Ancient Treatises Research Articles

Crime and Punishment, Sin and Retribution: From the History of Religious and Legal Traditions of East and Wes

The concepts of “sin” and “crime”, “reward” and “punishment” are found in the ancient Indian religious and ethical treatises - dharmasastra Manu, Yajnavalkya and Vishnu, and canon law manuscripts of Western Europe of early and High Middle Ages. The issue of the relationship between Eastern and Western religious and legal views is examined in the paper. The authors defend the idea that religion is a key component having influenced the basic principles of morality and law, the construction of crime and punishment concepts. It is proved that officially already in the early Middle Ages, both in the East and in the West the sources of law differentiate between the sinful and criminal acts, which, however, at that time still was not clear and unambiguous. Based on the application of comparative analysis, hermeneutics, contextual analysis, historical, legal and other methods while studying the dharmasastra texts, the authors propose several classifications of sins against various reasons: according to the form of guilt, the degree of public danger, according to the order imposition and execution of the expiation. In turn, the methods mentioned above contributed to the detailed study of the medieval sources of canon law, which allowed us to formulate the thesis on the official differentiation between the concepts of “sin” and “crime” only after the adoption of the Decretum Gratiani to have been the main source of Western canon law in the Middle Ages. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p662

The Pioneer of Plastic Surgery – ‘Sushruta’

Sushruta, one of the earliest surgeon of the recorded history (600 B.C.) is believed to be the first person to describe plastic surgery. Sushruta, who lived nearly 150 years before Hippocrates, has vividly described the basic principles of plastic surgery in his famous ancient treatise ‘Sushruta samhita'. Sushruta samhita is the oldest authentic text-book of Shalya–tantra describing the Re-constructive plastic surgical operations. Numerous re-constructive surgical techniques and some exclusive cosmetic procedures have been narrated besides other surgical maneuvers by Sushruta. This paper presents a historical window into various contributions of Sushruta towards plastic surgery and allied fields described in ‘Sushruta samhita’ around 1000 B.C.

Vondel’s Brothers and the Power of Imagination

Vondel’s Brothers and the Power of Imagination Stijn Bussels On April 18, 1641, Joost van den Vondel’s Brothers (Gebroeders) premiered in the new Amsterdam playhouse. It immediately enjoyed great success, being performed more than annually for decades.1 Inspired by the second book of Samuel, it starts with Israel suffering from famine. God reveals that justice has to be done. Years before, David’s predecessor and father-in-law Saul had massacred the Gibeonites. David needs to avenge them, but runs into a moral conflict. He has to choose between his family-in-law and divine justice. After a long period of doubt, David accepts God’s will. Seven male descendants of Saul are delivered to the Gibeonites, who hang them. Because David’s doubts stand at the center of attention, Vondel calls his drama a tragedy (treurspel). Thus he indicates that he will follow the antique dramatic format, which also focuses on the protagonist’s doubt. Notes by the hand of Vondel giving stage directions for the first series of performances of Brothers have been preserved.2 So Vondel was not only the dramatist, he was also closely involved in the staging of his tragedy. In the seventeenth century this involvement was not rare, but it is rare to have notes survive. Together with the dramatic text, Vondel’s notes give us precious insight into the specific staging. Moreover, the notes show how the tragedy marks a shift in the oeuvre of Vondel, making clear that he did not straightforwardly stage the executions of the descendants of Saul. The audience was deprived of blunt cruelties, crucial to his previous dramas as well as those of many other theater-makers of his time, such as Vondel’s popular colleague Jan Vos. Brothers introduced another way of using the overwhelming forces of dramatic performance. By [End Page 49] concentrating on the conclusion of the Biblical tragedy, I will show how Vondel experimented with visual and verbal images (e.g., in tableau vivant and vivid description) to urge the theatergoers to imagine themselves in the same difficult situation as David in order to come to a direct and emotional understanding of the Biblical story. I will relate these findings to the poetical ideas Gerardus Vossius was developing during the same period that Vondel was writing and staging his Biblical tragedy.3 In this period, Vondel maintained very close links with this Amsterdam professor.4 Vossius articulated one of the first modern theories on the effect of dramatic performances. He exceeded the poetical discussions of Aristotle and Horace by combining them with insights from other ancient treatises, such as On the Sublime, most probably written in the first century AD by an anonymous author we traditionally call Longinus.5 This combination brought Vossius to advise against staging abhorrence so as to maximally exploit the theatergoers’ imaginations, urging them to create powerful and long-lasting mental images or phantasiai. I will first look at the preface to Brothers, where Vondel uses examples from painting to illustrate that the imagination of both the artist/dramatist and the audience is crucial for the emotional effect of an artwork or drama. Second, I discuss the early modern use of phantasia, which includes the creative imagination of the writer. Then I look at Vossius’s use of imagination in relation to his ideas on the effect of theater performance and the resulting restrictions on staging explicit cruelties. Fourth, I focus on Brothers to clarify how Vondel’s theater practice draws on similar principles to maximally encourage the audience’s imagination. I will close this essay with the counterarguments of Jan Vos about realizing strong impressions with the explicit performance of cruelties. The Imagination of Aeneas and Rubens In the preface to Brothers, Vondel clarifies his ideas on involving his audience emotionally in the Biblical story of Saul’s descendants by pointing at the imaginations of both the artist and the audience. The dramatist quotes Virgil’s Aeneid (I.462): “Hier beschreit men ‘s werelds zaecken, / Die [End Page 50] den mensch aen ‘t harte raecken” (77–78; Here one weeps for worldly things / That touch man in the heart). Thus he refers to Aeneas looking at...

