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This article focuses on Francis Hutcheson's Reflections Upon Laughter, which was originally published in 1725 as a series of three letters to The Dublin Journal during his time in the city. Although rarely considered a significant example of Hutcheson's published work, Reflections Upon Laughter has long been recognised in the philosophy of laughter as a foundational contribution to the ‘incongruity theory’ – one of the ‘big three’ theories of laughter, and that which is still considered the most credible by modern theorists. The article gives an account of Hutcheson's text but, rather than evaluating it solely as an explanation of laughter, the approach taken is an historical one: it emphasises the need to reconnect the theory to the cultural and intellectual contexts in which it was published and to identify the significance of Hutcheson's arguments in time and place. Through this, the article argues that Hutcheson's theory of laughter is indicative of the perceived significance of human risibility in early eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland and, more broadly, that it contributed both to moral philosophical debate and polite conduct guidance.

Homosexual aversion therapy enjoyed two brief but intense periods of clinical experimentation: between 1950 and 1962 in Czechoslovakia, and between 1962 and 1975 in the British Commonwealth. The specific context of its emergence was the geopolitical polarization of the Cold War and a parallel polarization within psychological medicine between Pavlovian and Freudian paradigms. In 1949, the Pavlovian paradigm became the guiding doctrine in the Communist bloc, characterized by a psychophysiological or materialist understanding of mental illness. It was taken up by therapists in Western countries who were critical of psychoanalysis and sought more ‘scientific’ diagnostic and therapeutic methods that focused on empirical evidence and treating actual symptoms. However, their attitude towards homosexuality often played a decisive role in how they used aversion therapy. Whereas Czechoslovakian researchers cautioned readers about low success rates and agitated for homosexual law reform in 1961, most of their anglophone counterparts selectively ignored or misrepresented the results of ‘the Prague experiment’, instead celebrating single-case ‘success’ stories in their effort to correct ‘abnormal’ sexual orientation. In histories of queer sexuality and its pathologization, the behaviourist paradigm remains almost entirely unmapped. This article provides the most detailed study to date of aversion therapy literature from both sides of the East/West border. In doing so, it contributes to the project not only of ‘decentring Western sexualities’, but of decentring Western sexological knowledge. Given its Pavlovian origins, the history of homosexual aversion therapy can be fully understood only in the context of Cold War transnational sexological knowledge exchange.

This article reflects on the rising use of concepts, theories, and methodologies taken from social network analysis in early modern history, along with the opportunities and challenges it presents. Scholars have been quick to attribute the growing interest in historical social networks to movements for interdisciplinary research, new possibilities presented by digital technologies, and the prominence of the term “social network” in present-day culture. In contrast, this article reconnects recent trends to longstanding attention to the nature of early modern social relations, which has its roots in the foundations of modern social thought laid in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and developed through the postwar decades in both history and sociology. In doing so, the article shows the extent to which social network analysis shares antecedents, interests, and goals with more traditional historical methods. It argues that, when sensitively applied, network approaches present many opportunities for historians engaging with enduring questions about the nature of social relations in the past.

Representing Trans is not only an apt descriptor for the themes explored in this book. It also speaks to the work performed by the book as a whole: it joins a body of new scholarship giving voice to trans lives and experience, at a time when the question of the gender binary seems to have become an acute focus in popular culture and even a determining factor in politics globally.

This article considers the intersection between polite manners and company in eighteenth-century England. Through the laughter of gentlemen, it makes a case for a concept of occasional politeness, which is intended to emphasize that polite comportment was only necessary on certain occasions. In particular, it was the level of familiarity shared by a company that determined what was considered appropriate. There was unease with laughter in polite sociability, yet contemporaries understood that polite prudence could be waived when men met together in friendly homosocial encounters. In these circumstances, there existed a tacit acceptance of looser manners that might be called ‘intimate bawdiness’, which had its origins in a renaissance humanist train of thought that valorized wit as the centrepiece of male sociability. This argument tempers the importance of politeness by stressing the social contexts for which it was – and was not – a guiding principle. Ultimately, it suggests that the category of company might be one way of rethinking eighteenth-century sociability in a more pluralistic fashion, which allows for contradictory practices to co-exist. As such, it moves towards breaking down the binary oppositions of polite and impolite, elite and popular, and theory and practice that have been imposed on the period.

Recent investigations into the sexual cultures of the Australian armed forces have challenged observers to reckon with longer histories of discrimination, harassment, surveillance and inequality. Y...

