Thomas Henshaw's strange séance in Venice, circa 1648: A coda to Robert Boyle by himself and his friends

This article presents a hitherto unpublished account of a magical séance conducted by the virtuoso Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700), later Fellow of the Royal Society, while travelling in Venice ca 1648. The episode had previously been known through an account of it given by Robert Boyle, but in Boyle's version its protagonist was unclear. It is now for the first time revealed as Henshaw on the basis of a further record of it among the papers of John Sharp, Archbishop of York (1645?–1714). The discrepancies between the ‘new’ version of the story and that given by Boyle are here elucidated and the opportunity is taken to outline the background to the séance in terms of the history of magic in early modern Venice. In addition, broader comments are included on the implications of the episode for attitudes towards alchemy and magic in the period.

Philanthropy and Progressive Era State Building through Agricultural Extension Work in the Jim Crow South

In the process of promoting an agricultural appropriation bill in the 1914 legislative session, members of Congress engaged in a vigorous debate about the appropriateness of public-private collaboration in the federal government. They had discovered that the Department of Agriculture had been receiving funding directly from the General Education Board (GEB), a philanthropy established with funds from the Rockefeller family, for staff hired to engage in agricultural extension services. Representative William Kenyon of Iowa explained to his fellow Congressmen that employees “were on the pay roll of the Government; and, as I understand, the man who is at the head of the farm demonstration work received $1 per month from the Government and $625 per month from the Rockefeller Fund.” While Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi generally supported the use of private funding, he expressed the sentiments of many of his colleagues with his concern that it was “a very bad thing to get the employees of the Federal or of the State or of a city government in the habit of relying upon rich men and corporations for aid and assistance, because it brings around… a certain, perhaps dominating, influence upon the officials themselves that might be and probably would be finally detrimental to the public service or to self-respect and interest of the masses.”

OMERACT 10 Sharp Symposium: Important Findings in Examination of Imaging Methods for Measurement of Joint Damage in Rheumatoid Arthritis

The Sharp Symposium was held at the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials 2010 meeting (OMERACT 10) in honor of the late John Sharp, consummate rheumatologist and researcher. The symposium focused on the status of current scoring methods in radiography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ultrasound (US) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as well as on the use of soluble and tissue biomarkers in RA, with the aim of updating recommendations regarding methods for enhanced detection, monitoring, and prediction of joint damage in clinical trials.