Native breeds and the British Empire, 1800-1900

Thesis (Ph. D. in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HASTS))--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-277).This dissertation explores the relationship between types of livestock and place in the context of Great Britain's expanding agro-pastoral empire. Specifically, it examines how the distribution and circulation of breeds of livestock native to the British Isles influenced understandings of kind and location-of the dynamic interaction between heredity, human influence and environmental conditions, and their various fluid effects on ovine and bovine diversity. Drawing on extensive archival work in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia, I trace both the national origins and imperial expansion of British breeds. As Britain industrialized in the early nineteenth century, breeders faced the need to convert the specificity of their animals into fungibility while maintaining the distinctive character of their breeds, seemingly incompatible aims that nonetheless guaranteed the economic viability of their stock. Thus they reoriented local variability towards market standardization, transforming regional types of cattle and sheep into geographically transposable, bulky, and quick-fattening beasts suited for increasingly sophisticated economies and industrialized production. Tension between standardization and specialization shaped the dispersal of breeds throughout the empire as well. Here, stockbreeders served two masters: the unfamiliar climates and topographies of Australia, New Zealand, and North America, which demanded local adaptations, and the British consumer, whose dinner table was the end of the line for the bulk of colonial beef and mutton. As they tried to balance local adaptation and metropolitan taste, breeders experimented with heredity, testing the limits of contemporary understandings of heritability and breed plasticity, and developed of new strains of livestock genetically derived from British breeds, but culturally, economically and environmentally hybrid. In the process, imperialism itself was instantiated in these animals. Bodies of sheep and cattle were remade to suit new lands and later to fill the refrigerated holds of ocean liners. The empire itself was recast as a vast apparatus for feeding Britons. This system, divested of its imperial trappings and disseminated still further, brings meat to tables around the world today.by Rebecca J. H. Woods.Ph.D.in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HAST

Effect of Noninvasive Respiratory Strategies on Intubation or Mortality Among Patients With Acute Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure and COVID-19: The RECOVERY-RS Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and high-flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) have been recommended for acute hypoxemic respiratory failure in patients with COVID-19. Uncertainty exists regarding the effectiveness and safety of these noninvasive respiratory strategies. Objective To determine whether either CPAP or HFNO, compared with conventional oxygen therapy, improves clinical outcomes in hospitalized patients with COVID-19-related acute hypoxemic respiratory failure. Design, Setting, and Participants A parallel group, adaptive, randomized clinical trial of 1273 hospitalized adults with COVID-19-related acute hypoxemic respiratory failure. The trial was conducted between April 6, 2020, and May 3, 2021, across 48 acute care hospitals in the UK and Jersey. Final follow-up occurred on June 20, 2021. Interventions Adult patients were randomized to receive CPAP (n = 380), HFNO (n = 418), or conventional oxygen therapy (n = 475). Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome was a composite of tracheal intubation or mortality within 30 days. Results The trial was stopped prematurely due to declining COVID-19 case numbers in the UK and the end of the funded recruitment period. Of the 1273 randomized patients (mean age, 57.4 [95% CI, 56.7 to 58.1] years; 66% male; 65% White race), primary outcome data were available for 1260. Crossover between interventions occurred in 17.1% of participants (15.3% in the CPAP group, 11.5% in the HFNO group, and 23.6% in the conventional oxygen therapy group). The requirement for tracheal intubation or mortality within 30 days was significantly lower with CPAP (36.3%; 137 of 377 participants) vs conventional oxygen therapy (44.4%; 158 of 356 participants) (absolute difference, -8% [95% CI, -15% to -1%], P = .03), but was not significantly different with HFNO (44.3%; 184 of 415 participants) vs conventional oxygen therapy (45.1%; 166 of 368 participants) (absolute difference, -1% [95% CI, -8% to 6%], P = .83). Adverse events occurred in 34.2% (130/380) of participants in the CPAP group, 20.6% (86/418) in the HFNO group, and 13.9% (66/475) in the conventional oxygen therapy group. Conclusions and Relevance Among patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure due to COVID-19, an initial strategy of CPAP significantly reduced the risk of tracheal intubation or mortality compared with conventional oxygen therapy, but there was no significant difference between an initial strategy of HFNO compared with conventional oxygen therapy. The study may have been underpowered for the comparison of HFNO vs conventional oxygen therapy, and early study termination and crossover among the groups should be considered when interpreting the findings. Trial Registration isrctn.org Identifier: ISRCTN16912075