[The historical examples of 'self-bumping' by inadvertency]

The stories of 'self-bumping up' against a sharp object by inadvertency appeared in the historical chronicles with a periodicity of once per each 1000 years. The victims of such accidents include, inter alia, the Persian tsar Kambik II (522 b.c), Russian tsarevich Dimitry (1591), etc. The forensic medical analysis of the self-bumping by inadvertency episodes involving the historical characters made it possible to evaluate the circumstances, specific features and mechanism of the resulting injuries, the specific features of the inflicted wounds and their outcomes.

[The historical aspects of the notion of "self-striking" in the Russian- and foreign-language literature]

This article was designed to illustrate specific features of the injuries inflicted by the sharp objects as a result of the so-called self-striking based on the examples from the historical and literary works. The forensic medical characteristics of such cases are provided.

Biological and Cultural Causes of Seasonality of Deaths in Historical Populations From Poland

Seasonal fluctuations in mortality and their causes in the nineteenth century Polish rural populations: wealthy, agriculturally and economically advanced populations from Wielkopolska, and poor populations from Silesia and Galicia (southern Poland) were described. Data-sources included parish death registers from the Roman Catholic parish of Dziekanowice in the region of Wielkopolska, Prussian statistical yearbooks for the Pozna Province as well as information from previous publications regarding Silesia and Galicia. The 19th century patterns were compared with those in present-day Poland. The occurrence of seasonality of deaths was assessed with: the Chi-squared test, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average Models (ARIMA). In all populations there was a winter maximum of the number of deaths, while the minimum occurred in early summer. In the poor populations of Silesia and Galicia another statistically significant increase in the incidence of deaths was observed in the early spring. In the rich and modern villages of Wielkopolska there was no spring increase in the number of deaths, however, in all populations of Wielkopolska, irrespective of a particular pattern, a secondary mortality peak occurred in the late summer and autumn. Statistical tests used in this study did not show any clear differences in the distribution of the seasonality of deaths between the populations of Wielkopolska on the one hand, and the populations from Galicia and Silesia, on the other hand. The statistical significance of differences was, however, evident between populations representing the two distinguished by secondary peaks death seasonality patterns. Seasonal death increase split the populations under study into two groups according to the criterion of wealth.

Auto thrill shows and destruction derbies, 1922–1965: establishing the cultural logic of the deliberate car crash in America

The profuse historiography on the automobile in America near completely overlooks the ubiquitous cultural practice of entertaining live audiences by deliberately crashing cars. This paper seeks to rectify some of this ongoing neglect by providing a socio-historical exploration into the origins of this unique genre. The planned automobile wreck’s birth is traced to the early 1920s and is situated contextually within an established tradition of disaster and destruction reenactments, key historical developments in the system of automobility, and the phenomenon of traffic accidents. By exposing the political economy behind this form of amusement and the dominant discourse surrounding it, the paper provides an explanation for how and why the deliberate demolition of such an iconic and celebrated technology was able to flourish in America.

Peel's fall

Images

Causes of death in colonial doctors

The causes of death in 910 New Zealand doctors, 1840-1910, are given . Natural causes were the most frequent reason for death with pulmonary tuberculosis being important. Other leading causes of death were accident or violence, alcoholism, drug taking and suicide.