Quantified bodies, exclusion, and the history of randomised clinical trials

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Toth
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Skin Infection ◽  
Medical Research Council ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Scientific Medicine ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
High Degree

Based on a paper given at the Conference on Quantification of Bodies, University of Coimbra November 2019. The standard historiography of clinical trials, at least in Britain, is built around the trial of streptomycin as a treatment for tuberculosis organised by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) in the late 1940s. A series of clinical trials took place in Glasgow in the 1930s which doesn’t feature in the standard account. The reasons for their exclusion, and why they did take place, are the subject of this paper.In recovering the context in which the Glasgow clinical trials took place three factors stand out. Firstly, the practice operated by the Glasgow Corporation of treating most cases of skin infection by hospitalising patients. Secondly, the high degree of interconnectivity between voluntary and state-funded hospitals in Glasgow at the time. Thirdly, the belief of Thomas Anderson in the value of biometry as a basis for evaluating therapies.These factors can be given names. The first is the moral economy of medicine - the practice of establishing fever and isolation hospitals as part of hospital provision in Glasgow in the nineteenth century. The second is the political economy of medicine - the relationships among doctors, especially the degree of interconnectedness between the health systems associated with the University of Glasgow and the Corporation of Glasgow. The third is the mathematization of causality - in this case, the biometric sensibilities of Thomas Anderson: his understanding of, expertise, and belief in, the efficacy of quantification as a means of progress in scientific medicine.

Fayned News

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Rose
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
Baruch College ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University

When my students ask me, “What will be the next big thing in historical studies?,” I tell them to watch out for the history of public relations. The University of Bournemouth in the UK has a fairly new center devoted to the subject, Baruch College in Manhattan has just set up a Museum of Public Relations, and I think that’s just the beginning. Yes, plenty of work has been done on the history of advertising and propaganda, but PR is different: Dan Draper and Joseph Goebbels were perfectly upfront about what they were doing, but PR is a medium that commonly and deliberately disguises its own authorship. Let me state at the outset that everyone today uses publicists, and much of their work is entirely ethical. For publishers, they write up promotional material, send out review copies, arrange author interviews, and extract blurbs from reviews of their books—this one, for instance. But the main focus of this chapter is the kind of PR that surreptitiously plants stories in various media. It works only insofar as readers don’t recognize it, and therefore distrust of the media is in large measure a function of reader recognition of PR. The standard narrative holds that public relations was invented by Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays in the early twentieth century, but the basic concept of publicity can be traced back as far as Socrates’s Phaedrus, who observed that “an orator does not need to know what is really just, but what would seem just to the multitude who are to pass judgment, and not what is really good or noble, but what will seem to be so; for they say that persuasion comes from what seems to be true, not from the truth” (260a). One of the most brilliant PR agents of the pre-newspaper era was working before Shakespeare staged his first play.

The Unfinished Sexual Revolution

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Revolution ◽  
Editorial Note ◽  
Memorial Lecture ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
The World ◽  
Control Clinic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University

Editorial note. March 17th, 1971 was the fiftieth anniversary of the opening by Marie Stopes of her birth control clinic in Holloway, London, the first of its kind in the UK and possibly in the world. In recognition of this notable event, the Board of the Marie Stopes Memorial Foundation, in conjunction with the University of York, has established a Marie Stopes Memorial Lecture to be given annually for a term of years. The first of the series was delivered on 12th March in the Department of Sociology, University of York, by Mr Laurie Taylor of that department. In introducing the speaker, Dr G. C. L. Bertram, the Chairman, emphasized the great contribution made by Marie Stopes to human welfare and gave a brief history of the clinic, which was soon moved to Whitfield Street. On Marie Stopes' death in 1958 the Memorial Foundation was set up to manage the clinic, still in Whitfield Street, and as a working monument to a great women.Mr Taylor's script is printed below as delivered and it will be seen that the lecture was a notable one. Not only that, but it was delivered with the verve of a Shakespearean actor and the members of the large and appreciative audience will not readily forget the occasion.

Astrobiology in Brazil: early history and perspectives

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 189-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Rodrigues ◽  
Douglas Galante ◽  
Ivan G. Paulino-Lima ◽  
Rubens T.D. Duarte ◽  
Amancio C.S. Friaça ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Formal Group ◽  
Scientific Production ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
First Occurrence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Review Reports ◽  
Number Of Publications ◽  
Brazilian History ◽  
The University

