized
categories, namely women and the elderly, but above all
it does not recognize their specific diseases, delaying the birth
of pediatrics for centuries
Commentary on Raphael's The Transfiguration
Historical sources about Raphaelâs death provide different hypotheses about its cause. Continuous
fever is the only symptom described. Raphaelâs lucidity in managing his last affairs exclude
syphilis, made widespread by the French army. The same applies to malaria, which was endemic in
Rome. Not even the reference to bloodletting helps us,1 as it was a longstanding therapy to reduce
fever. The most prudent hypothesis is an infectious diseas
Electrotherapy in the treatment of patients affected by rabies: Experiments conducted at the maggiore hospital of Milan in 1865,Elektroterapija u lijeenju pacijenata zaraenih bjesnoom: Pokusi provoeni u bolnici maggiore u milanu tijekom 1865. godine
During the nineteenth century, the scientific context of rabies treatment was weak due to the lack of the literature on specific nosology of the rabies disease, and unspecific and ineffective therapy approaches. Electrotherapy already represented an important therapeutic approach for nervous system diseases, although not specifically for rabies.
In the present paper, the authors discuss the use of electrotherapy in the treatment of humans affected by rabies in an experimental study conducted at the Maggiore Hospital of Milan, with the aim of establishing the discovery of a possible specific therapy. By analyzing the printed scientific sources available in the Braidense Library of Milan, the authors describe four experiments conducted on patients of different ages. Symptoms and effects both during and after the electrotherapy are also highlighted. The experiments demonstrated that electricity is not an effective therapy in the treatment of rabies, being rather able to cause serious functional and organic alterations in all the patients.
Analyzing the Milanese experiments, the authors reported specific Italian history of a scientific and medical approach to rabies at the end of the 18th century, which led to the promotion of health education, reinforced prevention strategies and opened the way to the vaccination era
The history of tuberculosis: The social role of sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis in Italy between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th
Since ancient times, the most frequently prescribed remedy for the treatment of tuberculosis was a stay in a temperate climate. From the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, Europe saw the development of sanatoria, where patients were able to benefit from outdoor walks, physical exercise and a balanced diet. Moreover, the institutionalisation and isolation of patients deemed to be contagious remains one of the most efficacious measures for the control of this type of infection. The first sanatorium opened in Germany in 1854, while in Italy the earliest experiments were conducted at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, it was widely believed in Italy that pulmonary tuberculosis could improve in a marine climate. By contrast, the scholar Biagio Castaldi described the salubrious effects of mountain air and documented a lower incidence of tuberculosis among mountain populations, which supported the hypothesis of a hereditary predisposition to the disease. In 1898, several local committees (Siena, Pisa, Padua) were founded to fight tuberculosis. The following year, these gave rise to the Lega Italiana (Italian League) under the patronage of the King of Italy, which helped to promote state intervention in the building of sanatoria. The pioneer of the institution of dedicated facilities for the treatment of tuberculosis was Edoardo Maragliano in Genoa in 1896. A few years later, in 1900, the first specialised hospital, with a capacity of 100 beds, was built in Budrio in a non-mountainous area, the aim being to treat patients within their habitual climatic environment. In the following years, institutes were built in Bologna, Livorno, Rome, Turin and Venice. A large sanatorium for the treatment of working-class patients was constructed in Valtellina by the fascist government at the beginning of the century, in the wake of studies by Eugenio Morelli on the climatic conditions of the pine woods in Sortenna di Sondalo, which he deemed to be ideal. In December 1916, the Italian Red Cross inaugurated the first military sanatorium in the \u201cLuigi Merello\u201d maritime hospice in Bergeggi (SV) to treat soldiers affected by curable tuberculosis. In 1919, a specific law mandated a 10-fold increase in funding for the construction of dispensaries and sanatoria. As a result, the Provincial Anti-tuberculosis Committees were transformed into Consortiums of municipal and provincial authorities and anti-TB associations, with the aim of coordinating the action to be undertaken. In 1927, the constitution of an Anti-tuberculosis Consortium in every province became a legal obligation. Despite this growth in social and healthcare measures, tuberculosis in Italy continued to constitute a major public health problem until the advent of antibiotics in the 1950s. Until that time, the sanatorium played a leading role in the treatment of tuberculosis in Italy, as in the rest of Europe
Encouraging versatile thinking in algebra using the computer
In this article we formulate and analyse some of the obstacles to understanding the notion of a variable, and the use and meaning of algebraic notation, and report empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that an approach using the computer will be more successful in overcoming these obstacles. The computer approach is formulated within a wider framework ofversatile thinking in which global, holistic processing complements local, sequential processing. This is done through a combination of programming in BASIC, physical activities which simulate computer storage and manipulation of variables, and specific software which evaluates expressions in standard mathematical notation. The software is designed to enable the user to explore examples and non-examples of a concept, in this case equivalent and non-equivalent expressions. We call such a piece of software ageneric organizer because if offers examples and non-examples which may be seen not just in specific terms, but as typical, or generic, examples of the algebraic processes, assisting the pupil in the difficult task of abstracting the more general concept which they represent. Empirical evidence from several related studies shows that such an approach significantly improves the understanding of higher order concepts in algebra, and that any initial loss in manipulative facility through lack of practice is more than made up at a later stage
First glimpse into the genomic characterization of people from the imperial Roman community of Casal Bertone (Rome, firstâthird centuries AD)
This paper aims to provide a first glimpse into the genomic characterization of individuals buried in Casal Bertone (Rome, first-third centuries AD) to gain preliminary insight into the genetic makeup of people who lived near a tannery workshop, fullonica. Therefore, we explored the genetic characteristics of individuals who were putatively recruited as fuller workers outside the Roman population. Moreover, we identified the microbial communities associated with humans to detect microbes associated with the unhealthy environment supposed for such a workshop. We examined five individuals from Casal Bertone for ancient DNA analysis through whole-genome sequencing via a shotgun approach. We conducted multiple investigations to unveil the genetic components featured in the samples studied and their associated microbial communities. We generated reliable whole-genome data for three samples surviving the quality controls. The individuals were descendants of people from North African and the Near East, two of the main foci for tannery and dyeing activity in the past. Our evaluation of the microbes associated with the skeletal samples showed microbes growing in soils with waste products used in the tannery process, indicating that people lived, died, and were buried around places where they worked. In that perspective, the results represent the first genomic characterization of fullers from the past. This analysis broadens our knowledge about the presence of multiple ancestries in Imperial Rome, marking a starting point for future data integration as part of interdisciplinary research on human mobility and the bio-cultural characteristics of people employed in dedicated workshops
- âŠ