Ayurvastra: A miracle mediherbal cloth

Ayurveda is an ancient medical treatise, summarizing the art of healing and prolonging life and is practiced in India for more than 5,000 years. It is regarded as an alternative form of medicine. Now the same ayurveda is brought into Ayurvastra, the medical dress. This is the article on Ayurvastra which is the cloth made from organic cotton fabric that has been specially treated with medicinal herbs to impart not only medicinal properties but also beautiful hues to the textiles. Its production does not add up to environment pollution. It is now being used extensively for treatment of wide range of diseases such as diabetes, skin infections like eczema, body acne, hypertension, asthma, arthri tis, rheumatism, etc. With people becoming more health conscious all over the world, ‘Ayurvastra’ fabrics have great scope in times to come. Ayurvastra not only reinforces the importance of sustaining the planet for future generations but also considers the well being of current generations using age old practices. Ayurvastra can play effective role in revival and elevation of the market for eco-friendly fabrics. Thus, it may be taken as emerging or new area of entrepreneurship and job opportunity for young people at one hand and on the other contribute towards offering economic stability to nation.

Louise Lightfoot and Ibetombi Devi: The Second Manipuri Dance Tour of Australia, 1957

Manipur, a small state in the North-Eastern India, is traditionally regarded in the Indian classics and epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata as the home of gandharvas (the celestial dancers). Manipuri is one of the eleven dance styles of India that have incorporated various techniques mentioned in such ancient treatises as the Natya Shastra and Bharatarnava and has been placed by Sangeet Natak Akademi within ‘a common heritage’ of Indian classical dance forms (shastriya nritya): Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam, Odissi, Sattriya, Chhau, Gaudiya Nritya, and Thang Ta. In the late-1950s Louise Lightfoot, the ‘Australian mother of Kathakali,’ visited Manipur to study and research different styles of Manipuri dance. There she met Ibetombi Devi, the daughter of a Manipuri Princess; she had started dancing at the age of four and by the age of twelve, she had become the only female dancer to perform the Meitei Pung Cholom on stage––a form of dance traditionally performed by Manipuri men accompanied by the beating of the pung (drum). In 1957, at the age of 20, Ibetombi became the first Manipuri female dancer to travel to Australia. This paper addresses Ibetombi Devi's cross-cultural dance collaboration in Australia with her impresario, Louise Lightfoot, and the impression she and her co-dancer, Ananda Shivaram, made upon audiences.

