The opposite of Dante's hell? The transfer of ideas for social housing at international congresses in the 1850s–1860s

With the advent of industrialization, the question of developing adequate housing for the emergent working classes became more pressing than before. Moreover, the problem of unhygienic houses in industrial cities did not stop at the borders of a particular nation-state; sometimes literally as pandemic diseases spread out 'transnationally'. It is not a coincidence that in the nineteenth century the number of international congresses on hygiene and social topics expanded substantially. However, the historiography about social policy in general and social housing in particular, has often focused on individual cases because of the different pace of industrial and urban development and is thus dominated by national perspectives. In this paper, I elaborate on transnational exchange processes and local adaptations and transformations. I focus on the transfer of the housing model of SOMCO in Mulhouse, (a French house building association) during social international congresses. I examine whether cross-national networking enabled and facilitated the implementation of ideas on the local scale. I will elaborate on the transmission and the local adaptation of the Mulhouse-model in Belgium. Convergences, divergences, and different factors that influenced the local transformations (personal choice, political situation, socioeconomic circumstances) will be taken into accoun

Territorio, lugares y salud : redimensionar lo espacial en salud pública

RESUMEN: El propósito de este escrito es avanzar en la lectura del proceso de salud-enfermedad en clave territorial. La teorización sobre el vínculo salud y ambiente debe extenderse desde las tipologías médicas, y su énfasis en la distribución del riesgos ambientales (físico, biológico, químico), hacia el reconocimiento de la producción social y subjetiva de los territorios. Para avanzar en esta teorización la salud pública debe enriquecerse con la integración de nociones propias de las ciencias sociales como la apropiación del espacio, territorio-territorialidades y lugares. Además, ha de orientarse desde una mirada escalar hacia los microterritorios, pues es en el escenario de los territorios locales y en los lugares cotidianos de la vida, donde se concretan los modos de vivir, de enfermar y de construir salud

The spectacular anus of Joseph Pujol: Recovering the Pétomane’s unique historic context

Joseph Pujol, the ‘Pétomane’ performed to packed audiences at the Moulin Rouge in the early 1890s. By 1906 one of his contemporaries would remark that ‘this artist’s specialty was no longer in fashion’. When legal battles occurred between Pujol and the Moulin Rouge, newspaper commentaries were filled with hilarity that a man whose anus was the source of his income was now trying to gain a fortune from it. What might the spectacular anus of Pujol, and its pecuniary trials and tribulations, tell us about bodily imagination in late nineteenth-century France? Pujol’s idiosyncratic career has rarely been considered as an historical object; and when it has, the gaze has been light-hearted and filled with puns, much like those that surrounded him in his lifetime. But if the temptation to giggle is resisted for a moment, the Pétomane can teach us much about symbolic meanings that were ascribed to the anus in late nineteenth-century Paris

History of urban food policy in Europe, from the ancient city to the industrial city

International audienc

Exudation of alcohol and aldehyde sugars from roots of defoliated Lolium perenne L. grown under sterile conditions

Root exudates were collected over a 27 day period from defoliated and non-defoliated Lolium perenne L. plants grown under sterile conditions in microlysimeters. Eleven individual sugars, including both aldehyde and alcohol sugars, were identified and quantified with a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). There was no change in the number of sugars present between 7 and 27 days, but the exudation of alcohol sugars decreased rapidly at about day 12. Xylose and glucose were present in the largest amounts. Defoliation initially increased the total amount of sugars in the exudates, but continuous defoliation reduced total sugar exudation by 16% and induced changes in the exudation patterns of individual sugars. Defoliation enhanced exudation of erythritol, threitol, and xylitol, reduced exudation of glucose and arabitol, but had little effect on the amounts of other sugars exuded. The more complex 6 C, 5 OH aldehyde sugars, especially glucose, showed changes earlier and to a greater extent (17 days), than the 5 C, 4 OH (xylose and ribose) and 6 C 4 OH (fucose) aldehyde groups. These findings confirm the general finding that repeated defoliation reduces the quantity of total sugars exuded, but the pattern of release of individual sugars is complex and variable

Variation in the Site of Lithiation of 2-(2-Methylphenyl)ethanamine Derivatives

Unexpectedly, lithiation of N'-(2-(2-methylphenyl)ethyl)-N,N-dimethylurea with three equivalents of n butyllithium in anhydrous THF at 0 C takes place on the nitrogen and on the CH2 next to the 2-methylphenyl ring (α-lithiation). The lithium reagent thus obtained reacts with various electrophiles to give the corresponding substituted derivatives in excellent yields. Similarly, lithiation of N-(2-(2-methylphenyl)ethyl)pivalamide under similar reaction conditions followed by reaction with benzophenone as a representative electrophile gave the corresponding α-substituted product in high yield. Surprisingly, no products resulting from lateral lithiation were observed under the conditions tried, which sharply contrasts with the reported results for lateral lithiation of tert-butyl (2-(2-methylphenyl)ethyl)carbamate