scholarly journals Medical knowledge and the improvement of vernacular languages in the Habsburg Monarchy: A case study from Transylvania (1770–1830)

Author(s):  
Teodora Daniela Sechel
Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1188
Author(s):  
Arman R. Badalyan ◽  
Marine Hovhannisyan ◽  
Gayane Ghavalyan ◽  
Mary M. Ter-Stepanyan ◽  
Rory Cave ◽  
...  

This paper highlights the low levels of vaccine coverage and high levels of reported vaccination hesitancy in Yerevan, Armenia, that present profound challenges to the control of disease through routine vaccination programmes. We draw on investigations of hesitancy towards the introduction of new vaccines, using the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil as a case study, to interrogate underlying challenges to vaccine acceptance. We analyse primary data from the introduction of Gardasil, first used in Armenia in 2017, to investigate how levels of medical knowledge amongst physicians in 20 health facilities in Yerevan, Armenia, regarding vaccine science influence attitudes towards the introduction of a newly developed vaccine. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was completed by 348 physicians between December 2017 and September 2018. The responding physicians displayed a respectable level of knowledge and awareness regarding vaccination with respect to some characteristics (e.g., more than 81% knew that HPV infection was commonly asymptomatic, 73% knew that HPV infection was implicated in most cervical cancers, and 87% knew that cervical cancer is the most prevalent cancer amongst women) but low knowledge and poor understanding of other key issues such as the age at which women were most likely to develop cervical cancer (only 15% answered correctly), whether or not the vaccine should be administered to people who had already been infected (27% answered correctly) and whether sexually active young people should be treated for infection before vaccination (26% answered correctly). The study suggests that the drivers of vaccine hesitancy are complex and may not be consistent from vaccine to vaccine. The Armenian healthcare sector may need to provide additional training, awareness-raising and educational activities alongside the introduction of new vaccines to improve understanding of and trust in vaccination programmes.


2014 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 504-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Wolf

As one of the key notions in French sociology,habitushas also lately conquered the field of translation studies, at least from the perspective of a sociologically-oriented view of translation. In this paper I will critically highlight the main factors responsible for the term’s potential for translation purposes. Within the discussion of its adoption in translation studies, I will test the enduring claim of the translator’s submissiveness allegedly related to the translatorialhabitus. On the basis of a case study on the private (commercial) translation sector in the late Habsburg Monarchy, I will focus on three aspects to substantiate my assumption that towards the end of the nineteenth century, the commercial translators’ activity was already characterized by explicit emancipating processes, mostly driven by the struggle for recognition in the field: the initially weak structure of the field; thehabitusas a product of the relation between its collective and individual history; the conditions triggering the dynamism of the translator’shabitus. I will attempt to develop a differentiated view on thehabitusconcept, challenging traditional discussions of its informative value.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Cornelia Wermuth

Although localization is, in the first place, related to the cultural adaptation and translation of software and websites, it is important for written materials as well. In this paper we investigate how specialized medical discourse used in the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) is localized in patient leaflets (PL). Both documents are issued by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and provide detailed information on the product compiled and distributed by the drug manufacturer, after EMA review and approval. We describe by means of a case study the formal and linguistic features of SmPCs and PLs and we investigate how the specialized source text is localized in its patient-friendly version. The aim of this investigation is to increase awareness and understanding of localization strategies adopted on the intralingual level in the communication of scientific-medical knowledge to a non-expert audience.


2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teodora Daniela Sechel

This article analyses the politics of medical translation and shows the complexity of knowledge production and circulation in the intercultural and multiethnic contexts of the Habsburg Monarchy. It argues that medical translations, including books, manuals, and brochures, were one of the important tools that contributed to the standardization of medical knowledge and practices in this region. Most of these books were authored by physicians and professors at medical schools in Vienna. They had a great influence upon medical knowledge and practices, thus Vienna was the authority approving what was taught and published. The usage of the same manuals and books implies that more or less the same medical knowledge was shared by the medical practitioners in the Habsburg Monarchy. The medical theories and practices transmitted reflect also the games of influence and power exercised by protomedici and professors at the Vienna University. It was a process of authorization and dissemination of knowledge from the “center” to the provinces.


1999 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijaya Deshpande

Allusions to Indian medicine appear in Chinese literature from the fifth century A.D. onwards. At first through translated Buddhist texts, and then through the incorporation of material by later Chinese authors in the form of medical theories, diagnostic, surgical methods and prescriptions, a substantial element of Indian medical knowledge permeated into Chinese medicine. Ophthalmology held a unique position in these transmissions. It was invariably associated with the famous name of Nāgārjuna, which is connected with almost all kinds of protoscientific activity in early medieval India. This has given rise to a longstanding debate among scholars regarding the origin of this material, as well as the credibility of its attribution to Nāgārjuna.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-114
Author(s):  
Alessandro Bianchi

AbstractThis article aims to shed light on the multifarious relationship between medicine and literature in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1867) by focusing on a humorous-informative work of popular fiction entitledYōjō kyōkun isha dangi(1759). Firstly, this essay provides an overview ofIsha dangiexplaining how medical knowledge is grafted onto narrative structure. Secondly, it analyses the didactic and entertaining aspects of this text and describes howIsha dangiwas influenced both by works of comic literature and by instructive medical manuals produced during the Tokugawa period. In doing so, this study supports the hypothesis of genre hybridism in Japanese early-modern literature. Finally, usingIsha dangias a case study, this article takes into account issues of authorship and readership in medically-themed literary works.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 137-162
Author(s):  
Thomas Eich

This paper analyzes the so-called Ibn Masʿūd ḥadīth (see below) on two levels: the specific wording of the ḥadīth on the one hand and a significant portion of the commentation written about it since the 10th century until today on the other. This aims at three things. First, I will show how the ḥadīth’s exact wording still developed after the stabilization of the material in collections. Although this development occurred only on the level of single words, it can be shown that it is a reflection of discussions documented in the commentaries. Therefore, these specific examples show that there was not always a clear line separating between ḥadīth text and commentaries on that text. Second, the diachronic analysis of the commentaries will provide material for a nuanced assessment in how far major icons of commentation such as Nawawī and Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī significantly influenced following generations in composing their respective commentaries. Third, I will argue that in the specific case study provided here significant changes in the commentation can be witnessed since the second half of the 19th century which are caused by the spread of basic common medical knowledge in that period.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 113-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Cornwall

ABSTRACTTreason is a ubiquitous historical phenomenon, one particularly associated with regime instability or wartime loyalties. This paper explores the practice and prosecution of treason in the last decades of the Habsburg monarchy with a special focus on some notorious wartime treason trials. It first sets the rhetoric and law of treason in a comparative historical context before assessing the legal framework supplied by the Austrian penal code of 1852. Although the treason law was exploited quite arbitrarily after 1914, the state authorities in the pre-war decade were already targeting irredentist suspects due to major anxiety about domestic and foreign security. In the Great War, the military were then given extensive powers to prosecute all political crimes including treason, causing a string of show-trials of Bosnian Serbs and some leading Czech politicians. By 1917–18, however, this onslaught on disloyalty was backfiring in the wake of an imperial amnesty: as loyalties shifted away from the Habsburg regime, the former criminals themselves proudly began to assume the title of ‘traitor’. The paper is a case-study of how regimes in crisis have used treason as a powerful moral instrument for managing allegiance. It also offers a new basis for understanding instability in the late Habsburg monarchy.


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