Bitter Water Research Articles

Numbers 5:11–31 as the Old Testament Background for Revelation 8:11

The article examines possible links between the ritual of bitter water, described in Numbers 5:11–31, and one of the aspects of the plague, described as the event following the third trumpet in the Book of Revelation (Rev 8:11). Such a connection has not been analysed by scholars so far. The ritual described in Numbers 5 not only has a legal meaning but it is also the starting point for a theological tradition of understanding adultery as a metaphor for Israel’s unfaithfulness to YHWH. The prophetic texts of the OT use motifs taken from Num 5 to depict the lawsuit that YHWH brings against the unfaithful people. According to the author of this article, the use of the motif of drinking bitter water in Rev 8:11 falls into a similar pattern. This is a ritual performed to reveal the guilt of the sinners described in Rev as hoi anthrōpoi.

Significance of isotopic and geochemical methods to determine the evolution of inland brackish and bitter water: An example from the Zuli river in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, China

AbstractWith the increasing demand for water resources, the utilization of marginal water resources of poor‐quality has become a focus of attention. The brackish water developed in the Loess Plateau is not only salty but also famous for its ‘bitterness’. In the present work, multi‐isotope analysis (Sr, B) was combined with geochemical analysis to gain insight into the hydrogeochemical evolution and formation mechanisms of brackish water. These results demonstrate that groundwater in the headwater is influenced by carbonate weathering. After the confluence of several tributaries in the headwater, the total dissolved solids (TDS) of water is significantly increased. The dissolution of evaporates is shown to be the main source of salinity in brackish water, which also greatly affects the strontium isotopic composition of water. This includes the dissolution of Mg‐rich minerals, which is the main cause of the bitterness. Furthermore, the release of calcium from the dissolution of gypsum may induce calcite precipitation and incongruent dissolution of dolomite, which also contributes to the enrichment of magnesium. The highly fractionated boron isotopic values observed in the upstream groundwater were explained by the absorption with clay minerals. The inflow of brackish groundwater is the source of river water. Then evaporation further aggravates the salinization of river water, with water quality evolving to saline conditions in the lower reach. When the river reaches the valley plain, the 87Sr/86Sr ratios decreases significantly, which is primarily related to erosion of the riverbanks during runoff. These results indicate that water resource sustainability could be enhanced by directing focus to mitigating salinization in the source area of the catchment.

Orodispersible films as a personalized dosage form for nursing home residents, an exploratory study

Background A frequent problem in ageing patients, and thus in nursing home residents, is dysphagia, affecting the ability to swallow solid dosage forms. A promising and personalized drug delivery system for this patient group is the orodispersible film. Orodispersible films could be prepared extemporaneously in a (hospital) pharmacy setting or in specialty compounding community pharmacies using the solvent casting method. Little has been done to systematically investigate which medications should be chosen for orodispersible film formulation development. Objective In this study, the medication use of nursing home residents was examined to identify medications that are suitable for orodispersible film formulation development. Setting Nursing homes of three Northern provinces of Netherlands. Method Medication intake data from 427 nursing home residents from nine nursing homes from the three northern provinces of the Netherlands were used to identify candidates for orodispersible film formulation development. A stepwise approach, with exclusion steps, was used. Selection criteria included systemic use with a maximum amount of 100 mg per dose unit, no commercially available suitable dosage forms for administration in dysphagia, indication for diseases associated with dysphagia. Furthermore, the characteristics of the active pharmaceutical ingredient needed for the orodispersible film formulation development, such as water solubility and taste, were reviewed. Main outcome measure Active pharmaceutical ingredients suitable for orodispersible film formulation development. Results The nursing home residents used three hundred forty one different medications. Of those, 34 active pharmaceutical ingredients from six therapeutic groups were considered as candidates for orodispersible film formulation development. Most of these active pharmaceutical ingredients have a bitter taste and poor water solubility, which is a challenge for orodispersible film production. Conclusions The most suitable active pharmaceutical ingredient candidates for manufacturing of orodispersible films for the ageing patient population may be the combination of levodopa and carbidopa used to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and baclofen used to treat spasticity.

