The historiography of pandemics and inequality can be characterized by two distinct but often overlapping traditions. One centers structural and political analysis, the other a race-critical approach to the production of human difference. This bibliographic essay reviews historical scholarship in these traditions spanning the past hundred years, with a focus on Anglophone literature in the history of medicine in the United States over the past half century. Early writing on the history of epidemics celebrated the conquest of disease through the (...) application of laboratory research. Insights from social history and environmental history came to inform new analyses of epidemic inequalities, drawing questions of race, class, and empire into the frame during the 1960s and 1970s. The AIDS pandemic of the 1980s further oriented scholarship toward reckoning with stigma, identity, and human experiences of inequality while also troubling the relationship between medicine and the state. In more recent decades, the scholarship on race, social inequality, and pandemics has become deep and broad, remedying longstanding biases toward elite scientific actors and the metropolitan centers of Europe and the East Coast of the United States. In expanding their vision, historians also have engaged in more nuanced analyses of racialization as a social, environmental, and ideological process of embodying difference. Further, where earlier scholarship often relied on mortality data, there has been growing awareness of how numbers shape narratives and are shaped by them in turn. In its conclusion, the essay highlights emerging themes in race and inequality with particular attention to themes that have become prominent amid the global devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The vulnerability of participants in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) programs is a consequence of the illnesses that they are experiencing; ethical guarantees must be in place that ensure the dignity of the persons involved in such programs. Dignity is more than an individual concern; it has individual, institutional, and societal dimensions. An ethical framework is proposed that involves the interrelated vulnerabilities and needs of individuals and communities and our societal response to them. Among the issues given (...) particular attention are individual and community stigmatization, target population involvement in program planning, balance with regard to confidentiality and privacy, the place of proportionality grounded in a rich sense of community as a guiding ethical principle, and guidelines for SAMHSA programs. (shrink)

Mendelian Inheritance in Man, a computerized catalogue of human genetic disorders authored and maintained by cardiologist and medical genetics pioneer Victor A. McKusick, played a major part in demarcating between a novel biomedical science and the eugenic projects of racial betterment which existed prior to its emergence. Nonetheless, it built upon prior efforts to systematize genetic knowledge tied to individuals and institutions invested in eugenics. By unpacking the process of digitizing a homespun cataloguing project and charting its development into an (...) online database, this article aims to illuminate how the institution-building efforts of one individual created an ‘information order’ for accessing genetic information that tacitly shaped the norms and priorities of the field toward the pursuit of specific genes associated with discernible genetic disorders. This was not by design, but rather arose through negotiation with the catalogue's users; it accommodated further changes as biomedical research displaced the Mendelian paradigm. While great effort was expended toward making sequence data available to investigators during the Human Genome Project, MIM was largely taken for granted as a ‘legacy system’, McKusick's own labour of love. Drawing on recent histories of biomedical data, the article suggests that the bibliographical work of curation and translation is a central feature of value production in the life sciences meriting attention in its own right. (shrink)

Pope John Paul II promulgated his first major social encyclical, Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work”), in September 1981. The encyclical, evoked many favorable reactions, even from Marxists. One such writer even argued that on social issues at least, John Paul II stands as “a sturdy and reliable ally.” The Pope often speaks in categories more familiar to Marxists than to Catholics. Another commentator even indicated doubts whether U.S. Catholics realize the importance of the encyclical because “The pope's concerns are the (...) concerns of Marx, his categories and history are those of Marx.” Yet, the Pope seems to identify Marxism with Marxist-Leninism. (shrink)

Marx spent his life propagating ideas, Yet in theory he treated ideas as mere reflections of economic situations. The article takes a closer look at the young marx's views and concludes that marx recognized the importance of ideas where they 1) express the real needs of the people, 2) lead to effective action, And 3) correspond to conditions which permit their realization.

