Demographic responses to short-term stress in a 19^th century Tuscan population: the case of household out-migration

This paper deals with the relationship between household emigration and short-term crisis in a rural community of mid-19th century Tuscany. Based on a detailed reconstruction of individual and household life-histories, the paper shows the close relationship between household emigration and different kinds of short-term stresses, either economic, epidemiologic or within the household. Despite the different response by SES - with the poorest strata of the population much exposed to price changes and mortality crisis - the death of the household head appears as one of the most powerful factor of household emigration

Health and socio-demographic conditions as determinants of marriage and social mobility

This paper makes use of data collected from military registers and marriage certificates for the population of Alghero, in Sardinia, for the period 1866-1925, with the aim of investigating the role played by physical characteristics and health in the possibility of social mobility through marriage. Our findings demonstrate that, whereas physical defects and ill health had little impact on the chances of marrying an illiterate woman, these factors did have a negative effect on the chances of marrying a woman who was literate. In a context in which intergenerational social mobility remained limited and the family had the final say on marriage arrangements, it is likely that only healthy individuals were selected for marriages regarded as strategic for the purposes of forming and strengthening family alliances, and/or improving the social position within the community.health, marriage, Sardinia, social mobility

Demographic responses to short-term stress in a 19th century Tuscan population: The case of household out-migration

This paper deals with the relationship between household emigration and short-term crisis in a rural community of mid-19th century Tuscany. Based on a detailed reconstruction of individual and household life-histories, the paper shows the close relationship between household emigration and different kinds of short-term stresses, either economic, epidemiologic or within the household. Despite the different response by SES - with the poorest strata of the population much exposed to price changes and mortality crisis - the death of the household head appears as one of the most powerful factor of household emigration.emigration, household, Italy, sharecropping, short-term stress

Wall paintings facies and their possible genetic correlates in the ancient Pompeii: A bio-anthropologic message from the past?

The figurative arts and precisely the ancient Pompeian wall paintings portraits can provide an additional source of information in supplementing bio-anthropological studies. There are several genetic diseases with a wide spectrum of congenital bone stigmata in association to distinctive facial features. Gorlin-Goltz syndrome, also named nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome, is an autosomal dominant syndrome characterized by unusual skeletal changes, such as macrocephaly, facial asymmetry, hypertelorism, frontal and parietal bossing caused by germline mutations of the gene PTCH1. The Gorlin syndrome, clinically defined in 1963, existed during Dynastic Egyptian times, as revealed by a spectrum of skeletal findings compatible with the syndrome in mummies dating back to three thousand years ago and, most likely, in the ancient population of Pompeii. In the present research, we discuss the potential relationship between Pompeian wall paintings portrait and the cranio-metric bone changes revealed among the Pompeian skull collections assuming that the ancient portraits can constitute an important tool that should be strictly integrated with osteologic and biomolecular data in order to argue a syndromic diagnosis in ancient population

A micro-analytical investigation of reproductive behaviour in Italy during the Fascist period

Between the late 1920s and the early 1930s, in line with what was happening in numerous European countries, the fascist regime in Italy instigated a series of measures aimed at combating the decline in fertility. Using individual data on four communities with different socio-economic characteristics taken from the Census of 1961, this study aims to verify if the regime's propaganda campaign and regulative measures to boost the birth-rate had any real impact within particular segments of the population. The study shows that there was only a modest recovery in the birth rate for a short period. These increases can be partly attributable to the policies activated from 1937 that prompted a significant increase in the marriage rate. apart of this little effect, individual-level analysis has revealed no increase in the birth-rate connected by the regime's policy