AbstractThis review reports the Brazilian history in astrobiology, as well as the first delineation of a vision of the future development of the field in the country, exploring its abundant biodiversity, highly capable human resources and state-of-the-art facilities, reflecting the last few years of stable governmental investments in science, technology and education, all conditions providing good perspectives on continued and steadily growing funding for astrobiology-related research. Brazil is growing steadily and fast in terms of its worldwide economic power, an effect being reflected in different areas of the Brazilian society, including industry, technology, education, social care and scientific production. In the field of astrobiology, the country has had some important landmarks, more intensely after the First Brazilian Workshop on Astrobiology in 2006. The history of astrobiology in Brazil, however, is not so recent and had its first occurrence in 1958. Since then, researchers carried out many individual initiatives across the country in astrobiology-related fields, resulting in an ever growing and expressive scientific production. The number of publications, including articles and theses, has particularly increased in the last decade, but still counting with the effort of researchers working individually. That scenario started to change in 2009, when a formal group of Brazilian researchers working with astrobiology was organized, aiming at congregating the scientific community interested in the subject and to promote the necessary interactions to achieve a multidisciplinary work, receiving facilities and funding from the University de Sao Paulo and other funding agencies.

scholarly journals Problems and Prospects for the Development of the UK Banking System in the Process of New Industrialization and Digitalization

2021 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 05017
Author(s):  
Olga Sokolova ◽  
Nadezhda Goncharova ◽  
Pavel Letov
Keyword(s):  
Capital Market ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Banking System ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Important Trend ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The Uk ◽  
High Degree ◽  
New Industrialization

The gist of this article boils down to the development of British banking system in the conditions of new industrialization and digitalization. The banking system of Great Britain is characterized by a high degree of concentration and specialization of banking, a well-developed banking infrastructure, and a close connection with the international loan capital market. London is the world's oldest financial center. The English banking system has the world's widest network of overseas branches. The UK banking system is relatively independent from the credit systems of the European Union. Nevertheless, banking legislation is focused on the unification of banking law within the European Community and supervision of banking activities. In the context of the global financial crisis, the UK banking system, as in other countries, has been severely tested. The most important trend in the development of the UK banking system is the blurring of boundaries between certain types of credit institutions. The subject of the research is the UK banking system in the context of new industrialization and digitalization.

scholarly journals Special issue on Aspects of OV and VO order in the history of English

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANN TAYLOR ◽  
WIM VAN DER WURFF
Keyword(s):  
Large Body ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
University Of Leiden ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
English Syntax ◽  
The University ◽  
Recent Monograph ◽  
Detailed Picture

Whether judged by the amount of intrinsic interest, the number of knock-on effects, or the sheer volume of scholarly work devoted to it, it seems safe to say that one of the major issues in English historical syntax is the shift from object–verb (OV) to verb–object (VO) order. Over the last three decades in particular, a large body of literature has grown up that has resulted in an increasingly detailed picture of this change. No doubt in part because the recent introduction of electronic corpora has provided a boost to data-oriented work, the popularity of this change shows no imminent signs of abating. Evidence for the continuing popularity of this topic was demonstrated at two conferences held at the University of Leiden Centre for Linguistics in 2003 (the second Holland–York Symposium on the History of English Syntax in April 2003, and the Conference on Comparative Diachronic Syntax in August 2003). Although neither of the meetings had the shift from OV to VO in English as a special theme, the conference programmes together included no fewer than eight papers on the topic. Seven of these can be found in this special issue, which aims to illuminate selected aspects of the alternation between OV and VO order in the history of English; the collection of articles is rounded off by a review of a recent monograph on the subject.

scholarly journals OBITUARY

2007 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 589-595
Author(s):  
Ian Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The University ◽  
Mathematics Department

Daniel Martin B.Sc., M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S.E. was born in Carluke on 16 April 1915, the only child of William and Rose Martin (née Macpherson). The family home in which he was born, Cygnetbank in Clyde Street, had been remodelled and extended by his father, and it was to be Dan's home all his life. His father, who was a carpenter and joiner, had a business based in School Lane, but died as a result of a tragic accident when Dan was only six. Thereafter Dan was brought up single handedly by his mother.After attending primary school in Carluke from 1920 to 1927, Dan entered the High School of Glasgow. It was during his third year there that he started studying calculus on his own. He became so enthused by the subject that he set his sights on a career teaching mathematics, at university if at all possible. On leaving school in 1932, he embarked on the M.A. honours course in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. At that time the Mathematics Department was under the leadership of Professor Thomas MacRobert; the honours course in Mathematics consisted mainly of geometry, calculus and analysis, and the combined honours M.A. with Natural Philosophy was the standard course for mathematicians. A highlight of his first session at university was attending a lecture on the origins of the general theory of relativity, given on 20th June 1933 by Albert Einstein. This was the first of a series of occasional lectures on the history of mathematics funded by the George A. Gibson Foundation which had been set up inmemory of the previous head of the Mathematics Department. From then on, relativity was to be one of Dan's great interests, lasting a lifetime; indeed, on holiday in Iona the year before he died, Dan's choice of holiday reading included three of Einstein's papers.

