We present English translations of two French documents to show that the main reason for the rejection of Semmelweis's theory of the cause of childbed (puerperal) fever was because his proof relied on the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and not because Joseph Skoda referred only to cadaveric particles as the cause in his lecture to the Academy of Science on Semmelweis's discovery. Friedrich Wieger (1821–1890), an obstetrician from Strasbourg, published an accurate account of Semmelweis's theory six months before Skoda's lecture, and reported a case in which the causative agent originated from a source other than cadavers. Wieger also presented data showing that chlorine hand disinfection reduced the annual maternal mortality rate from childbed fever (MMR) from more than 7 per cent for the years 1840–1846 to 1.27 per cent in 1848, the first full year in which chlorine hand disinfection was practised. But an editorial in the Gazette médicale de Paris rejected the data as proof of the effectiveness of chlorine hand disinfection, stating that the fact that the MMR fell after chlorine hand disinfection was implemented did not mean that this innovation had caused the MMR to fall. This previously unrecognized objection to Semmelweis's proof was also the reason why Semmelweis's chief rejected Semmelweis's evidence.

This paper describes the grammar of possession in Oneida (Northern Iroquoian), a case where domain-specific syntax permeates disparate areas of the grammar (referencing of semantic arguments, noun incorporation, expression of quantity, and negation). In each of these other areas, something unique must be stated, but some of what is special to possession is also shared across two or more of these areas. We describe this interesting mix of general and specific constraints in terms of a metaphor originally applied by Lévi-Strauss to the construction of myths, ‘bricolage’ (tinkering). We suggest the notion of bricolage aptly captures the properties of Oneida words that include a relation of possession. This novel way of conceiving of grammar of specialized domains is an alternative to the view where only general/universal, possibly parametrized, principles are countenanced.

Nineteenth-century Glasgow was widely imagined and presented as the proud ‘Second City of the Empire’. This article investigates the implications of this identification with the empire by analysing Glasgow's great town hall, built 1883–89, as the main manifestation of the city's civic pride. It shows how the building's architectural style, sculpture and inauguration ceremonies created a specific image of ‘imperial’ Glasgow which emphasized loyalty to Union and empire. Instead of undermining each other, the layered political allegiances of civic pride, nationalism, unionism and imperialism were mutually reinforcing, shaping the town hall still in use today.

This article examines the sedentarization of transhumants in northern Greece within the context of the political, legal, social, and economic transformation of the region that occurred throughout the nineteenth century. Based on a wide range of primary sources, this research conducts a chronological survey of the local actors, events, and institutions with reference to a broader political and economic context. It emphasizes that, in the first half of the century, a provincial-elite regime and imperial policies did not create substantial change in transhumance. In the 1860s, however, economic transformations at both imperial and global levels did accelerate change in the region's land and labour regimes. In response, regional landholders began to institute sedentarization, adopting various legal and economic means based on strategies including negotiation, persuasion, and compulsion.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the large-scale warfare that confronted the major European powers exceeded their financial capabilities. This, in turn, affected the operational effectiveness of their military machinery and disturbed its disciplinary order. Consequently, by the 1790s, French, British, and Dutch naval crews resorted to mutiny on an enormous scale. They were driven by fatigue, harsh conditions of service, and disagreements with higher command. Decades later, the Real Armada witnessed a series of riots, resembling those of its rival powers but linked to the struggles for independence in the Hispanic-American colonies. Nearly all historians have overlooked the Spanish case, but the motives and direct consequences of the Spanish mutinies are worthy of explanation as part of global processes driven by the Age of Revolutions. Moreover, they offer an opportunity to improve the knowledge of early modern Spanish naval society.

The majority of previous studies on nasal coarticulation in French find an inversely proportionate relationship between vowel opening and nasality, such that high vowels are the most nasalized, sometimes exceeding 50% nasality. However, it has been unclear whether this is a mechanical or controlled property of French, given the typically short duration of high vowels in natural speech, as well as the aerodynamic and acoustic factors rendering them more susceptible to spontaneous nasalization. This study uses nasometric data to quantify progressive and regressive nasalization in 20 Northern Metropolitan French speakers as a function of vowel height. Furthermore, the relationship between degree of nasal coupling and overall vowel duration serves as a proxy for distinguishing mechanical from controlled nasalization, in the spirit of Solé (1992, 2007). This study finds evidence that high vowel nasalization in French is mechanical in pre-nasal position, but controlled in post-nasal position. Meanwhile, nasalization of mid and low vowels is blocked in pre-nasal position but, at most, mechanical in post-nasal position. In consequence, French appears to block nasalization in otherwise lexically impossible positions (*ṼN), while passively allowing, though not actively requiring, nasalizing in positions where conflation is possible (both NṼ and NV being permitted in the lexicon).