Male partner choice in Sardinia, late 19th-early 20th century

This paper makes use of data collected from military registers and marriage certificates for the population of Alghero, in Sardinia, for the period 1866-1925, with the aim of investigating the role played by physical characteristics and health in the possibility of social mobility through marriage. Our findings demonstrate that, whereas physical defects and ill health had little impact on the chances of marrying an illiterate woman, these factors did have a negative effect on the chances of marrying a woman who was literate. In a context in which intergenerational social mobility remained limited and the family had the final say on marriage arrangements, it is likely that only healthy individuals were selected for marriages regarded as strategic for the purposes of forming and strengthening family alliances, and/or improving the social position within the community

Son Preference in a Sharecropping Society: Gender Composition of Children and Reproduction in a Pre-Transitional Italian Community

Before the demographic transition, were couples able to control their fertility? Can we find evidence for this by comparing households with different occupations, in which the sex composition of the offspring may reveal a preference for children of a given sex and reproductive behaviours that differ in response to economic factors? To address this question, Matteo Manfredini, Marco BresCHi and Alessio fornasin make use of an original database on the fertility of nineteenth-century Tuscan families that combines information from parish registers and from a local census of inhabitants. They compare the probability of further births according to the sex composition of surviving children, focusing on four social groups: day labourers, sharecroppers, smallholders and non-agricultural occupations. The authors find evidence that sharecroppers tended to favour large families in order to secure a male heir

Deaths and survivors in war: The Italian soldiers in WWI

OBJECTIVE The aim of this paper is to study the selection effects of mortality among soldiers in WWI. METHODS Individual-level data of more than 62,000 soldiers born between 1874 and 1899 in north-eastern Italy was used. Almost 10% of these soldiers died in the war. A data set was constructed by linking two different sources, the call-up registers and the Roll of Honour of the fallen Italian soldiers of WWI. RESULTS The risk of death of soldiers in war depended partly on the soldier\u2019s assignment to corps and partly on personal behaviour and individual characteristics. A relatively small number of soldiers of large body size fell in battle. The most universal cause of death was illness. Literate soldiers were less likely to die in captivity. CONTRIBUTION The concept of mortality differential has rarely been applied to soldiers engaged in conflict. This is because they were supposed to experience similar perils and run similar risks during the war. However, our study found evidence of strong mortality differentials among soldiers, which were strictly associated with the striking differences in terms of literacy, education, and socio-economic status that permeated the Italian society of that time and that the universal enrolment allowed to highlight

Role of microsatellite instability, immunohistochemistry and Mismatch Repair germline aberrations in immunosuppressed transplant patients: a phenocopy dilemma in Muir-Torre Syndrome.

Sebaceous tumours and keratoacanthomas are uncommon neoplasms that constitute important clinical criteria for Muir-Torre Syndrome (MTS) diagnosis. In MTS patients, the increased risk of developing synchronous or metachronous visceral malignancies is characterized by autosomal dominant inheritance. However, there are further conditions, other than MTS, that increase the risk of sebaceous neoplasms, e.g. iatrogenic immunosuppression. In this latter scenario, the sebaceous tumours can present Microsatellite instability (MSI) and loss of Mismatch-Repair (MMR) proteins, characteristic of hereditary syndromes, even in the absence of MMR germline mutations. In this paper we examine transplant probands in which the immunosuppressive therapies unmask the MTS cutaneous phenotypes, showing microsatellite instability (MSI) and loss of MMR protein expression, as demonstrated by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Furthermore, mismatch repair genes (MMR) sequencing analysis identified the presence of germline mutations in MTS-suspected individuals, in the absence of a visceral MTS phenotype. It is well known that immunosuppression plays a central role in the development of sebaceous tumours in both MTS and in non-syndromic settings. Sebaceous skin tumours MSI status and IHC profiles can be influenced by epigenetic or iatrogenic factors, however they constitute valuable tools and a cost-effective approach to screen individuals who otherways should undergo MMR genes direct sequencing in the context of immunosuppression. In this complex setting, the choice of the immunosuppressive drug becomes a critical decision for the management of both MTS and sporadic transplant patients, that may benefit from the administration of immunosuppressive drugs, resulting in a low impact on skin cancerogenesis