TIME FRAMEWORK AND INSIGHTS FROM AYURVEDA ON WOUND MANAGEMENT

A proper wound bed preparation is an important factor that determines healthy healing of wounds. The TIME framework was developed as a pr actical tool for this purpose. Wound management classified under the Shasht h i Upakramas in the Sushruta Samhita, the ancient treatise on Surgery discusses all the principles inherent in the TIME framework. It also provides unique insights like using heat for wound management. Wit h degenerative wounds proving to be a major medical challenge it i s imperative that these concepts are revisited.

Louise Lightfoot and Rajkumar Priyagopal Singh: The First Manipuri Dance Tour of Australia, 1951

Manipur, a small state in the North-Eastern corner of India, is traditionally regarded as the home of gandharvas (the celestial dancers). Manipuri is one of the 11 dance styles recognized by the Ministry of Culture of India that have incorporated various key techniques mentioned in the ancient treatises like the Natya Shastra and Bharatarnava and has been placed under ‘a common heritage’ called Indian classical dance forms (shastriya nritya) – Bharata Natyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam, Odissi, Sattriya, Chhau, Gaudiya Nritya, and Thang Ta. In 1951 Louise Lightfoot, the ‘Australian mother of Kathakali’ dance, visited the remote mountain state of Manipur to learn more about Manipuri dance. Soon she was successful in persuading and bringing eminent exponents of Manipuri dancing style Jagoi, Rajkumar Priyagopal Singh and Lakshman Singh, to tour Australia. Priyagopal, with the help of Lightfoot and their international tours, to some extent, de-provincialized and also popularized the Manipuri dance and paved the way for other dancers from North-eastern region of India in the International art world. Through this paper I attempt to highlight the contribution of Lightfoot in the promotion of Manipuri dance and in Australia. I here also engage explicitly with Priyagopal and Lightfoot's unusual dance collaboration and trace the historical journey and reception of a Manipuri dance in Australia.

Embodied Inner Human Being

In this paper we take issue with George H. van Kooten’s recent argument that Paul’s concept of inner human being has a background in ancient philosophical treatises as a metaphor of the soul. We argue that its Greco-Roman physiological meaning was decisive in its adoption by Paul and that the split between ancient medicine and philosophy was not essential in antiquity. Ancient medical-philosophical texts did not focus on the core or center of a person but rather sought a deep understanding of his or her inner aspects. These texts sought to understand how it is that we can discover bodily information about this inner person and to what degree the relationship between the inner and outer person can be interpreted. At the same time, however, we are discussing Walter Burkert’s evolutionary understanding of Pauline’s concept of the inner and outer human being. Paul’s definition of the inner human being corresponds to recent anthropological concepts of embodiment insofar as the visible outer human being has an inside which, according to Paul, is not detached from the body, but must be grasped from a physical perspective.

How to Create the Ideal Son: The unhidden curriculum in pseudo-Plutarch On the Training of Children

This article enquires into the curriculum advocated in the only ancient Greek treatise concerning education that has survived in its entirety, entitled On the Training of Children. The treatise was highly influential in Europe from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, and thus exhibits certain assumptions concerning the purpose of curriculum that lie behind the development of western education and may still be influential today. The inquiry is conducted in three stages: the intended recipients of the curriculum are identified; its elements are enumerated and evaluated; and its aims are inferred from the text. I conclude that the curriculum was intended for wealthy, privileged boys, that philosophy (though not independent theorising) was the most valued subject of study and that the aim of the curriculum was to instil in the recipients aristocratic values and modes of behaviour. Finally, some topics are suggested for reflection, in response to these conclusions, upon existing curricula.