Epistaxis can occur for many different reasons in horses. Determining the source of haemorrhage is crucial to minimise the risk of serious and potentially life-threatening disease going untreated. Owners frequently over-estimate the volume or significance of blood loss, so care should be taken to verify the exact nature and quantity of any blood loss. Common causes include: facial trauma exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage (EIPH) idiopathic nasal haemorrhage.

We present a mathematical model, based on the compilation and statistical processing of radiocarbon dates, of the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic, from about 7000 to 4000 BC in Europe. With the arrival of the Neolithic, hunting and food gathering gave way to agriculture and stock breeding in many parts of Europe; pottery-making spread into even broader areas. Archaeological evidence, radiocarbon dates and genetic markers are consistent with the spread of farming from a source in the Near East. However, farming was less important in the East; the Eastern and Western Neolithic have distinct signatures. We use a population dynamics model to suggest that this distinction can be attributed to the presence of two waves of advance, one from the Near East, and another through Eastern Europe. Thus, we provide a quantitative framework in which a unified interpretation of the Western and Eastern Neolithic can be developed.

Newly available radiocarbon dates show the early signs of pottery-making in the North Caspian area, the Middle-Lower Volga, and the Lower Don at 8–7 kyr cal BC. Stable settlements, as indicated by “coeval subsamples,” are recognized in the Middle-Lower Volga (Yelshanian) at 6.8 kyr cal BC and the Caspian Lowland at about 6 kyr cal BC. The ages of the Strumel-Gostyatin, Surskian, and Bug-Dniesterian sites are in the range of 6.6–4.5 kyr BC, overlapping with early farming entities (Starčevo-Körös-Criş and Linear Pottery), whose influence is perceptible in archaeological materials. Likewise, the14C-dated pollen data show that the spread of early pottery-making coincided with increased precipitation throughout the forest-steppe area.

A 9-yr-old female Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) presented with a 48-hr history of depression, lethargy, anorexia, and mucoid discharge from the rectum. Clinical, radiographic, and ultrasonographic examination demonstrated the presence of multiple distended loops of intestine, intestinal adhesions, and free gas within the abdomen. During exploratory laparotomy, fibrinopurulent diffuse peritonitis as a result of a ruptured intrapelvic abscess with associated large bowel adhesions was evident. The abdomen was thoroughly lavaged, necrotic debris and abscess wall removed, and fibrinous adhesions disrupted. The orangutan was kept sedated for 48 hr to allow for intensive care. Six months later, when the orangutan presented with similar clinical signs, ultrasonographic examination demonstrated the presence of a pelvic abscess. The previous procedure was repeated with the addition of a hysterectomy. This report is the first documentation of long-term management following surgical intervention for internal abdominal abscessation and septic peritonitis in a great ape.

We present a mathematical model, based on a compilation of radiocarbon dates, of the transition to the Neolithic, from about 7000 to 4000 BC in Europe. With the arrival of the Neolithic, hunting and food gathering gave way to agriculture and stock breeding in many parts of Europe; pottery-making spread into even broader areas. We use a population dynamics model to suggest the presence of two waves of advance, one from the Near East, and another through Eastern Europe. Thus, we provide a quantitative framework in which a unified interpretation of the Western and Eastern Neolithic can be developed.

The causes and implications of the regional variations in the spread of the incipient agriculture in Europe remain poorly understood. We use population dynamics models to study the dispersal of the Neolithic in Europe from a localised area in the Near East, solving the two-dimensional reaction-diffusion equation on a spherical surface. We focus on the role of major river paths and coastlines in the advance of farming, to model the rapid advances of the Linear Pottery (LBK) and the Impressed Ware traditions along the DanubeeRhine corridor and the Mediterranean coastline, respectively. We argue that the random walk of individuals, which results in diffusion of the population, can be anisotropic in those areas and hence lead to an effective advection. The standard reaction-diffusion equation is thus supplemented with an advection term, confined to the proximity of major rivers and coastlines. The model allows for the spatial variation in both the human mobility (diffusivity) and the carrying capacity, reflecting the local altitude and latitude. This approach can easily be generalised to include other environmental factors, such as the bioproductivity of landscapes. Our model successfully accounts for the regional variations in the spread of the Neolithic, consistent with the radiocarbon data, and reproduces a time delay in the spread of farming to the Eastern Europe, Britain and Scandinavia. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.