Portraiture in the head and neck cancer clinic: a patient’s perspective

I first met Scottish artist Mark Gilbert in 2013 as a participant in his Ph.D. dissertation study, “The Experience of Portraiture in Clinical Settings” [EPICS]. I was introduced to the study during a follow-up appointment with my head and neck cancer surgeon. Twelve years earlier, at the age of fifty-three, I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma on my tongue, which was removed surgically along with corresponding lymph nodes. I also underwent radiotherapy. Prior to EPICS, Mark had collaborated with physicians and patients on several projects that sought to use art, specifically portraiture, to explore notions of illness, recovery, care, and caregiving. During these studies, Mark became acutely aware of how fundamental the intimate nature of the relationships and interactions between participants and himself were to the portrait-making process. He realized the connections made with each person were as diverse as the participants themselves and responded to their voices, both silent and spoken, to guide and inform the marks he made on the canvas

Antimicrobial assays of three native British plants used in Anglo-Saxon medicine for wound healing formulations in 10th century England

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Three important Anglo-Saxon medical texts from the 10th century contain herbal formulations for over 250 plant species, many of which have yet to be evaluated for their phytochemical and/or pharmacological properties. In this study, three native British plants were selected to determine antimicrobial activity relevant to treating bacterial infections and wounds. Materials and methods: Several preparations of Agrimonia eupatoria L., Arctium minus (Hill) Bernh. and Potentilla reptans L. were screened for antimicrobial activity against selected Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria of relevance in wounds using a 96 well plate microdilution method (200, 40 and 8 µg/mL). Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were determined for the most potent extracts from 2-0.004 mg/mL and HPLC chromatograms examined by multivariate analysis. Principle components analysis (PCA) was used to identify chemical differences between antimicrobial activity of the crude extracts. Results: The HPLC-PCA score plots attributed HPLC peaks to the antimicrobial activity with all three plants inhibiting growth of Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus by >50% in four or more extracts. The first two principal components (PC) represented 87% of the dataset variance. The P. reptans 75% ethanol root extract exhibited the greatest range of activity with MIC50 at 31.25 µg/mL to a total MIC that was also the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) at 1 mg/mL. Additionally, the root of P. reptans inhibited growth of Gram-negative bacteria with the 75% ethanol extract having a MIC50 at 1 mg/mL against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the decoction a MIC50 at 3.9 µg/mL against Escherichia coli. Conclusions: The results indicate a moderate antimicrobial activity against common wound pathogens for P.reptans suggesting it may well have been effective for treating wound and bacterial infections. Anglo-Saxon literary heritage may provide a credible basis for researching new antimicrobial formulations. Our approach encompassing advanced analytical technologies and chemometric models paves the way for systematic investigation of Anglo-Saxon medical literature for further therapeutic indications to uncover knowledge of native British plants, some of which are currently lost to modern Western herbal medicine

Spirit, mind and body: the archaeology of monastic healing

Archaeology and material culture are used in this chapter to consider how monastic experience responded to illness, ageing and disability. The approach taken is influenced by the material study of religion, which interrogates how bodies and things engage to construct the sensory experience of religion, and by practice-based approaches in archaeology, which examine the active role of space and material culture in shaping religious agency and embodiment. The archaeology of monastic healing focuses on the full spectrum of healing technologies, from managing the body in order to prevent illness, through to the treatment of the sick and preparation of the corpse for burial

Writing in Britain and Ireland, c. 400 to c. 800

No abstract available

THE STATED AND OPERATIVE OBJECTIVES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA EXTENSION HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM, 1929-1975.

Abstract not availabl

Ethics Talk: Portraiture in Clinical Contexts

Dr James Van Arsdall shares his experience of sitting for a portrait after his treatment for oral cancer, and Dr Mark Gilbert describes how he came to do portraiture in clinical settings

Economic Implications of Water Pollution Abatement in Family Farm Livestock Production

Investments in livestock waste management systems on family farm would range from a few dollars to half or more of total initial cost of modern confinement systems. Control of animal wastes beyond what farmers are already doing would add to cost with no offsetting change in returns on most farms. The immediate impact of additional pollution abatement is a reduction in income. It would fall more heavily on some producers than others. Farmers who annually produce about 50 hogs on pasture may be little affected. Net income may be severely reduced, however, on many farms where more hogs are produced in open lots. Added drainage control and waste storage could increase costs as much as $6 per head for a 500-head, open-lot operation. Continued operation might then be unprofitable. Producers who use complete confinement can very likely meet environmental quality standards for little added cost. Shifting from surface application to soil injection of wastes would raise costs only about$0.16 per hog in a 1,500-head operation. Large volume (5,000 head) producers without a cropland base could encounter either intolerable added costs or net gains if new ways to capture values from wastes are devised. A high-quality environment is important to farmers, but impediments to change exist: (1) Farmers and lenders are not certain of the performance of alternative methods of pollution control or the level of environmental quality that will eventually be required; (2) the market offers no economic incentive to change; (3) diseconomies of size exist; (4) age and tenancy make durable investments unattractive; and (5 ) technical assistance is not yet available in the amount that will be required by new and pending legislation