Spread of 60Co contaminated steel and its legal consequences in Taiwan

Since 1992, over 200 civilian residential and school buildings in Taiwan have been identified to have contained 60Co contaminated steel rebar emitting excessive gamma-radioactivity in living environments. These buildings were mostly constructed in early 1983 and 1984 by employing steels from one steel mill, which had recycled unknown 60Co orphan sources in northern Taiwan. In 1994, a group of residents who once stayed for a protracted period up to 10 y in the contaminated Ming-Sheng Villa filed a civil action against Taiwan's nuclear regulatory office, the Atomic Energy Council, for state tort compensation of 3.4 M U.S. dollars in equivalent. After three years of court processes, the Taipei District Court handed down a decision in partial favor of the exposed residents. Both parties soon appealed against this judgment to the Taiwan Appellate Court. This article analyzes the main legal issues involved, including government's obligations to prevent and eliminate contamination, to take preventive measures, and to take necessary remedial measures; and plaintiffs' assertion on any legal right against governmental offices. Moreover, discussion issues contain the scope of damage and compensation, causation analysis, absence of effective and efficient regulation over radioactive contamination, limit of tort compensation law and compensation amount, weight of medical evidence as well as role of expert witnesses, and related comparative legal studies.

[Territorial jurisdiction of sanitary risk and demographic statistics: the "tuberculous buildings" of the unhealthy block of Saint-Gervais (1894-1930)]

The assumption of contagion is often employed as an argument for the demarcation of areas considered dangerous to public health. This article examines how it was used in the case of the insalubrious district of Saint Gervais (Paris). The district was identified thanks to statistics available from the health records of Parisian apartment houses, which have been kept since 1894. The author's main concern is the existence of "maisons meurtrières (deathtraps) denounced by contemporary documents although deaths from tuberculosis were progressively decreasing. The examination of statistics giving the number of inhabitants and fatalities from tuberculosis in each apartment building shows that, with the exception of those with furnished rooms, only a small proportion of these dwellings actually had a high death rate from tuberculosis between 1894 and 1930. It also shows that the delimitation of the insalubrious area was based on the idea that the illness was irreversible, allowing the "deathtraps" discovered in earlier stages to be added to those found in each subsequent check. This method made it possible to designate "infected districts" and to justify a policy of city planning.

[Indoor pollution]

The Author reports more important phases from the beginning of housing to now: the indoor pollution time. Shelter is a basic need; humans require protection against the elements, somewhere to store and prepare the food, and a secure place to raise offspring; but indoor environment is not always safe. It has been known since Hippocrates' time that housing conditions affect health. Today situation starts from the enormous growth of urbanization. At 1888 in Italy first legislation on health, including healthy building, has been issued. The prevention policies were based on local hygiene regulations. At present housing programmes of who stress the problem in consideration too of the great part of time that, in industrialized Countries, we all pass at home, in the indoor environment. Following the general introduction the Author relates on the features of indoor climate, that may be identical that out of doors, or may be modified by heating, cooling, humidification and ventilation. Larger commentaries are reported on indoor pollution and its increasing by modern technology producing several new hazards. Physical, chemical and biological indoor air pollutants, with their principal sources and health damages associated, are analyzed. In conclusion the author shows some data from a research on indoor pollution in the houses of Rome.

[Development of the medical care for schoolchildren in the Netherlands 1796-1904]

The foundations of the school medical service can be found at the end of the eighteenth century. In conformity with the ideas of the Enlightenment the middle class wanted their thoughts on virtue, education, health and social welfare put into practice. During the nineteenth century several laws on primary education were enacted that have been of importance to the medical and hygienical care of the schoolchild and its environment. In 1806 an Act on primary education was accepted that was operative until 1857. The most important change, however, was imposed by the Act of 1900 that introduced compulsory primary education. Improvement of the environment in which children were educated, was the main aim of nineteenth century physicians. They devoted themselves to the improvement of the school climate, light, air, ventilation, heat and school-desks and for the schoolchild more bodily exercise and gymnastics in combination with a reduction of lessons and homework. They argued for lessons in hygiene for pupils as well as for teachers, but got few results on these subjects. In the twentieth century the school physician made his entry into the school. From 1904 on physicians were appointed in an increasing number of municipalities. Their work became part of the municipal health services that were founded during these years.

