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This chapter examines the Qurʾan’s attitude towards smell. Against the backdrop of the richly scented setting of pagan Arabia, the chapter argues, the Qurʾan is strikingly disinterested in olfaction. There are only two places in the Qurʾan where olfaction occurs: Jacob smelling the shirt of his beloved Joseph (12:94) and the blessed in paradise enjoying the scent of musk-topped wine, camphor, and fragrant herbs (5:12, 56:89, 76:5, 83:26). However, as this chapter argues, both instances have a transhistorical gist, diverting attention from the here and now by cutting through time in two directions: Joseph “smells back,” recalling an ideal past and aromatically enacting his beloved son’s presence; the paradise passages “smell forward,” gesturing towards eschatological bliss in the perfumed garden of paradise. Neither of these two instances of olfaction, therefore, can cast doubt on the fundamentally anosmic character of the Qurʾan. Rather than suggesting, as others have done, that the importance of smell is uninterrupted from Zoroastrian to Late Antique Christian literature and all the way to the Qurʾan, this chapter suggests that the Qurʾan attempts—albeit unsuccessfully, as many hadiths of the formative period of Islam demonstrate—to disrupt smell and introduce a new olfactory regime.

Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-tam-10.1177_17588359221080298 for Atezolizumab and bevacizumab in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma with impaired liver function and prior systemic therapy: a real-world experience by Tiago de Castro, Leonie S. Jochheim, Melanie Bathon, Sabrina Welland, Bernhard Scheiner, Kateryna Shmanko, Daniel Roessler, Najib Ben Khaled, Matthias Jeschke, Johannes M. Ludwig, Jens U. Marquardt, Arndt Weinmann, Matthias Pinter, Christian M. Lange, Arndt Vogel and Anna Saborowski in Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-tam-10.1177_17588359221080298 for Atezolizumab and bevacizumab in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma with impaired liver function and prior systemic therapy: a real-world experience by Tiago de Castro, Leonie S. Jochheim, Melanie Bathon, Sabrina Welland, Bernhard Scheiner, Kateryna Shmanko, Daniel Roessler, Najib Ben Khaled, Matthias Jeschke, Johannes M. Ludwig, Jens U. Marquardt, Arndt Weinmann, Matthias Pinter, Christian M. Lange, Arndt Vogel and Anna Saborowski in Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology

The celebrated Iraqi littérateur, al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255 AH/869 CE), devotes a long section of his opus magnum, The Book of the Living, to the topic of “sensation among the various classes of living things.” His observations about the wondrous qualities of the human and animal sensorium are also found elsewhere in The Book of Living and in other of his works. This article traces al-Jāḥiẓ’s sensory theory in its epistemological and ethical dimensions, by pulling together key passages on the five senses from al-Jāḥiẓ’s oeuvre. The article argues that al-Jāḥiẓ develops a characteristic sensory style that is marked not so much by his desire to elevate sight above hearing, or human rationalism over animal sensualism, but rather by his erudite conoisseurship of the natural world and by his deep and measured appreciation of the phenomenon of synesthesia. Given al-Jāḥiẓ’s exalted status in Arabic literary history, his moderate sensory style constitutes an important paradigm on which later thinkers active in the Islamic world could build.

Background The transition from compensated to decompensated liver cirrhosis is a hallmark of disease progression, however, reliable predictors to assess the risk of decompensation in individual patients from routine diagnostics are lacking. Here, we characterize serum levels of cell death-associated markers and routine biochemistry from patients with chronic liver disease with and without decompensation. Methods A post-hoc analysis was based on prospectively collected clinical data from 160 patients with chronic liver disease, stably compensated or decompensated at baseline or during follow-up, over a median period of 721 days. Serum levels of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and routine biochemistry are quantified at baseline (for all patients) and during follow-up (for patients with acute decompensation). The panel of DAMPs assessed in this study comprises high-mobility group-box protein 1 (HMGB1), cytochrome C (cyt C), soluble Fas-ligand (sFasL), interleukin 6 (IL-6), soluble cytokeratin-18 (CK18-M65) and its caspase-cleaved fragment CK18-M30. Results In this cohort study, 80 patients (50%) were diagnosed with alcoholic liver cirrhosis, 60 patients (37.5%) with hepatitis C virus- and 20 patients (13.5%) with hepatitis B virus-related liver cirrhosis. At baseline, 17 patients (10.6%) showed decompensated liver disease and another 28 patients (17.5%) developed acute decompensation during follow-up (within 24 months). One hundred fifteen patients showed stable liver disease (71.9%). We found DAMPs significantly elevated in patients with decompensated liver disease versus compensated liver disease. Patients with acute decompensation during follow-up showed higher baseline levels of IL-6, sFasL, CK18-M65 and–M30 (P

BACKGROUND: The proper management of patients being treated with platelet aggregation inhibitors or anticoagulant drugs is a common clinical problem for both elective and emergency procedures in gastroenterology and visceral surgery. The essential matters that must be kept in mind in this situation are the hemorrhagic risk of the procedure, the indication for anticoagulation, and the pharmacology of anticoagulant drugs and platelet aggregation inhibitors. METHODS: This review is based on publications retrieved by a selective search in PubMed and on the guidelines of the relevant specialist societies. RESULTS: Nearly all procedures in gastroenterology and visceral surgery can be performed under monotherapy with acetyl - salicylic acid. Other platelet aggregation inhibitors, such as clopidogrel or prasugrel, or anticoagulant drugs generally do not need to paused before diagnostic endoscopic procedures with a low risk of bleeding (

Poster-Abstract

Der Aufsatz untersucht die Rezeption der biblischen Figur des Ijob in der vorislamischen syrisch-christlichen Literatur und vergleicht diese binnenchristlich mit der griechischen und lateinischen sowie interreligiös mit der jüdischen und quranischen Ijobrezeption. Der Beitrag will damit einen Beitrag zu der Untersuchung der Rezeption von biblischen Figuren, Topoi und Stoffen in der formativen Phase der drei monotheistischen Weltreligionen des (patristischen) Christentums, des (rabbinischen) Judentums sowie des (quranischen) Islam in der Spätantike leisten. Bei dem Vergleich treten Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede in der Rezeption der biblischen Person des Ijob auf, welche Rückschlüsse auf eine mögliche interreligiös-diskursive Begegnung in der Spätantike ermöglichen. Die Darstellung fußt auf einem Vortrag des Verfassers, welchen dieser im Rahmen des Symposiums zu Ehren von Hartmut Bobzin an der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen im Sommer 2022 gehalten hat.

In cirrhotic patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), right-sided radioembolization (RE) with Yttrium-90-loaded microspheres is an established palliative therapy and can be considered a “curative intention” treatment when aiming for sequential tumor resection. To become surgical candidate, hypertrophy of the left liver lobe to > 40% (future liver remnant, FLR) is mandatory, which can develop after RE. The amount of radiation-induced shrinkage of the right lobe and compensatory hypertrophy of the left lobe is difficult for clinicians to predict. This study aimed to utilize machine learning to predict left lobe liver hypertrophy in patients with HCC and cirrhosis scheduled for right lobe RE, with external validation. The results revealed that machine learning can accurately predict relative and absolute volume changes of the left liver lobe after right lobe RE. This prediction algorithm could help to estimate the chances of conversion from palliative RE to curative major hepatectomy following significant FLR hypertrophy.