Charles 0. Jackson, in The Journal of American Studies (Dec. 1977), Cambridge University Press, 32 E. 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
Twentieth-century custom enjoins Americans to repress grief and to
deny any thought of death. But it has not always been so. Jackson, a
University of Tennessee historian, reviews the scant literature and finds
three distinct phases in the history of American attitudes and responses
to dying.
In colonial times, when as many as one in four childen died before...
urbanization, rapid advances in medicine, and by an increasingly temporal outlook. Americans are less and less willing to involve them- selves in death and dying. People are allowed to die in institutions and to be buried under unadorned, uninscribed tombstones. There is often no sense of community loss. Our secular society no longer believes in the certainty of afterlife, so natural death and physical decomposition have become too horrible to contemplate or discuss.
Jackson sees hints in recent...
Nick Kotz, in The Washington Monthly
(Mar. 1977). 1028 Connecticut Ave. N.W.,
More than 1,200 newspaper reporters are accredited to cover the ac- tivities of Congress and the federal government in Washington, but only a small fraction of them work for newspapers that are read regularly in Washington or New York. To a remarkable degree, says Kotz, a prize- winning former Washington reporter, the New York Times and the Washington Post dominate the treatment of news. They shape the agenda, not only...
the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment" (and traditionally has been reserved for punishment inflicted for violation of criminal statutes), and whether "due process" is required before pun- ishment. The Court said no to both these questions.
Most newspapers failed to report that legal remedies exist on the state level for students who think they have been treated unjustly. Edi- torial writers, in particular, thought the Court was choosing between...
the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment" (and traditionally has been reserved for punishment inflicted for violation of criminal statutes), and whether "due process" is required before pun- ishment. The Court said no to both these questions.
Most newspapers failed to report that legal remedies exist on the state level for students who think they have been treated unjustly. Edi- torial writers, in particular, thought the Court was choosing between...
others for serving as the handmaiden of both the medical profession and the federal government in selling the pro- gram to the public.
To test such allegations, Rubin and Hendy, both of the New York University journalism faculty, analyzed stories in 19 daily newspapers, evening news broadcasts of the three television networks, and the out- put of United Press International for the week of October 11-17, 1976- the week when the inoculation program began in earnest and when three elderly persons...
PERIODICALS
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
era1 moral principle that prohibits assaults on the defenseless. Torture, Shue notes, has nothing to do with a "fair fight" between declared combatants; it begins only after the fight is finished.
"Suppose a fanatic, perfectly willing to die rather than collaborate in the thwarting of his own scheme, has set a hidden nuclear device to explode in the heart of Paris. There is no time to evacuate the innocent people or even the movable art t...
David Kahn, in Harvard Mazazine (Mar.-Apr. 1978), Wadsworth House, Cambridge, Mass. 02138.
The concept of physician accountability dates back to 2000 B.c., but only since the 1930s has the incidence of medical-malpractice litigation begun to resemble a patients' revolt. The current rash of malpractice suits (some 16,000 claims are pending against U.S. physicians) may stem in part from some ancient religious assumptions about the role of physicians and the practice of medicine, says Kahn, a Stoughton,...
syn- drome") probably originated during the early Christian era, when ill- ness was equated with God's punishment visited upon sinners and health was a blessing bestowed a heavenly Father. Prayer, the laying-on of hands, and treatment with holy oils supplanted medica- tion and treatment, and 2000 years of empirical medicine by the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks were largely discarded.
Healing by faith exerted a magnetic power to draw new converts to Christianity, especially during the...
PERIODICALS
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
eradicated in the foreseeable future.
Why the gloomy prognosis? The main reason is the rapid spread of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. Today, 43 species of malaria- spreading anopheline mosquitoes are resistant to the organochlorine insecticides BHC and dieldrin; 24 to BNC, dieldrin, and DDT; 6 to both organochlorines, organophosphates, and carbamates as well. The use of insecticides BHC and dieldrin; 24 to BHC, dieldrin, and DDT; 6 to both organochlorines,...