Where Are the Mountains?: Johann Jacob Bodmer and the “Pre-Kantian Sublime”

O Natur! Die Grose, womit du die Seele erfullst ist heilig und erhaben uber allen Ausdruck.1By late eighteenth Century, had moved beyond its original association with rhetoric and, increasingly, came to signify awe and disquiet in face of grand natural phenomena. Evidence for this association was Goethe's essay Von Deutscher Baukunst (1772). In it, cathedral in Strassburg is analogized to a monstrous-at first glance, anyway-irregular work of nature.2 Besides portraying compelling effect on imagination of such grandeur, Goethe's essay also exemplifies way in which two separate discourses-that of and that of mountain appreciation- intersected and changed direction of literature and art, from neoclassical, objective standards in emulation of ancients, to individual, subjective taste-to aesthetics.While acknowledged as precursors of Sturm und Drang and for their roles in paradigm change in German letters at midcentury, Swiss writer Johann Jacob Bodmer and his literary partner, Johann Jacob Breitinger, are now being more closely examined in connection with this transformation of sublime.3 Two articles by Marilyn Torbruegge, published in 1971 and 1972, inaugurated this scholarship.4 Concerning the many ponderings on sublime in course of eighteenth century, she pointed out that the most marked developments involve an intensification of interest in psychological and philosophical considerations, a gradual distinction between and beautiful, and a growing concern with ideas of turbulence or terror, aside from prevalent reflections on greatness or grandeur, leading ultimately to twofold division of into categories of dynamic force and spatial magnitude. Ever a sensitive recorder and promoter of important theoretical ideas, Bodmer began with [Joseph] Addison and captured these thoughts at a central point in their transition.5 Of interest was Torbruegge's attempt to distinguish relative contributions of Bodmer and Breitinger in development of concepts with which Swiss have been associated: great, wondrous, marvelous, new, and so on, all of which exercise an attraction on imagination and contribute to poetic intoxication recommended by Longinus. She especially noted importance of Longinian thought in Bodmer's 1741 treatise Critische Betrachtungen uber die poetischen Gemahlde der Dichter, which, as she then correctly asserted, has suffered relative neglect in commentaries on wondrous or in Swiss School.6An analysis of their specific Longinian indebtedness remains to be carried out, but in some ways Swiss, in major treatises of 174041,7 seem to be writing a Longinus for Germans. Following Longinus's advocacy of grandeur with some attendant faults to success which is moderate but altogether sound and free of error,8 they sought to present best examples of kind of writing that would endow poetry with heart-affecting power. Their entire method reflects that of ancient treatise. They employ a broad range of literary references, moving freely from ancient to modern writers, and drawing on different genres. In this, they were following Longinus, who recommended that a poet school himself by imitating most celebrated authors who preceded him.9 They find in ancient treatise justification for their ideas on marvelous, new, and creative power of imagination. Their focus on creation of mental images and on imagination is perhaps their most important debt to Longinus, in particular suggestion that poet makes us see what he sees,10 especially through use of bold imagery. Breitinger's 1740 treatise on metaphors (Critische Abhandlung von der Natur den Absichten und dem Gebrauche der Gleichnisse: Mit Beyspielen aus den Schriften der beruhmtesten alten und neuen Scribenten erlautert) certainly drew inspiration from Longinus'treatment (chapters 18-29) of figurative language. …

