The Rhetoric of Illusion: Persuasion and Response in Forgery, the Arts and Other Deceptions (1600-1750)

This dissertation consists of five articles and focuses on five cases of deception, all presented and exposed in early modern London: The Originall of Idolatries (1624), Alexander Bendo’s mountebank handbill (1676), George Psalmanazar’s An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa (1704), the case of Mary Toft (1726) and the Great Bottle Hoax (1749). These are all examples of creative forgery, fakes without a prototype, that were created to be woven into the fabric of reality. The articles discuss the cases’ dynamics of persuasion and response within their respective cultural contexts but they also explore the wider implications of the five cases and what they can tell us about the perception and role of forgery in early modern culture. Why did early modern illusionist artists and playwrights explicitly compare their work to this kind of deception? How did forgery contribute to the development of the distinction between fiction and scholarship? And what can discussions of newly exposed forgeries tell us about the cultural negotiation of the concepts of reality, authenticity and originality in early modern England?Medieval and Early Modern Studie

Smoking during pregnancy influences the maternal immune response in mice and humans

OBJECTIVE: During pregnancy the maternal immune system has to adapt its response to accommodate the fetus. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of smoking on the maternal immune system. STUDY DESIGN: First-trimester decidual tissue and peripheral blood of smoking and nonsmoking women were analyzed by real time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and flow cytometry. A mouse model was used to further analyze the effects of smoking. Murine tissue was analyzed by flow cytometry, real-time RT-PCR, and immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: Smoking caused lower percentages of viable pups in mice and lower birthweights in humans. Smoking mothers, both mice and human, had more natural killer cells and inflammatory macrophages locally, whereas systemically they had lower percentages of regulatory T cells than nonsmoking controls. CONCLUSION: Maternal smoke exposure during pregnancy influences local and systemic immune responses in both women and mice. Such changes may be involved in adverse pregnancy outcomes in smoking individuals

A randomised, blinded, trial of clopidogrel versus aspirin in patients at risk of ischaemic events (CAPRIE). CAPRIE Steering Committee

Many clinical trials have evaluated the benefit of long-term use of antiplatelet drugs in reducing the risk of clinical thrombotic events. Aspirin and ticlopidine have been shown to be effective, but both have potentially serious adverse effects. Clopidogrel, a new thienopyridine derivative similar to ticlopidine, is an inhibitor of platelet aggregation induced by adenosine diphosphate. METHODS: CAPRIE was a randomised, blinded, international trial designed to assess the relative efficacy of clopidogrel (75 mg once daily) and aspirin (325 mg once daily) in reducing the risk of a composite outcome cluster of ischaemic stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death; their relative safety was also assessed. The population studied comprised subgroups of patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease manifested as either recent ischaemic stroke, recent myocardial infarction, or symptomatic peripheral arterial disease. Patients were followed for 1 to 3 years. FINDINGS: 19,185 patients, with more than 6300 in each of the clinical subgroups, were recruited over 3 years, with a mean follow-up of 1.91 years. There were 1960 first events included in the outcome cluster on which an intention-to-treat analysis showed that patients treated with clopidogrel had an annual 5.32% risk of ischaemic stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death compared with 5.83% with aspirin. These rates reflect a statistically significant (p = 0.043) relative-risk reduction of 8.7% in favour of clopidogrel (95% Cl 0.3-16.5). Corresponding on-treatment analysis yielded a relative-risk reduction of 9.4%. There were no major differences in terms of safety. Reported adverse experiences in the clopidogrel and aspirin groups judged to be severe included rash (0.26% vs 0.10%), diarrhoea (0.23% vs 0.11%), upper gastrointestinal discomfort (0.97% vs 1.22%), intracranial haemorrhage (0.33% vs 0.47%), and gastrointestinal haemorrhage (0.52% vs 0.72%), respectively. There were ten (0.10%) patients in the clopidogrel group with significant reductions in neutrophils (< 1.2 x 10(9)/L) and 16 (0.17%) in the aspirin group. INTERPRETATION: Long-term administration of clopidogrel to patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease is more effective than aspirin in reducing the combined risk of ischaemic stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death. The overall safety profile of clopidogrel is at least as good as that of medium-dose aspirin