The term “hormesis” derives from Greek hórmēsis for “rapid motion, eagerness”, itself from ancient Greek hormáein to excite. The same Greek root provides the word hormone.
Hormesis is a two-phased dose-response relationship to an environmental agent whereby low-dose amounts have a beneficial effect and high-dose amounts are either inhibitory to fu
Arsenic eaters were people who regularly consumed small amounts of arsenic. Its use was particularly common in the 19th century in Styria and Tyrol, where arsenic is known under the names Hidrach or Hittrach, dialect for metallurgical smoke, and was a by-product of glass production (in the glassworks) and ore smelting.
This term can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when arsenic was already in use as a stimulant. Arsenic eaters, known as dippers, are also known from the southern states of the
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (1923 – 2008) was an American physician and medical researcher who was the co-recipient (with Baruch S. Blumberg) of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 for work on the transmissibility of kuru, implying the existence of an infectious agent, which he named an ‘unconventional virus’.
His papers are held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland and at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early life and educati
Gomis-Rüth FX, Kress LF, Kellermann J, Mayr I, Lee X, Huber R, Bode W. Refined 2.0 A X-ray crystal structure of the snake venom zinc-endopeptidase adamalysin II. Primary and tertiary structure determination, refinement, molecular structure and comparison with astacin, collagenase and thermolysin. J Mol Biol. 1994 Jun 17;239(4):513-44. doi: 10.1006/jmbi.1994.1392. PMID: 8006965.
Adamalysin II, alias proteinase II, a 24 kDa zinc-endopeptidase isolated from the snake venom of the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake Crotalus adamanteus, is a prototype, of the pr
Marx SO, Reiken S, Hisamatsu Y, Gaburjakova M, Gaburjakova J, Yang YM, Rosemblit N, Marks AR. Phosphorylation-dependent regulation of ryanodine receptors: a novel role for leucine/isoleucine zippers. J Cell Biol. 2001 May 14;153(4):699-708. doi: 10.1083/jcb.153.4.699. PMID: 11352932; PMCID: PMC2192391.
Abstract Ryanodine receptors (RyRs), intracellular calcium release channels required for cardiac and skeletal muscle contraction, are macromolecular complexes that include kinases
Valine
Valine (symbol Val or V) is an α-amino acid that is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. It contains an α-amino group (which is in the protonated −NH3+ form under biol
Insall R. Dispatch. Dictyostelium chemotaxis: fascism through the back door? Curr Biol. 2003 Apr 29;13(9):R353-4. doi: 10.1016/s0960-9822(03)00274-4. PMID: 12725750.
Abstract Aggregating Dictyostelium cells secrete cyclic AMP to attract their neighbours by chemotaxis. It has now been shown that adenylyl cyclase is enriched in the rear
Eraso Y. Biotypology, endocrinology, and sterilization: the practice of eugenics in the treatment of Argentinian women during the 1930s. Bull Hist Med. 2007 Winter;81(4):793-822. doi: 10.1353/bhm.2007.0130. PMID: 18084107; PMCID: PMC2629848.
SUMMARYThis article looks at medical approaches to women’s fertility in Argentina in the 1930s and explores the ways in which eugenics encouraged the reproduction of the fit and
Beccalossi C. Types, norms, and normalisation: Hormone research and treatments in Italy, Argentina, and Brazil, c. 1900-50. Hist Human Sci. 2021 Apr;34(2):113-137. doi: 10.1177/0952695120941193. Epub 2020 Sep 17. PMID: 33840913; PMCID: PMC8008392.
This looks very similar to another article by the same author. I am including it because the title covers a slightly different time frame AbstractDisplacing the physiological model
Beccalossi C. Sexology, sexual development, and hormone treatments in Southern Europe and Latin America, c.1920-40. Hist Human Sci. 2023 Dec;36(5):94-121. doi: 10.1177/09526951231213028. Epub 2023 Dec 6. PMID: 38077463; PMCID: PMC10700059.
AbstractDisplacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century medical scientists working on hormones promoted a new understandi
Beccalossi C. Italian sexology, Nicola Pende’s biotypology and hormone treatments in the 1920s. Hist Med Sante. 2017 Winter;12:73-97. doi: 10.4000/hms.1173. Epub 2018 May 28. PMID: 31501760; PMCID: PMC6733708.
AbstractThis article analyses a selection of Nicola Pende’s studies from the 1920s on ‘endocrinological abnormalities’ associated with impotence, a lack of virility in men, a
BECCALOSSI C. Optimizing and normalizing the population through hormone therapies in Italian science, c.1926–1950. The British Journal for the History of Science. 2020;53(1):67-88. doi:10.1017/S0007087419000906
Abstract This essay explores how hormone treatments were used to optimize and normalize individuals under Italian Fascism. It does so by taking the activities of the Biotypological
The terms immunogen and antigen were not distinguished until 1959
An immunogen is any substance that generates B-cell (humoral/antibody) and/or T-cell (cellular) adaptive immune responses upon exposure to a host organism.[1][2] Imm
Human Branding
As with livestock, a mark burned into the skin for identification purposes. Human branding comes up routinely in slavery and crime and punishment so we will make some notes.