National Tragedy Research Articles

The frontier as social control

The frontier experience, according to Turner, cast the mold for all that is distinctively American. The bounty of open land and the experience of forging local democratic institutions shaped the character of a new nation, built on the pillars of rugged individualism and democratic governance. The closing of the American frontier was a national tragedy, eulogized by Turner and recited by his followers.' From them, Americans have inherited a moral and intellectual dilemma. They can neither deny its significance nor accept its implications, so they continue to search for new frontiers.

French workers and the temperance movement.

In 1852, when the medical discoverer of alcoholism, Magnus Huss, was being honoured by the Académie française, a spokesman for the Académie wrote that “France has many drunkards, but happily, no alcoholics.” Sixty years later, on the eve of World War I, if one is to believe the reports of parliamentary commissions, economists, hygienists and social reformers, France had few drunks but a plethora of alcoholics, from the Breton peasant who fed calvados to his children to the worker of Paris and the Midi who had abandoned wine, that “natural and hygienic drink”, for the evils of mass-produced industrial alcohol, especially absinthe. By 1914, alcoholism was considered one of the three grands fléaux, or great plagues, that had struck France in the late nineteenth century, and it was blamed for all the ills of society, from a rising rate of criminality, suicide and mental illness to depopulation, revolutionary worker movements and even feminism. Alcoholism was, therefore, not just an individual misfortune, but a national tragedy. It had become, in the words of Clemenceau, “the whole social problem” and as such required the mobilized forces of the country to conquer it.

Confrontation Politics and Crisis Management: Nigerian University Students and Public Policy—a Social Commentary

Confrontation Politics and Crisis Management: Nigerian University Students and Public Policy—a Social Commentary

The telescoped complete denture: A research report at the clinical level

1. The retention of a few natural teeth over which a complete denture may be telescoped provides better retention and stabilization than is possible with the usual complete dentures. 2. The reduction of the length of the crowns of the teeth being retained provides a more favorable crown-root proportion and frequently results in the elimination of periodontal disease. 3. Where lower natural anterior teeth exist, the retention of even two or three upper incisors provides the bony support in the anterior part of the upper ridge with protection against traumatic vertical and horizontal pressures from the lower teeth. Ridge resorption has become a national tragedy; any method of preventing it should be welcomed. 4. The retention of two or more lower natural teeth over which a full mandibular denture is telescoped provides a means of better retention and stabilization than is otherwise possible. 5. The psychologic impact of having all the teeth removed may be ameliorated and the patients may be conditioned to expect the eventual need for complete dentures. 6. Regardless of the theories stating that stabilization is all that is essential, both stabilization and retention are achieved in telescoped complete dentures. 7. The telescoped complete denture acts as a removable splinting device for the abutment teeth. 8. When individual teeth are joined together by a gold bar they provide greater stabilization and retention than if they were not splinted together, e.g., as with two lower cuspids. 9. With only a few lower teeth remaining to support a lower prosthesis, it is wise to consider the removal of the upper natural teeth in order to increase the longevity of the lower teeth. 10. While we advocate the use of metal secondary crowns in telescopes in fixed and removable partial dentures, acrylic resin seems more practical for use in telescoped full dentures. The exception occurs where there is no labial flange. In this situation gold telescoped veneer crowns are used. However, we consider these as removable partial dentures rather than telescoped complete dentures.

Moments of truth for science

Dr. Kenneth S. Pitzer in his Priestley Award Address at the ACS meeting in Minneapolis (see page 72) distilled the essence of what is probably the key issue facing science today. Put quite simply, the issue boils down to three questions: How much of our national resources should go to science? How should the science dollar pie be shared? What are the benefits in human terms that will accrue? grappling with these questions, our scientists are beginning to face a moment of truth. As Dr. Pitzer sees it, the period of ever-increasing and largely unquestioned financial support has ended. In the future, he says, in support of science cannot be expected to be much greater than the growth in our total national productivity. We think Dr. Pitzer is probably right, although a key question, of course, is what is the right proportion for science? Is this development a national tragedy? Not necessarily, we ...