Epilogue: Airs, Waters, Places . A Status Report

Epilogue: Airs, Waters, Places. A Status Report Charles E. Rosenberg (bio) When I teach a course in medical history, I often refer to an “airs, waters, places tradition.” It is a reference, of course, to a particular Hippocratic text—and a shorthand way of acknowledging historical continuities in our understandings of the interaction between place and person in determining health and disease. It is a conceptual tradition that saw the body not only as situated in place, but as a continuously processing entity, always at risk as an aggregate of those elements in the natural world that sustained it. The Hippocratic era was a time, in the carefully chosen words of Shigehsha Kuriyama, “when the body represented something quite different from the entity that we imagine now—a discrete given, an independent and isolated object. Once upon a time, all reflection on what we call the body was inseparable from inquiry into places and directions, seasons and winds. Once upon a time, human being was being embedded in a world.1 This classical body was situated, not abstracted and generalized, as it has so often become in the postlaboratory era. Airs, Waters, Places (hereafter AWP) assumes a holistic and integrative—one might call it both ecological and sociological—vision, understanding human beings not only as potential patients, but men as citizens and soldiers, and women as their differentially fecund mothers. Environments are seen in this ancient treatise through an inquiring physician’s eye. The text begins in a clinician’s voice, but a clinician who is an obligate climatologist, geographer, political scientist, and ethnographer as well as healer, a clinician urging the necessity for understanding peculiarities of place in evaluating and treating patients.2 [End Page 661] The author or authors of AWP assumed that the body managed its ongoing interactions with the environment through natural—inbuilt—mechanisms. Even beginning students assigned to read this seemingly archaic treatise note the way it refers in casually secular and material terms to the role of humors and tensions in processing inputs from the external world and thus shaping sickness and health. Particular configurations of soils and wind, season and climate produce particular patterns of morbidity and mortality, temperament and physique. Children grow and mature, sicken or thrive. Populations increase or decline in response to the characteristics of their environment. This style of explanation turned on a central irony: everything necessary to life was at the same time an occasion of vulnerability—wind, climate, water, food. Geography was in this sense destiny, providing indispensable components of existence. Elements of this inclusive and interactive way of thinking about physiology and pathogenesis remained widespread in Western medicine through the seventeenth and eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries. It was the will of “GOD, the Governour of all Things,” as Thomas Sydenham explained, “that Human Nature should be fitted to receive the various Impressions that come from abroad, it could not be, but it must be subject also to many Diseases.”3 It is not surprising that scores of earnest physicians and clergyman in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries kept careful records of temperatures and barometric pressures and sought to correlate them with health and disease.4 The nineteenth-century movement for public health reform was justified in just such terms—linking environment, physiological process, and cumulative outcome. For mid-nineteenth-century reformers in public health, local environments provided both explanation and solution for the shocking differentials in mortality and morbidity that marked country from city, townhouse from tenement, the holds of ships or crowded military camps from farm or village.5 An epidemiology of microenvironments [End Page 662] served as an effective basis for a reformist public medicine. Why was it healthier to live in the country than the city? Why did the confined air of hospitals, tenements, and troopships produce so many fevers and infections? Why did professionals live longer than laborers? Class too reflected the peculiarity of local circumstance. The constitution of a particular woman or man embodied both environment and individual regimen (the latter a choice for the wealthy, a constraint for the poor). It was simply assumed, for example, that the quality of the air one breathed, like the food...

Review: Variety, Archaeology, and Ornament: Renaissance Architectural Prints from Column to Cornice

Variety, Archaeology, and Ornament: Renaissance Architectural Prints from Column to Cornice . University of Virginia Art Museum. 26 August–18 December 2011. This genesis of this compelling exhibition is a collection of twenty-three mid-sixteenth-century architectural prints acquired by the University of Virginia some thirty years ago. The prints are of various capitals and bases, some quite elaborate but matching none of the canonical orders with which we are most familiar. While several can be linked to known ancient monuments, others are from sources unknown, and some appear to be inventions. Their engraver is identified only by the initials G.A., with a tiny image of a caltrop (a small spiked weapon spread on the ground to inhibit the advance of mounted troops). Master G.A. may be Giovanni Agucchi, a mid-sixteenth-century Italian engraver, but the attribution remains conjectural. The prints are a reminder of how single-leaf architectural prints accelerated the spread of information on classical architecture during the formative years of the Italian Renaissance. The printed image was just then coming into its own and made knowledge of Roman antiquity widely accessible to an eager audience as never before. Moreover, the prints are evidence of how this particular master, along with numerous others, quickly absorbed and shared the richness and variety of the wealth of ancient architectural details scattered about. Using Master G.A. prints as a foundation, the …

Eastern promises: a philosophical exploration of decision making under 'unconventional' and asymmetric competition

Bingfa, most popularly recognised in Western literary circles as the art of war, was an ancient Chinese treatise on strategy probably produced around 515-512 BC. Representing perhaps one of the most concise and comprehensive works on Eastern military strategy and decision making it primarily advocates indirect engagement with competitors, particularly where absolute certainty of success is limited. In this paper, utilising a series of propositions, the authors conduct a philosophical exploration into how Sun Tzu’s work may possibly inform thinking on strategic decision making (hereafter SDM). The authors discuss how a sizeable body of literature exists which outlines how Sun Tzu may be applied to strategic decision making in the West. The reality however is that a large majority of such works remains largely conceptual in nature. Following these traditions, in this study the authors seek to utilise theories associated with social interpretation (hermeneutics) to relate Sun Tzu’s work to SDM.