The magic water test. An affective paired comparison approach to evaluate taste sensitivity in pre-schoolers

Children in pre-school age present a limited cognitive development, a restricted vocabulary and a short attention span, which do not allow conducting classical taste sensitivity measures as developed for adults. The aim of this study was to develop and validate an age-appropriate protocol for sensitivity testing of the five basic tastes with pre-schoolers. One hundred and forty children aged 3–4years (mean age 46.3months, SD 3.4) performed a paired comparison task consisting of discriminating water from “magic water” by relying on their affect. In order to accommodate the age group, the task was gamified and did not require verbal responses. Sweet (sucrose, ranging from 0.94 to 4.32g/l), sour (citric acid monohydrate, 0.20–0.38g/l), umami (monosodium glutamate, 0.17–0.49g/l), salty (sodium chloride, 0.34–0.98g/l), and bitter (quinine hydrochloride dihydrate, 0.0014–0.0038g/l) water dilutions were tested at four levels. Subsets of about 20 children per taste participated in retest sessions. Individual sensitivity scores were derived in two manners, following the experimenter’s success criterion (water with taste is classified as magic) and the child’s criterion for “magic water” (children’s individual magic-labelling strategies). Results show that the protocol was highly engaging, that the children performed the task consistently, and that the children’s performances were not dependent on cognitive level differences, thus validating the protocol for this study. On average, the children were clearly more sensitive to sour stimuli than to sweet and bitter stimuli, suggesting that the selected dilutions were not equivalent across tastes. Different sensitivity distributions of the children were obtained across taste modalities and scoring criteria. The key elements of an age-appropriate protocol for pre-schoolers are discussed.

Serotonin modulates the dehydration-induced changes in tolerance for bitter water

Drinking behavior is regulated by endogenous factors such as the hydration condition of animals and exogenous factors such as the taste of ingested fluids. These factors have been suggested to interact with each other via serotonergic (5-HT) signaling to regulate drinking behavior. In the present study, we examined how dehydration affects the intake of bitter water, which suppresses drinking behavior, via 5-HT signaling. Water deprivation increased water intake for 1h, depending on the duration of water deprivation. The intake of 1mM quinine, which is a bitter tastant, was lower than that of water in mice deprived of water for 24h but not 48h. We next examined the involvement of the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) and median raphe nucleus (MRN), which contain a large population of 5-HT neurons, in changing tolerance for quinine intake after water deprivation. The intake of quinine following water deprivation for 24h, but not 48h, increased the number of tryptophan hydroxylase-positive neurons expressing c-Fos in the DRN, but not in the MRN. Moreover, administration of paroxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, decreased the intake of quinine solution, but not water, in mice deprived of water for 48h, indicating that paroxetine treatment restored the aversion to quinine. These results suggest that unresponsiveness of 5-HT neurons in the DRN may be involved in the dehydration-induced increase in tolerance for bitter water.

