Away with the fairies: the psychopathology of visionary encounters in early modern Scotland.

In early modern Scotland, several visionaries experienced vivid relationships with spirits. This paper analyses their experiences historically, with the aid of modern scholarship in medicine, psychology and social science. Most of the visionaries were women. Most of their spirit-guides were fairies or ghosts. There could be traumas in forming or maintaining the relationship, and visionaries often experienced spirit-guides as powerful, capricious and demanding. It is argued that some visionaries experienced psychotic conditions, including psychosomatic injuries, sleepwalking, mutism and catatonia. Further conditions related to visionary experience were not necessarily pathological, notably fantasy-proneness and hallucinations. Imaginary companions and parasocial relationships are discussed, as are normality, abnormality and coping strategies. There are concluding reflections on links between culture and biology.

Medicinal plants and their uses recorded in the Archives of Latvian Folklore from the 19th century.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The records of folk medicine present historical evidence of medicinal plant usage in the territory of Latvia and describe native and imported plants and plant products that were used as medicine. AIM OF THE STUDY: To collect and analyse the ethnobotanical knowledge found in records of Latvian folk medicine available in the Archives of Latvian Folklore. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Following the International Classification of Primary Care, plant uses were grouped into one of the 17 categories based on the body systems and psychological and social problems. Each plant was identified by its scientific name according to The Plant List website. Additionally, the plant parts used, dosage forms of herbal medicines and routes of administration were analysed. RESULTS: In total, 211 genera belonging to 71 families were mentioned in the analysed materials. The most common health conditions were digestive system disorders, respiratory system disorders and skin disorders. The plant families with the largest number of taxa were Asteraceae, Rosaceae, Lamiaceae, and Apiaceae. The most frequently mentioned native plant taxa were Achillea millefolium L., Matricaria chamomilla L., Allium cepa L., Artemisia absinthium L., and Plantago sp. L. Leaves and flowers were the most commonly used parts, and herbal tea was the most common dosage form. Only 59 out of 211 taxa mentioned in this study are included in the official herbal monographs of the European Medicines Agency. CONCLUSIONS: One hundred and fifty-two plant taxa mentioned in the records of Latvian folk medicine are not included in the European Union herbal monographs providing scientific information on the safety and efficacy and deserve further exploration as traditional herbal medicines.

How long do floods throughout the millennium remain in the collective memory?

Is there some kind of historical memory and folk wisdom that ensures that a community remembers about very extreme phenomena, such as catastrophic floods, and learns to establish new settlements in safer locations? We tested a unique set of empirical data on 1293 settlements founded in the course of nine centuries, during which time seven extreme floods occurred. For a period of one generation after each flood, new settlements appeared in safer places. However, respect for floods waned in the second generation and new settlements were established closer to the river. We conclude that flood memory depends on living witnesses, and fades away already within two generations. Historical memory is not sufficient to protect human settlements from the consequences of rare catastrophic floods.

[Rejuvenate, it's as old as the hills ]. / Rajeunir, c'est vieux comme le monde .

Legends and myths regarding eternal youth exist since Antiquity. Prior to the 19th century those wishing to rejuvenate used baths or blood injections, searching to the Fountain of Youth or calling for an alchemist claiming to have found the Elixir of Youth. In the 19th century, Charles Edouard Brown Séquard (1819-1894), after the discovery of the function of the endocrinal glands and testicular secretions, inject himself with an extract from guinea pigs and dogs. He found himself rejuvenated! In the beginning of the 20th century, several surgeons transplanted human testicles coming from death row prisoners inmates or voluntary donors. The transplantation of monkey testicles by Serge Voronoff (1866-1951) had a important aftermath and more than 300 similar interventions took place. The simple ligation of the vas deferens (vasectomy) was recommended by Eugen Steinach (1866-1944). Sigmund Freud was one of the "beneficiaries". Steinach also advised the irradiation of the ovaries for female rejuvenation. In 1935, Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) and Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) built a pump to feed and regenerate targeted organs. The discovery of pluripotent stem cells and senolytic molecules are building up new hopes on the matter.

Painting Dose: The ART of Radiation.

The discovery of X rays in 1895 captivated society like no other scientific advance. Radiation instantly became the subject not only of numerous scientific papers but also of circus bazaars, poetry, fiction, costume design, comics, and marketing for household items. Its spread was "viral." What is not well known, however, is its incorporation into visual art, despite the long tradition of medicine and surgery as a subject in art. Using several contemporary search methods, we identified 5 examples of paintings or sculpture that thematically feature radiation therapy. All were by artists with exhibited careers in art: Georges Chicotot, Marcel Duchamp, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Robert Pope, and Cookie Kerxton. Each artist portrays radiation differently, ranging from traditional healer, to mysterious danger, to futuristic propaganda, to the emotional challenges of undergoing cancer therapy. This range captures the complex role of radiation as both a therapy and a hazard. Whereas some of these artists are now world famous, none of these artworks are as well known as their surgical counterparts. The penetration of radiation into popular culture was rapid and pervasive; yet, its role as a thematic subject in art never fully caught on, perhaps because of a lack of understanding of the technology, radiation's intangibility, or even a suppressive effect of society's ambivalent relationship with it. These 5 artists have established a rich foundation upon which pop culture and art can further develop with time to reflect the extraordinary progress of modern radiation therapy.