The Spanish Army and the Loss of America, 1810-1824

S PAIN'S LOSS of its Latin American empire was one of the most momentous events of the nineteenth century, with repercussions that can be felt even in the present day. Yet whatever is known of the subject has generally come from studies of the Latin American participants in the war. Popular attitudes in Spain, particularly those of the Spanish army (which was directly concerned with the war), have heretofore been neglected. A little probing into the contemporary press and into the military archives from 1810 to 1824 reveals peculiar features of the Spanish attitude hard to reconcile with the national tragedy then in progress.' During the entire revolution Spain was beset with difficulties. In 1808, at a nod from Napoleon, both the aged Charles IV and the new king, Ferdinand VII, voluntarily turned the country over to the French and meekly removed themselves to Bayonne. The Spanish people watched with smoldering resentment as Joseph Bonaparte arrived with his court, and then, on May 2, rose in revolt and for the next six years fought the invader. A new government was formed which proclaimed its loyalty to Ferdinand, but it had to flee to Cadiz before the onrushing armies. There in 1810, besieged on several sides, a group of liberals seized the opportunity to turn Spain into a constitutional monarchy. It was at this juncture that word arrived of insurrections in the empire, first in New Spain and Venezuela, then spreading quickly to Peru, Chile, and the Rio de la Plata. Despite the truly desperate situation in Spain itself, the immediate reaction was a general outcry to send an army to crush the revolts. Juan Lopez Cancelada, writing in 1810, called for a mighty expedition of peace; and other men, also, thought that only through military action could Spain positively secure its control over the rebels.2 In 1808 Spain had about 125,700

Comment on the Essay of Professor Clebsch History, Bushnell, and Lincoln

During the 1960 convention of the American Historical Association a session on historical reviewing subjected the noncommittal or picayune irrelevance of these professional offerings to their due measure of censure and derision. Despite the justice of extending such judgments to the genteel and congratulatory “comments” and “critiques” ordinarily given at our conventions, I shall not attempt at any demolition of Professor Clebsch's scholarship or conclusions. This is not because my critical faculties are paralyzed but due to genuine satisfaction with what he has done and gratitude for the glimpse here given of his more extensive research. No more fitting centennial observance of the Civil War could be imagined than a sober examination of the meaning of this, our great national tragedy. Having no desire to manufacture disagreements or magnify quibbles, I can preserve some of the appearances of debate only by urging that the scope of his findings be extended at certain points. To this end I undertake the strangely impossible task of making the point of his essay both broader and sharper.

Red River Campaign: Politics and Cotton in the Civil War (review)

318civil war history original edition, so indicating when this has been done. The introduction is well written and informative, the footnotes are in good order, and the index of personal and place names is acceptable despite a few errors and omissions. In his preface Mr. Harwell states, ". . . the length of the narrative has required that explanatory notes be kept to a minimum." While conceding that this is a decision for the editor and his publisher, this reviewer regrets that such notes have been confined to the bare minimum. Miss Cumming 's diary is a versatile parade of names of both famous and unknown persons, as well as a catalogue of allusions to events, feuds, and controversies . Being the sort of person she was, she did not go into any lengthy discussion or explanation of what was so familiar at the time. Here the editor had the challenge to identify briefly and explain these so that one not well-versed in the history of the war might better comprehend what is being said. Certainly Surgeon-General Samuel Preston Moore merits identification in a work of this kind. The reviewer understands the difficulties involved in deciding where to draw the line, but she believes that the book would have been greatly improved had it been drawn beyond where it has been. The only other omission that is of major significance is a map or maps to indicate the location of Miss Cumming's assignments and the path of her journeys. Errors are few and in most cases are mere oversights. The title of Phoebe Yates Pember's volume should read A Southern Woman's Story (p. v), but it is correctly cited elsewhere. Several misspellings or typographical errors were noted. In the index, "Gen. Brown" would seem to be General John Calvin Brown, " Sen. Clement Comer Clay" should be Senator Clement Claiborne Clay, and "Gen. Philip Dole Roddy" should be General Philip Dale Roddey. Despite these and other minor errors and omissions, Mr. Harwell is to be congratulated on his many corrections and additions to the original edition of this valuable Civil War diary. Mary Elizabeth Massey Winthrop College Red River Campaign: Politics and Cotton in the Civil War. By Ludwell H. Johnson. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1958. Pp. 317. $5.00. ) very few of the hundreds of Civil War books published during the last two or three years have contributed anything of significance to the understanding of that four-year period of national tragedy. Professor Johnson's Red River Campaign: Politics and Cotton in the Civil War is one of the worthwhile few. He has chosen an almost virgin field of study—the Trans-Mississippi West. The story of that ill-fated Federal campaign, which took place in Louisiana and Arkansas in the spring of 1864, is here explored fully for the first time. The basic strategy of the Red River Campaign is simple. Union General Nathaniel P. Banks and Admiral David D. Porter with some 30,000 troops and 60 ships were to advance up the Red River while General Frederick Steele's force of over 10,000 men was to move southward from Little Rock, Arkansas. Book Reviews319 The first major objective of both forces was Shreveport (near the junction of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas), the heart of a rich cotton empire and the headquarters of Confederate General E. Kirby Smith. The ultimate goal was Texas. The author has handled the Louisiana phase of this two-pronged campaign with considerable skill. Porter's problems with the gunboats in the shallow waters of the Red make fascinating reading. The story of Banks's difficulties with the civilian cotton speculators, his defeat by Confederate General Richard Taylor at Sabine Crossroads, and his subsequent retreat and abandonment of the expedition is concise, clear, and colorful. An excellent set of maps has been furnished. Perhaps the most important contribution of Professor Johnson's book can be found in the first two chapters. It is here that he provides a most interesting example of how military operations during the Civil War were often "intimately interwoven with political, economic, and ideological factors which frequently determined the time and place of a Union offensive." He...