What Looks Like Mad Disorder: The Sarah Winchester House

What Looks Like Mad DisorderThe Sarah Winchester House Joni Tevis (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 12] Midnight, she knew, tasted of bitter water but smelled good as damp dirt. The dark hours had taught her that as she’d slid from room to room. A big house creates its own sink of nighttime silence, ponderous as weather; how quiet the place back east had been. But these rooms were noisy as she wanted, alive with the ring of dropped nails, chuffing saws. Hammers swung all night at her command. She slept, if she slept, in a different bed every night, or else waited patiently at the little desk in the séance room. She [End Page 13] went over accounts and sketched plans for the next day, chewing on dried apricots grown in her own orchards. Tough little suns, flat and orange; they caught in her teeth. One night she drew a spider web on a sheet of paper. It would be a design for a stained-glass window. She must have seen something she recognized in the spider. How every night she spins herself a home, and every dawn destroys it. How she anchors herself in a sturdy spot, reels out a loop, and adds the weight of her body. From this triangle, everything begins. Once upon a time there lived a baby girl, the only child of parents rich beyond measure. But when she was just a few weeks old, that baby died. Some years later, her father died too, and her mother was left alone. The mother had been the hub of a small family and now was the center of nothing, drifting from room to room, eyes dimmed by grief, hands empty. Maybe she felt a curse had fallen upon her, and maybe one had. So she went to the city, Boston, and found a soothsayer, who told her to move west, build a house, and never stop, lest the spirits that had taken her daughter and husband come for her. There were legions of those ghosts, the medium said, all the people killed by her husband’s guns. For this grieving woman was heir to the vast fortune of the Winchester Rifle Company. Sarah was her name, Sarah Pardee Winchester, and this was her house. We’re standing in the courtyard, my husband David and I, waiting for our tour to start. The fountain beside us sparkles and spurts. We hear occasional honks from the traffic outside on Winchester Boulevard, and kids squealing as they horse around in the Victorian Gardens—it’s a busy place, and we squint in the sun, tickets in hand. We’re between jobs, all our things stacked in a storage unit across the country in a new state, in a town called Apex. You have to go where the work is, people say. Well, we’ve done that, following jobs from Texas to Minnesota to North Carolina. Will one of us get a steady job when the academic hiring season starts up again next month? If not, what then? “We’ll get by,” David says, but right now, I can’t see how. In the meantime, we’re taking a few days off, finagling flyer miles and a spot on our friends’ sofa into a California junket. When we started packing, we couldn’t find our suitcases—they were buried too deep in that storage unit. So we stuffed our clothes in a box that a coffee pot had come in, taped it shut, and heaved it onto the baggage belt. An awkward fix, but it would have to do. The intercom crackles: Tour number seventy-one, prepare to depart from the side entrance. Twenty of us line up, a mixed bunch—retired couples, a father with two children, a boy in a zapata vive! T-shirt. Our guide, a stony-faced college student with her dark hair cut in sleek wings, lays down the law. “Keep up,” she says. “Stay with the group. If you get lost, you’ll have to find your own way out. Nobody will ever find you.” With that, we step inside, through [End Page...

ReviewBitter Water: Diné Oral Histories of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute. First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies Series. Translated and edited by Malcolm D. Benally. Photos by Mary Fish. Foreword by Jennifer Nez Denetdale. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. xvii + 102 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $19.95, paper.)

Review<b><i>Bitter Water: Diné Oral Histories of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute</i></b>. First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies Series. Translated and edited by Malcolm D. Benally. Photos by Mary Fish. Foreword by Jennifer Nez Denetdale. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. xvii + 102 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $19.95, paper.)

Mourir de laide mort despite

Alexander’s sudden and mysterious death by poisoning is an integral part of his vita in medieval French and Latin literature. The conqueror is an ambivalent hero, as ambivalent as the theme of poison in the works about him. The constant threat produced by his encounters with harmful liquids is suggestive of his excessive desire, a vice that is compared with venom in Alexandrian literature. The conqueror’s unquenchable thirst is a metaphor for his immoderate and ever-unsatisfied desire. Alexander is forced to wander in the deserts of Asia Minor and India in search of fresh water. When he does find water, his expectations are systematically disappointed, as the water more often than not turns out to be toxic. But Alexander’s misfortune of having to drink bitter water is comparable to the Passion of Christ, and identifies the ancient hero with epic warriors of the “matiere de France” such as Roland or Vivien. The hero’s poisoning can also be seen as enhancing his status. His foreshadowed death adds a pronounced tragic dimension to his destiny. In his quest for absolute domination, Alexander is fettered by the limitations of his mortal body. Invincible warrior, hero of the unlimited, Alexander is also a terribly human figure who meets in death by poison the limits of his ambition, a metaphysical hero who knows the hour of his death and is reminded of it many times in the course of his journey.