Popular Medicine and Empirics in Greece, 1900-1950: An Oral History Approach.

Western literature has focused on medical plurality but also on the pervasive existence of quacks who managed to survive from at least the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Focal points of their practices have been their efforts at enrichment and their extensive advertising. In Greece, empirical, untrained healers in the first half of the twentieth century do not fit in with this picture. They did not ask for payment, although they did accept 'gifts'; they did not advertise their practice; and they had fixed places of residence. Licensed physicians did not undertake a concerted attack against them, as happened in the West against the quacks, and neither did the state. In this paper, it is argued that both the protection offered by their localities to resident popular healers and the healers' lack of demand for monetary payment were jointly responsible for the lack of prosecutions of popular healers. Moreover, the linking of popular medicine with ancient traditions, as put forward by influential folklore studies, also reduced the likelihood of an aggressive discourse against the popular healers. Although the Greek situation in the early twentieth century contrasts with the historiography on quacks, it is much more in line with that on wise women and cunning-folk. It is thus the identification of these groups of healers in Greece and elsewhere, mostly through the use of oral histories but also through folklore studies, that reveals a different story from that of the aggressive discourse of medical men against quacks.

Obra pictórica de Frida Kahlo: refugio artístico contra el dolor y la soledad / The pictorial work of Frida Kahlo: an artistic refuge against pain and solitude

Frida Kahlo, personalidad de las artes plásticas mexicanas, efectuó contribuciones significativas a la cultura universal sobreponiéndose a enfermedades y penurias que marcaron su existencia. Es propósito de las autoras destacar las facetas fundamentales de su individualidad particularizando en los aspectos que demuestran su lugar en la historia deMéxico, a través de su creación artística y el vínculo que como paciente establece con el ejercicio de la Medicina. La revisión bibliográfica realizada permitió aseverar su trascendencia a partir de la defensa que hace del folclore de su país frente a los modelos europeos tradicionales(AU)

Bat in the Hungarian Folklore and Folk Medicine. / A DENEVÉR A MAGYAR NÉPHITBEN ÉS NÉPI GYÓGYÁSZATBAN.

Author gives a wide overview on the role of the bat in Hungarian folklore and folk medicine. His detailed and thoroughly noted treatise begins with the analysis of the various names of the bat in Hungarian dialects emphasising also the special phonological and phonosemanti- cal characteristics of the variations of its name. The strange appearance and the problematic zoological classification of the bat in the European lore and early scientific literature probably explains the doubtful and mostly negative role, this animal played in European literary heritage and lore. Bat proved to be a common tool of apotropaic or love magic and its body or blood was widely used to treatments of folk medicine as well. After grouping, listing and citing the various Hungarian lores connected with the bat, author cites some recent literary and poetrical allusions to the animal. This comprehensive collection of the Hungarian linguistic and ethnological heritage regarding bat, will certainly prove to be a useful source for further ethnozoological resarch.

Good gibbons and evil macaques: a historical review on cognitive features of non-human primates in Chinese traditional culture.

For several thousand years the ancient Chinese have accumulated rich knowledge, in the form of written literature and folklore, on the non-human primates widely distributed in China. I have used critical text analysis and discourse analysis to clarify when and how ancient Chinese distinguished gibbons from macaques. I divided the progress into four main stages, the Pre-Shang to Shang dynasty (before 1046 BC), the Zhou to Han dynasty (1046 BC-220 AD), the six dynasties to Song dynasty (220-1279 AD), and the Yuan to Qing dynasties (1279-1840 AD). I found that China's traditional cognition of gibbons and macaques emphasized the appearance of animals, organoleptic performance, or even whether or not their behavior was "moral". They described them as human-like animals by ethical standards but ignored the species itself. This kind of cognitive style actually embodies the "pursuit of goodness", which is the feature of Chinese traditional culture. This study presents some original views on Chinese traditional knowledge of non-human primates.

Apotropaic practices and the undead: a biogeochemical assessment of deviant burials in post-medieval poland.

Apotropaic observances-traditional practices intended to prevent evil-were not uncommon in post-medieval Poland, and included specific treatment of the dead for those considered at risk for becoming vampires. Excavations at the Drawsko 1 cemetery (17th-18th c. AD) have revealed multiple examples (n = 6) of such deviant burials amidst hundreds of normative interments. While historic records describe the many potential reasons why some were more susceptible to vampirism than others, no study has attempted to discern differences in social identity between individuals within standard and deviant burials using biogeochemical analyses of human skeletal remains. The hypothesis that the individuals selected for apotropaic burial rites were non-local immigrants whose geographic origins differed from the local community was tested using radiogenic strontium isotope ratios from archaeological dental enamel. 87Sr/86Sr ratios ( = 0.7112±0.0006, 1σ) from the permanent molars of 60 individuals reflect a predominantly local population, with all individuals interred as potential vampires exhibiting local strontium isotope ratios. These data indicate that those targeted for apotropaic practices were not migrants to the region, but instead, represented local individuals whose social identity or manner of death marked them with suspicion in some other way. Cholera epidemics that swept across much of Eastern Europe during the 17th century may provide one alternate explanation as to the reason behind these apotropaic mortuary customs, as the first person to die from an infectious disease outbreak was presumed more likely to return from the dead as a vampire.