Effect of Purificatory Measures through Cow’s Urine and Milk on Strychnine and Brucine Content of Kupeelu (<i>Strychnos nuxvomica</i> Linn.) Seeds

Strychnos nux vomica Linn.(Loganaceae) commonly known as Nux vomica (Kupeelu), is a poisonous plant and its seeds are used widely in Ayurvedic system of medicine since time immemorial. Ayurveda advocates that nux vomica seeds are to be administered in therapeutics only after going through certain purificatory measures (Shodhana). There are more than six media: cow's urine (Go mutra), cow's milk (Go dugdha), cow's ghee (Go ghrita), Kanji (thin gruel), castor oil (Eranda taila) and fresh ginger juice (Ardraka swarasa) etc., which have been reported in different classical texts of Ayurveda for proper processing of nux vomica seeds. In this study, an attempt has been made to purify the seeds by using three different methods as described in ancient treatise by using cow's urine and cow's milk as media alone and together. This study revealed that all the methods studied reduced the toxicity of strychnine and brucine contents in comparison to the raw seeds as determined by HPTLC. Out of these three methods maximum reduction in strychnine and brucine contents was found when the seeds were purified by keeping them in cow's urine for seven days followed by boiling in cow's milk for three hrs.

Princípios de ordem projetual na obra de Vitrúvio

This paper proposes another view to the work of Vitruvius, the Roman author responsible for the most ancient treatise about architecture that came to our days. More specifically, the paper investigates the principles of projectual order governing the architectural parties. Through the Aristotle’s text it is sought to understand the concepts that will later be processed by this Roman architect. It is also studied the architects’ theoretical training by that time in order to understand the transit of these concepts in the treatise construction on the first century BC. Seeking to illustrate the principles discussed, that relate the parts of a project based on the concepts of ordinatio and dispositio, it is presented the study of architectural parties to temples, based on the definitions contained in the Vitruvian treatise. Looking for a different approach, it is introduced the concept of a matrix of parties, and it is discussed its applicability in the design of architectural party. Key words: projectual order, Vitruvius, architectural party.

Gilding on wall paintings from a period

The use of gildings on wall paintings enjoyed its largest development in Italy between the 13th and 14th centuries AD. This work covers a few important artefacts from the Lombard lake region, dating from a period between 1360 and 1520, and painted by the Seregnesi, Da Tradate and De Passeri studios. Its purpose is to understand the gilding techniques by means of scientific examinations (OM, SEM/EDS, FTIR), integrated with information from ancient treatises.Two main gilding techniques have been used in this context: the composite foil (tin and gold), and the single gold foil, in both cases fixed on the wall by a type of oil-based adhesive with the addition of inorganic pigments, mostly lead white and ochres, called missione. The scientific results are in agreement with the recipes contained in the ancient treatises, particularly in the Libro dell’Arte by Cennino Cennini.Extending the research to other case studies in Tessin and Italy, it is clear that the gilding technique was not influenced by the geographical and historical context, but by the final appearance required by the decoration on the wall surface. The use of tin in the composite foil permitted the gold foil to be burnished and engraved.