The Conversion of Sibilla in the History of the Holy Rood Tree

The Conversion of Sibilla in the History of the Holy Rood Tree Thomas D. Hill One interesting and little explored aspect of the various medieval literatures is the genre of Christian "apocryphal" romance, elaborate fictions that seem to have had little claim to historical truth. These texts, however, seem to have been enjoyed both as a kind of literature of the fantastic and the exotic and as texts that conveyed moral and doctrinal truths either directly or symbolically. 1 One such cycle of legends that was specifically recognized as "apocryphal" (that is, a text that cannot be ascribed to a known author and hence is of dubious historical authority) was the legendary history of the Holy Cross. 2 One of the earliest and most interesting versions of this history was translated into Old English late in the Old English period and then rewritten in the transitional English of the twelfth century, a century or so later. Partly because this text exists "between" Old and Early Middle English and partly because of modern discomfort with texts such as these (with medieval apocryphal literature that seems very strange and alien to a modern sensibility), the History of the Holy Rood Tree has not [End Page 123] attracted very much critical attention. 3 In this article I would like to address one specific, although important, episode in this legendary text, but this discussion may be of broader interest in that this article may illustrate some ways in which modern critics can understand and perhaps even to some degree appreciate the genre of medieval Christian "apocryphal" texts. The late Old English, or if one prefers, early Middle English History of the Holy Rood Tree is the earliest extant vernacular version of the legend of the Cross in Western European literature and is a twelfth-century redaction of a text that was first translated into Old English at least a century earlier. 4 The legend, which is in prose, relates the history of the Cross from the time that Moses crossed the desert until the passion and from the passion until the invention of the Cross by Helena. The episode with which I am specifically concerned here, the conversion of Sibilla, occurs at approximately the midpoint of this history. However, in order to give some sense of the kind of narrative with which I am dealing, I would like to summarize and to comment briefly on the introductory episodes of this history. It begins when Moses is in the desert with the people of Israel. As he lies sleeping one night, three shoots appear by his head and both hands, forming a triadic, cruciform pattern. Moses awakes, sees the shoots, and is struck by the marvel. Fearing to profane the area, he moves his camp about a mile away. But the next morning the shoots stand about him in the same pattern; and Moses, inspired by the Holy Spirit, prophesies and defines these shoots as tokens of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then, at noon, Moses digs them up and goes on his way. The next evening, Moses and the children of Israel come upon [End Page 124] bitter waters, and, faced with the suffering and the consequent hostility of his people, Moses goes apart to pray. It then occurs to him to sweeten the bitter water with the shoots that are to become the wood of the Cross. He does so—the water is sweetened—and then Moses, with the shoots carefully packed and moistened, proceeds on the journey through the desert. This episode is an interesting one, since in its very bareness and simplicity it serves to illustrate one aspect of the technique of the author of the History of the Holy Rood Tree . The basis of the narrative is of course biblical. In the course of the journey of the Israelites through the desert, Moses did sweeten bitter waters. To quote the relevant verses: Et murmuravit populus contra Moyses, dicens:Quid bibemus?At ille clamavit ad Dominum,qui ostendit ei lignum: quod cum missessetin aquas, in dulcedinem versae sunt:ibi constituit ei praecepta, atque iudicia, etibi tentavit eum. (Exodus 15:24–25) 5 [And the people murmured against Moses...