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To the bougeoisie in the last quarter of the 19th century, the housing problem seemed to be the key problem regarding the "social issue" (Soziale Frage). This was the background on which a number of Swiss cities undertook extensive surveys of the living conditions towards the end of the century. These surveys, which were methodologically based on the quantifying and therefore objective instruments of statistics, also attracted attention in other European states. Scientific hygiene supplied its values as the seemingly objective material criteria for the surveys. These values consisted among others of the limiting value "Luftkubus" (air volume), the natural human need for air expressed in exact numbers, as well as the rules for social behaviour in connection with this value. Together they justified "sanitary living", which a closer examination reveals as being a scientifically constructed bourgeois reality. This reality was guarded by sanitary officials, who were under the municipal sanitary authorities' supervision. These officials disposed of the means of criminal law in their struggle against "unsanitary living". The obligation to maintain health mandated by the public authorities ultimately aimed at integrating the workers into the Swiss bourgeois state and ensuring and increasing national power in modern industrial society.

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The rise of allotment gardens at the end of the 19th century is directly connected with radical social changes in society. Industrialization, urbanizatiion and massive migration had serious effects on the way of living of the working class. New forms of industrial labour and miserable living conditions in the urban regions alienated the working class population from nature and natural living conditions. In search of nature and a better living, the proletarians founded allotment gardens to escape from urbanization and unhealthy housing conditions. Soon other allotment movements grew up as middle class movements and civil welfare institutions also became involved in it. They were all aware thaat to be out and moving in the open air and to be working in a garden had positive effects on the state of health and the physical condition. These leisure activities were a cheap and effective part of mental and physical recuperation for the working class members and relieved civil welfare institutions.

Darwin's Down house

Six years after his return from the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin moved his family to the country, where he spent the rest of his life conducting experiments, writing, and raising a family. English Heritage recently purchased Down House and is restoring the house and grounds to look as they did during Darwin's life.

Paleopathological and biomolecular study of tuberculosis in a medieval skeletal collection from England

Nine human skeletons of medieval date from a rural English burial site show signs of skeletal tuberculosis. They were subject to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays aimed at detecting traces of DNA from infecting mycobacteria, with the purpose both of confirming the paleopathological diagnosis of tuberculosis and determining in individual cases whether disease was due to M. tuberculosis or M. bovis. In all nine cases, evidence for M. tuberculosis complex DNA was found, and in all instances it appeared that disease was due to M. tuberculosis rather than M. bovis. The significance of the findings for understanding tuberculous infection in rural agrarian communities in medieval England is discussed.

Peopling the past: new perspectives on the ancient Maya

The new direction in Maya archaeology is toward achieving a greater understanding of people and their roles and their relations in the past. To answer emerging humanistic questions about ancient people's lives Mayanists are increasingly making use of new and existing scientific methods from archaeology and other disciplines. Maya archaeology is bridging the divide between the humanities and sciences to answer questions about ancient people previously considered beyond the realm of archaeological knowledge.

Of public houses and private lives: female hotelkeepers as domestic entrepreneurs

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, women played a key role in the control and management of the Australian hotel industry. Their importance as publicans has often been overlooked by historians of drinking culture and the liquor trade, due to the representation of the pub as a male domain to which women were either socially peripheral or actively opposed. Rather, the complex spatial arrangements of the public house, where domestic and commercial activities were deeply interconnected, allowed many women the opportunity to earn a respectable and prominent living as hotelkeepers.