20 research outputs found
Pilot experiment with the aim to reduce salmonella prevalence in pork by logistic slaughter of pigs
A pilot experiment was carried out with the aim to evaluate the possibilities and results of logistic slaughter of pigs (separate slaughter of salmonella-free and salmonella-infected pig herds) under usual circumstances in a Dutch slaughterhouse. During the experiment salmonella-free herds were delivered and slaughtered on Tuesday mornings. Herds delivered on Thursday mornings served as a control group. No significant difference could be found in the number of salmonella-positive carcasses on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This was mainly caused by contamination of carcasses by contaminated slaughter equipment; 80% of all salmonella strains on carcasses were equal to strains isolated from slaughter equipment. If these salmonella strains were not included in the results, logistic slaughter did result in a significantly lower prevalence of salmonella on carcasses on Tuesdays. It was concluded that separate slaughter of salmonella free pig herds can result in a lower salmonella prevalence on carcasses, but only if slaughter hygiene and especially cleaning and disinfection before and during processing will be improved
Unsound Seeds
With this image of a curtain hiding and at the same time heightening some terrible secret, Max Kalbeck began his review of the first Viennese performance of Richard Straussâs Salome. Theodor W. Adorno picked up the image of the curtain in the context of Straussâs fabled skill at composing non-musical events, when he identified the opening flourish of Straussâs Salome as the swooshing sound of the rising curtain. If this is so, the succĂšs de scandale of the opera was achieved, in more than one sense, as soon as the curtain rose at Dresdenâs Semperoper on 10 December 1905.
Critics of the premiere noted that the opera set âboundless wildness and degeneration to musicâ; it brought âhigh decadenceâ onto the operatic stage; a âcomposition of hysteriaâ, reflecting the âdisease of our timeâ, Salome is âhardly music any moreâ.The outrage did not end there
Vocal Culture in the Age of Laryngoscopy
For several months beginning in 1884, readers of Life, Science, Health, the Atlantic Monthly and similar magazines would have encountered half-page advertisements for a newly patented medical device called the âammoniaphoneâ (Figure 2.1). Invented and promoted by a Scottish doctor named Carter Moffat and endorsed by the soprano Adelina Patti, British Prime Minister William Gladstone and the Princess of Wales, the ammoniaphone promised a miraculous transformation in the voices of its users. It was recommended for âvocalists, clergymen, public speakers, parliamentary men, readers, reciters, lecturers, leaders of psalmody, schoolmasters, amateurs, church choirs, barristers, and all persons who have to use their voices professionally, or who desire to greatly improve their speaking or singing tonesâ. Some estimates indicated that Moffat sold upwards of 30,000 units, yet the ammoniaphone was a flash in the pan as far as such things go, fading from public view after 1886
Science, Technology and Love in Late Eighteenth-Century Opera
It is a tale told by countless operas: young love, thwarted by an old manâs financially motivated marriage plans, triumphs in the end thanks to a deception that tricks the old man into blessing the young loversâ union. Always a doddering fool, the old man is often also an enthusiast for knowledge. Such is the case, for instance, in Carlo Goldoniâs comic opera libretto Il mondo della luna (1750), in which Buonafedeâs interest in the moon opens him to an elaborate hoax that has him believe he and his daughters have left Earth for the lunar world; and also in the Singspiel Die LuftbĂ€lle, oder der Liebhaber Ă la Montgolfier (1788), wherein the apothecary Wurm trades Sophie, the ward he intended to marry himself, for a technological innovation that will make him a pioneering aeronaut
Opera and Hypnosis: Victor Maurelâs Experiments with Verdiâs Otello
One day in his private home on the avenue Bugeaud, in Parisâs sixteenth arrondissement, the famous baritone Victor Maurel hosted a meeting which combined music with hypnotism of a young woman
Operatic Fantasies in Early Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry
In his celebrated essay on insanity in the Dictionnaire des sciences mĂ©dicales (1816), French psychiatrist Ătienne Esquirol marvelled at the earlier custom of allowing asylum inmates to attend theatrical productions at Charenton