Five Poems

Labrador Tea Labrador leaves in a jar with a kerchief lid release an arctic aroma when simmered on a stove. Yesterday when fire broke out in the bosque, the air had the stench of cauliflower in a steamer when water has evaporated and the pot scalds. Although Apache plume, along with clusters of western peppergrass, makes fragrant the wash, owls that frequent the hole high up the bank of the arroyo have already come and gone. Yesterday, though honey locust leaves shimmered in a gust, I marveled no wasp nest had yet formed under the porch. Repotting a spathiphyllum, then uncoiling a hose, I suddenly hear surf through open slats of a door. Sprinklers come on in the dark; a yellow slug crawls on a rain- slicked banana leaf; as the mind flits, imbibes, leaves clothed underneath with rusty hairs suffuse a boreal light glistening on tidal pools. [End Page 17] [Begin Page 20] The Chromatics of Dawn Navel oranges ripen on branches near the steps to a porch. He recalls zigzagging along a path marked by white stones through a lava flow to a beach where violet morning glories flared. Up the coast he once peered into the water but could not make out the underwater shrine frequented by black-tipped reef sharks. He tries to delineate the sheen of rolling waves, chromatics of the hour when light pales the unfolded paper shades to the south- facing French doors. Last week they rolled up architectural plans, along with sun-bleached red paper inscribed with gold characters, and torched them in the hearth. As they remodel, they ponder how a floor of repeating strips of bolted oak and cement can be replicated; but, at his fingertips, he knows nothing can be replicated: neither the hair in her hairbrush, nor the hole in his sock, neither the hue of sunrise, nor waves of opalescent spring sleet. Yardangs She who can't sleep takes a sleeping pill, then another, then another. A crab apple in the yard blossoms along the curve of spring. Along a stone wall, we yearn for a line of Japanese irises that do not appear. Who glimpses a body on a stretcher loaded into an ambulance? In the winter of spring, a neighbor frets over air-pollution vectors; a teenage girl worries her horse slashes [End Page 20] its neck along barbed wire. Prevailing winds: west-northwest. As a physicist posits all languages have a single root, I weigh arête, yardang, strike canyon, ciénega, tsé bit'a'í: Shiprock, the rock with wings. But is there bedrock? Scent of your breasts and hair. Who is of the Bitter Water Clan? A red tulip in a glass droops within hours. Tremor at how z, x, y puts form into danger. Fractals Stopped at an intersection, ruminating on how, in a game of go, to consider all the possible moves until the end would take a computer longer than the expected lifetime of the universe, you flit from piccolo to stovepipe in a letter, to scrutinizing faces while standing in line at the post office, to weather forecast—does a snowflake have an infinite number of possible shapes?— consider, only last weekend, a wasp threaded along a screen door in south light; mark the impulse to—not see this, do that—water leafing pear trees along a curved driveway, relax the intricate open work mesh of spring; recall lifting a packet of flax seeds off the counter, and, checking for an expiration date, note—red light, green light— sow when danger of frost is past, then go, go. [End Page 21] Departures and Arrivals An accountant leaning over a laptop frets: I have botched this, bungled that— he is not focused on numbers or accounts; a taxi driver at an airport has no time to contemplate rippling shadows of ginkgo leaves but swerves between a van and truck; a reinsurance analyst obsesses over a one-in-ten probability that a hurricane will scour the Florida Gulf Coast, while an air-pollution expert is assigned the...

Sucrose and quinine intake by maternally-deprived and control rhesus monkeys

Clinical depression is often characterized by a loss of interest or pleasure in formerly enjoyable activities. Analogs of anhedonia are established in rats, but the generality of this phenomenon to other species is unknown. Maternally-deprived rhesus macaques show a wide range of behavioral abnormalities that are reversed by chronic antidepressant treatment. We tested consumption by maternally deprived versus control macaques of sweetened (seven sucrose concentrations) or bitter water (four quinine concentrations) versus plain water to evaluate a non-human primate model of depression for signs of anhedonia. All monkeys consumed more sweetened than tap water, but maternally-deprived monkeys had a diminished preference for sweetened water than did controls. However, maternally deprived animals consumed more bitter water than did controls. Baseline fluid consumption did not differ. The data suggest that ‘anhedonia’ in animal models may be secondary to a generally attenuated responsiveness to stimuli, rather than a unitary reduction in responsiveness to the appetitive properties of stimuli. We conclude that maternally-deprived rhesus monkeys do not display gustatory signs of anhedonia, but rather of insensitivity to gustatory stimuli.