The aim of this short note is to highlight a possible, hitherto unnoticed, telestich in Verg. Aen. 8.246–9, which presents the Greek word sēma (‘portent’, ‘wonder’, ‘prodigy’, ‘tomb’). To justify this identification, I will argue for its significance from its context in the poem (the battle between Hercules and Cacus), pointing out the insistence on the imagery of light and revelation, and the use of the phrase mirabile dictu, which appears in the same episode of the Aeneid, in the Latin (...) poetic tradition. (shrink)

This article aims to offer a fresh analysis of two passages in the extensive necromancy episode in Lucan's Bellum Ciuile: the ritual to reanimate the dead soldier's corpse (6.667–73), and the surgical procedure Erichtho then proceeds to undertake (6.750–7), resembling the practice of a vivisection. The study will focus mostly on the strong connection of magic to medical traditions in antiquity, with a commentary on, and analysis of, these verses through the lenses of medical vocabulary, themes and motifs. It ultimately (...) concludes that Lucan was familiar with the language and characteristics of the medical tradition, enriched his report with them, and was playing with his audience's knowledge of the same. (shrink)

Until quite recently, Russian philosophy was studied mainly from the standpoint of its development "along the path to Marxism." Understandably, attention was mainly devoted to "the solid materialist tradition," which overshadowed all other currents of Russian thought. However, the question arises of whether this "materialist tradition," i.e., the philosophy of the Russian revolutionary democrats, is so consonant with Marxism. One need only examine the facts to persuade oneself of the untenability of such an assumption.

Материалы сборника предназначены для специалистов.

This article is a translation into english of a lecture given by paneth in 1931. The content of the work is described by the section titles: (1) the need for epistemological clarification of the fundamental concepts of chemistry, (2) the concept of substance in chemistry, (3) the epistemological standpoint of the ancient atomists, (4) the epistemological position of the concept of element introduced by lavoisier, (5) the double meaning of the chemical concept of element: 'basic substance' and 'simple substance', And (...) (6) the double meaning of other chemical concepts. Sections (4)-(6) are published in the following number of this journal. (staff). (shrink)

This article is a translation into english of a lecture given by paneth in 1931. The content of the work is described by the section titles: (1) the need for epistemological clarification of the fundamental concepts of chemistry, (2) the concept of substance in chemistry, (3) the epistemological standpoint of the ancient atomists, (4) the epistemological position of the concept of element introduced by lavoisier, (5) the double meaning of the chemical concept of element: 'basic substance' and 'simple substance', And (...) (6) the double meaning of other chemical concepts. Sections (4)-(6) are published in the following number of this journal. (staff). (shrink)

John McMillan's article raises numerous important points about the ethics of surgical castration of sex offenders.1 In this commentary, we focus solely on and argue against the claim that the offer of release from detention conditional upon surgical castration is a coercive offer that compromises the validity of the offender's consent. We take no view on the question as to whether castration for sex offenders is ethically permissible. But, we reject the claim that it is ethically permissible only if competing (...) ethical considerations outweigh worries about coercion. For in the situation described, the proposal is not coercive at all.McMillan states that if offenders agree to castration because they fear long-term detention, then ‘it seems, intuitively, as if agreeing to be castrated under these conditions makes the decision coerced in some way.’1 He adds that if castration is ‘the only way that they will be released back into the community, the status of this decision as a genuine expression of their autonomy is questionable.’1 In defence of his claim, he uses two analogies that he borrows from Joel Feinberg. First, if a governor offers to commute a death sentence if the prisoner agrees to participate in a medical experiment, then ‘it's clear that the governor is coercing the prisoner.’1 Second, if a millionaire offers to give a woman $1 000 000 …. (shrink)

Ch. 1. Problemy metodologii issledovanii︠a︡ nravstvennogo ideala russkoĭ filosofii -- ch. 2. Personalia. Nravstvennye iskanii︠a︡ russkikh mysliteleĭ.

In this paper, it is explained that a dialogical approach to complex argumentation can be fruitful for solving two important problems concerning the analysis of the argumentation structure. First, such an approach makes it possible to clarify the distinction between coordinative and multiple argumentation structures, and to identify clues in the presentation for each of these structures. Second, a dialogical approach can provide a basis for dealing more adequately with refutations of counterarguments.