The Use of Metal Nanoparticles to Produce Yellow, Red and Iridescent Colour, from Bronze Age to Present Times in Lustre Pottery and Glass: Solid State Chemistry, Spectroscopy and Nanostructure

The use of metal nanoparticles dispersed in an optically clear matrix by potters and glassmakers from the Bronze Age up to the present time is reviewed from the solid state chemistry and material science point of view. The nature of metal (gold, silver or copper), the importance of some other elements (Fe, Sn, Sb, Bi) added to control metal reduction in the glass in relation to the firing atmosphere (combined reducing oxidizing sequences, role of hydrogen and water) are considered in the light of ancient Treatises and recent analyses using advanced techniques (FIB- TEM, EXAFS,…) and classical methods (optical microscopy, UV-visible absorption). The different types of colour production, by absorption/reflection (red, yellow) or diffraction (iridescence) and the relationship between nanostructure (metal particle dispersion, layer stacking) and lustre colour are discussed. The very specific interaction between light and the metal nanoparticle makes Raman scattering a very useful "bottom up" technique to study the local glass structure around the metal particles as well as to detect incomplete metal reduction or residues tracing the preparation route, hence making it possible to differentiate between genuine artefacts and fakes.

Extending the temporal context of ethnobotanical databases: the case study of the Campania region (southern Italy)

BackgroundEthnobotanical studies generally describe the traditional knowledge of a territory according to a "hic et nunc" principle. The need of approaching this field also embedding historical data has been frequently acknowledged. With their long history of civilization some regions of the Mediterranean basin seem to be particularly suited for an historical approach to be adopted. Campania, a region of southern Italy, has been selected for a database implementation containing present and past information on plant uses.MethodsA relational database has been built on the basis of information gathered from different historical sources, including diaries, travel accounts, and treatises on medicinal plants, written by explorers, botanists, physicians, who travelled in Campania during the last three centuries. Moreover, ethnobotanical uses described in historical herbal collections and in Ancient and Medieval texts from the Mediterranean Region have been included in the database.Results1672 different uses, ranging from medicinal, to alimentary, ceremonial, veterinary, have been recorded for 474 species listed in the data base. Information is not uniformly spread over the Campanian territory; Sannio being the most studied geographical area and Cilento the least one. About 50 plants have been continuously used in the last three centuries in the cure of the same affections. A comparison with the uses reported for the same species in Ancient treatises shows that the origin of present ethnomedicine from old learned medical doctrines needs a case-by-case confirmation.ConclusionThe database is flexible enough to represent a useful tool for researchers who need to store and compare present and previous ethnobotanical uses from Mediterranean Countries.

‘The mighty, blowing wind always rests in ethereal space’: the role of teachers in new learning paradigms

In this paper, we explore the possibilities of applying the ‘mighty, blowing wind resting in ethereal space’ metaphor explicated in the ancient Indian philosophical treatise of Bhagavad Gita as an analogical representation of the functional characteristics of new pedagogies. Of pertinent attributional focus is the analysis of the complexities embedded in the dynamics of emergent student‐teacher relationships in constructivist educational settings, specifically a PBL environment. The qualitative findings of an empirical case study that was carried out in a reform‐minded tertiary institution serve as the situational basis for the arguments presented in this paper. These findings highlight the tensions faced, both by teachers and students, in reconciling and harmonizing the dichotomies inherent in their instructional interactions. There appears to be an intertwined state of dependence and independence, connectedness and separateness in student‐teacher transactions. These boundaries are rather indistinct, though, the independent nature of the learning process evidently has an upper hand in pedagogical proceedings. The abstractness and particularities of this phenomenon will thus be examined at length from the perspective of participant students’ reflections to determine the appropriateness of the ‘mighty wind’ metaphor as a means of reification to better understanding and representing involved intricacies.

Dynamic of moisture transfer in ancient plasters

The present research shows that it is possible to obtain, from mercury porosimetry, suction curves useful to describe how and how fast two touching porous materials exchange water. Suction curves correlate the mass water content with the capillary suction pressure, such a comparison making it possible to know, by means of a potential scale similar to temperatures, the water exchange possibilities between layers and also, through their first derivatives, the transfer velocity according to the saturation degree of initial and final materials. On the basis of these curves a hypothesis on the possible role played by the technological complexity of historical plasters as described in ancient treatises is put forward. A comparison between the suction properties of plaster sheets realised as ancient plasters, show that the stratification and the complexity may be a regulating system to prevent water penetration from the wall and the exterior.