Neuroanatomy of the panic-respiration system

Drinking behavior is regulated by endogenous factors such as the hydration condition of animals and exogenous factors such as the taste of ingested fluids. These factors have been suggested to interact with each other via serotonergic (5-HT) signaling to regulate drinking behavior. In the present study, we examined how dehydration affects the intake of bitter water, which suppresses drinking behavior, via 5-HT signaling. Water deprivation increased water intake for 1 h, depending on the duration of water deprivation. The intake of 1 mM quinine, which is a bitter tastant, was lower than that of water in mice deprived of water for 24 h but not 48 h. We next examined the involvement of the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) and median raphe nucleus (MRN), which contain a large population of 5-HT neurons, in changing tolerance for quinine intake after water deprivation. The intake of quinine following water deprivation for 24 h, but not 48 h, increased the number of tryptophan hydroxylase-positive neurons expressing c-Fos in the DRN, but not in the MRN. Moreover, administration of paroxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, decreased the intake of quinine solution, but not water, in mice deprived of water for 48 h, indicating that paroxetine treatment restored the aversion to quinine. These results suggest that unresponsiveness of 5-HT neurons in the DRN may be involved in the dehydration-induced increase in tolerance for bitter water.

The Goose and the Black Bird

Hershman John is a Navajo from Thba City, Arizona, born into the Deer Spring People Clan. His father's side is the Bitter Water Clamn He has been published in the Oxford Rock (Oxford, England) and The Heat's Vision: Native Images (Arizona State University). His poem, 'Wooden Duck,' was read at the American Indian Professoriate Conference at Thmpe, Arizona, and he was invited to submit work to The WicazoSa Review. He says, have been a writer since a teacher in high school, John Nesbit, said that I could be one. So I took his word and ended up on a scholarship for summer school at Oxford University in England, studying creative writing and art history. It was there I learned from an Oxford teacher named Helen Kidd and also created the Wooden Duck poem there, as you can see.

Variability in the production of amylase by three isolates ofMyrothecium roridum

Amylase production by three isolates ofMyrothecium roridum under different cultural conditions was studied. Starch followed by dextrin induced maximum amylase production (dextrinizing and saccharifying) by all the three isolates. Glucose was a poor substrate for the production of amylases. Bitter gourd isolate was a comparatively more efficient producer of amylases than the other two isolates. Addition of glucose to the starch medium resulted in a repression of amylases. Urea was a good source of nitrogen for induction of dextrinizing amylase in bitter gourd and pearl millet isolates.l-Asparagine,l-tyrosine were good sources of nitrogen for induction of saccharifying amylase in bitter gourd, water melon and pearl millet isolate, respectively. With a few exceptions, dextrinizing amylase production was inhibited by gibberellic acid, cycocel, calcium chloride and calcium sulfate, while these substances stimulated saccharifying-amylase production. No correlation could be observed between amylase production and vegetative growth. Amylases of all the three isolates ofM. roridum were characterized.

A Poor Blacksmith Becomes a Master of the Country

Master Sang, whose given name i s Yun-chiao, i s fifty-one years old this year. The son of a blacksmith, he followed his father from one place to another. From his childhood, he was fed the bitter water of class oppression and class exploitation; the old society drove to their deaths seven members of his family…. In 1945 the Communist Party saved his entire family. Now, he is the head of the welding group of the United Factory in Wu-hsiang hsien and an honored labor model.

Nonoperative treatment of hemorrhoids. Boas (on ref. Vr. G., 1927, no. 23)

Based on the material of 200 cases, he recommends the following method of nonoperative treatment of hemorrhoids: on the eve of the day of the injection the patient's bowels are cleaned with laxatives and enema; 1/2 hour before the injection morphine with atropine is injected under the skin; then 50 cc of novocaine solution is injected into the rectum. 1/2% Novocaine solution; a Bier's jar is placed against the patient's anus, in the lap and elbow position, and suction is made until the nodes protrude. After that, 0.5 to 1 to 2 cc of absolute alcohol is injected into each node (necessarily for each node with a special needle), the nodes are repaired as quickly as possible with the fingers, and the patient is prescribed bed rest and liquid food, and on the 3rd day a laxative (magnesia or bitter water) is given.