Micro-CT screening of old shell collections helps to understand the distribution of viviparity in the highly diversified clausiliid clade of land snails.

Current zoological research may benefit in many ways from the study of old collections of shells. These collections may provide materials for the verification of broad zoogeographical and ecological hypotheses on the reproduction of molluscs, as they include records from many areas where sampling is currently impossible or very difficult due to political circumstances. In the present paper we present data on viviparous and embryo-retention reproductive modes in clausiliid land snails (subfamily Phaedusinae) acquired from specimens collected since the nineteenth century in the Pontic, Hyrcanian, and East and Southeast Asian regions. X-ray imaging (micro-CT) enabled relatively quick screening of more than 1,000 individuals classified within 141 taxa, among which we discovered 205 shells containing embryos or eggs. Gravid individuals were found to belong to 55 species, representing, for some of these species, the first indication of brooding reproductive strategy.

Blood, Soy Milk, and Vitality: The Wartime Origins of Blood Banking in China, 1943-45.

This article examines the multiple meanings of blood transfusion and banking in modern China through the history of the first Chinese blood bank, established by the Overseas Chinese in 1943 to solicit blood for the war effort. Through investigating the attitudes of Chinese soldiers and civilians toward the blood bank, this article argues for the multiplicity of motivations underpinning society's attitudes toward blood banking and donation. Cultural notions of blood were an important but not the sole factor in their consideration. Ideas of nationalism and altruism played a role too. What eventually turned out to be most effective for most donors was the promise of eggs and soy milk for blood. Its economic value in the context of wartime scarcity was enough for many to abandon opposition to blood banking. By drawing attention to socioeconomic concerns in biomedical practices, this article provides an alternative examination of blood banking in modern societies.

[Healing Dental and Oral Problems by Remedies of Animal and of Human Origin]. / A FOG-ÉS SZÁJBETEGSÉGEK GYÓGYÍTÁSA ÁLLATI ÉS EMBERI TESTRÉSZEKBOL NYERT ORVOSSÁGOKKAL.

Use of matierials of animal or human origin in dentistry (and generally in medicine) these days is regarded as an unusal way of intervention. However in earlier times, different tissues, parts, products and organs of animals were frequently used in healing. Some of these methods were rooted in magical thinking. As analogical treatments--based on similarity or analogy--e.g. powder of horn or teeth of pike was used for the treatment of decayed teeth and different worms, maggots, veenies were applied against "toothworm". By difficult eruption of primary teeth bone marrow or brain mixed with cockridge-blood and goatmilk was a widely used medicine. Butter and honey were able to help the growing of teeth, as well. Parts of frog (fe: flippers) were also components of curing materials. Egg as the symbol of life was often an ingredient of medicaments. For the treatment of inflamed gum different animal materials were used, like chin and teeth of wolf, pike, crayfish, milk, honey, human saliva etc. Animal or human stools, mucks (containing enzymes) did one's bit in healing of oral and dental illnesses and were applied as fomentation or swathing. Placing a leech on the inflamed face was a common procedure in the past even as the use of earwax in lipnook. In our days tissues, parts or products of animals (or human beings) usually never allowed to get into contact with the body of patients. It's a much safer routine, at the same time however a precious traditional knowledge vanishes forever.