NATIONAL HEARING WEEK

To the Editor: —Years of practice as an otologist have convinced me that we have in the plight of the hard of hearing a concealed national tragedy. This experience and the conviction that we are on the threshold of great progress led me to accept the gratuitous position of chief executive of the American Society for the Hard of Hearing. President Truman's endorsement of the observance of National Hearing Week beginning October 21 next is of great importance, for vast numbers of people, including a substantial percentage of your readers, having hearing defects. As we stand today, far reaching developments in electronics, speech reading and rehabilitation programs offer these people material assistance never before realized. Will you please give such consideration and space to the copy of the President's letter and the enclosed statements as, in your opinion, their importance justifies?

The Future of Ethiopia

ETHIOPIA, the first country to lose her independence in the present sweep of aggression, has been the first to be liber ' ated. True, the invasion of Manchuria preceded the con quest of Ethiopia by four years; yet even today, a decade after Japan began her attack on China, there is still a Chinese Govern ment in effective possession of a largepart of China, engaged in a fight to the finish with the invader. Ethiopia, unlike China, was completely overrun and her independence extinguished. She thus heads the roll of national tragedies, now beyond the dozen mark ? Austria, Albania, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, the Baltic States, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Jugoslavia and Greece. And this is to say nothing of Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Thailand, as well as Italy herself, author of Ethio pia's downfall, all of which surrendered their freedom without a %ht As the first country freed from Axis occupation, Ethiopia faces the liberating Powers with important and complicated prob lems. Here, for the first time, they must make decisions which inevitably will influence the policies they later pursue in other occupied lands as they too are freed. Tne same reconstruction formulas cannot, of course, be applied indiscriminately to such dissimilar countries as, for example, Ethiopia, Albania, Poland and Norway. Yet, given the force which precedent exerts on the acts of governments, the policies followed in the reconstitution of an independent Ethiopia seem sure to serve as guideposts for those who are to supervise the creation of a New Europe out of the wreck of the New Order. Nor should we forget that the policies applied to Ethiopia will be watched with the closest attention, not only by the various governments-in-exile and their countrymen at home, but by the Axis r?gimes themselves, for these can be counted on to extract the mil propaganda value from any failure by the Anglo-Russo-American bloc to honor promises made to its smaller allies. On November 28 of last year Italian resistance in East Africa ended with the surrender of the besieged Fascist garrison at Gondar. The campaign had been typical of this war in that the Allied forces were composed of units from many parts of the

STAMMERING, A NATIONAL TRAGEDY

Medical Journal of AustraliaVolume 1, Issue 21 p. 753-753 Correspondence STAMMERING, A NATIONAL TRAGEDY First published: 01 May 1932 https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1932.tb53272.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume1, Issue21May 1932Pages 753-753 RelatedInformation

STAMMERING, A NATIONAL TRAGEDY: A PLEA FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT

Medical Journal of AustraliaVolume 1, Issue 11 p. 355-360 Original Article STAMMERING, A NATIONAL TRAGEDY: A PLEA FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT† T. Garnet Leaky M.D. (Edinburgh), F.R.C.P., T. Garnet Leaky M.D. (Edinburgh), F.R.C.P. Late Psycho-Therapist Defence Department and Repatriation DepartmentSearch for more papers by this author T. Garnet Leaky M.D. (Edinburgh), F.R.C.P., T. Garnet Leaky M.D. (Edinburgh), F.R.C.P. Late Psycho-Therapist Defence Department and Repatriation DepartmentSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 March 1932 https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1932.tb48533.x †Read at a meeting of the School Group of the London County Council Medical Officers and Medical Officers of Health Society of England on September 3, 1931. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume1, Issue11March 1932Pages 355-360 RelatedInformation