A Note on Functional Linguistics in the Middle Ages

Traditio ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 430-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfons Nehring
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
Future Edition ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Basic Ideas ◽  
The University ◽  
The Middle Ages

Treatises de modis significandi are known to have been a favorite genre of scholastic literature. One of them, by Martinus de Dacia, has lately been made the subject of a thorough study by Father Heinrich Roos, S.J., and will be briefly discussed in these pages. The text of this treatise, and commentaries on it, are found in a fairly large number of manuscripts, of which Fr. Roos presents a list, and which he endeavors to determine in their mutual relation in order to lay the groundwork for a future edition, apparently — as much as any one not himself familiar with the manuscripts can judge — with thoroughness and reliablity (chs. I, II). In some of the manuscripts and in certain other sources the treatise is ascribed to one Martinus de Dacia (Denmark). Very convincingly Fr. Roos demonstrates (ch. III) that this bit of information is correct and that the author was identical with a high-ranking Danish cleric of that name, who at one time was the chancellor of King Eric VI Menved. It is likely that Martinus composed his treatise while he was a professor in the Liberal Arts Faculty of the University of Paris, probably around 1250. The treatise seems to have enjoyed a great reputation, which would be accounted for if Fr. Roos is right in assuming that Martinus set the model for the entire type. In the last two chapters (IV, V) Fr. Roos describes the character and basic ideas of the tractate against the background of the development of scholarship and higher education during the Middle Ages. This historical outline is very interesting and instructive indeed. Nevertheless it provokes criticism regarding two interrelated points, namely, the characterization of scholastic grammar and its position in the history of linguistic studies.

The subject that won't go away But perhaps we are ahead of the game. Design as research

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Design Processes ◽  
Robert Venturi ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
Denise Scott Brown

Design is central to the discipline of architecture. Despite this, the question as to whether design constitutes a form of research seems to raise more questions and strong feelings than any other aspect of the UK Government's research assessments of university architecture schools (arq 6/1, p5). No one is better fitted to set out the arguments than Bryan Lawson: an architect and psychologist, he has acted as an assessor for the last two exercises, has extensive knowledge of the university sector and has undertaken research on the design processes of such influential designers as Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Herman Hertzberger and Ken Yeang. (See also leader, p99, and letters, pp101–106 in this issue.)

The Letters of Adam Marsh and the Franciscan School at Oxford

1991 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Official Position ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The University

Salimbene called the Franciscan Adam Marsh ‘one of the greatest clerks of the world’, an accolade he reserved for a small group of men whom he regarded as the master minds of his time. A glance at Adam's letters suggests that Salimbene's opinion was widely shared by Adam's contemporaries. Few men without official position can have had their advice so eagerly sought by so many different people in high places. He was the counsellor of Henry III and the queen, the confidant of Simon de Montfort and his wife, the mentor of bishops and consultant to the rulers of his order. He enjoyed the trust of men as different as Archbishop Boniface of Savoy, who tried to recruit him to his familia, and Grosseteste, a lifelong friend, with whom he collaborated in the study and transmission of Greek texts. He moved with equal assurance in the world of ecclesiastical politics and the scholastic world of the university. The nature of his political influence has been the subject of frequent surmise, but the importance of his part in directing the Franciscan school at Oxford and creating the scholastic organisation of the English province has long been recognised. Yet several phases of his career and life remain obscure or at best enigmatic. My object here is to elucidate some of the more opaque points of his career and to re-examine his place in the history of the early Franciscan school.

scholarly journals A window on China. An introduction

Chronos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 163-165
Author(s):  
Alex Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Faculty Members ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Christianity In China ◽  
Chinese University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Close Cooperation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Normal University ◽  
History Department ◽  
The University

In May-June 2015, I was invited by the Confucius Institute and the BeijingNormal University to conduct research on the spread of Nestorian Christianityin China, and I was asked by the Beijing Normal University to give a lectureon the subject. That invitation was the earliest stage of links woven betweenthe Faculty of History at Beijing Normal University (now one of the top fiveuniversities in China) and the History department of the Faculty of Arts andSocial Sciences at the University of Balamand. Close cooperation betweenthe two universities is underway with the enthusiastic support of the Dean,Prof. Georges Dorlian, having in view, among other things, to encouragethe exchange of students and teaching staff between our two respectiveuniversities. A delegation from a Chinese university was sent to UOB for thefirst time in April 2016. The delegation was composed of five professors fromBeijing Normal University: two of its faculty members agreed to give twolectures on topics chosen jointly by the responsible of the two universities andwhich were of great significance for both. One was on the history of the SilkRoad and the other on the origins of Christianity in China. We are pleased topresent these two texts.

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