D. Hugh Whittaker and Simon Deakin (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199563630
- eISBN:
- 9780191721359
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563630.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability, HRM / IR
The chapters in this book address the state of Japanese corporate governance and managerial practice at a critical moment. They are based on detailed and intensive fieldwork in large Japanese ...
More
The chapters in this book address the state of Japanese corporate governance and managerial practice at a critical moment. They are based on detailed and intensive fieldwork in large Japanese companies and interviews with investors, civil servants, and policy makers in the period following the adoption of significant corporate law reforms in the early 2000s up to the months just before the global financial crisis of 2008. At the start of the decade, the time seemed right for Japan to move to a shareholder value‐driven, “Anglo‐American” system of corporate governance. Instead, an adjustment and renewal of the postwar model of the large Japanese corporation has taken place. Japanese managers have adapted to and reshaped corporate governance norms, using them to reform internal decision‐making structures. The board's role is seen in terms of strategic planning rather than monitoring, and external directors are viewed as advisers, not as representatives of the shareholders. Companies have responded to the threat of hostile takeovers by putting poison pills in place and have rebuffed hedge fund activists' demands for higher dividends and share buybacks. Although shareholder influence is more extensive than it was, central aspects of the Japanese “community firm” ‐ in particular, managerial autonomy and a commitment to stable or “lifetime” employment for core of employees ‐ largely remain in place. The Japanese experience suggests that there are limits to the global convergence of company law systems, and that the widespread association of Anglo‐American practices with the “modernization” of corporate governance may have been misplaced.Less
The chapters in this book address the state of Japanese corporate governance and managerial practice at a critical moment. They are based on detailed and intensive fieldwork in large Japanese companies and interviews with investors, civil servants, and policy makers in the period following the adoption of significant corporate law reforms in the early 2000s up to the months just before the global financial crisis of 2008. At the start of the decade, the time seemed right for Japan to move to a shareholder value‐driven, “Anglo‐American” system of corporate governance. Instead, an adjustment and renewal of the postwar model of the large Japanese corporation has taken place. Japanese managers have adapted to and reshaped corporate governance norms, using them to reform internal decision‐making structures. The board's role is seen in terms of strategic planning rather than monitoring, and external directors are viewed as advisers, not as representatives of the shareholders. Companies have responded to the threat of hostile takeovers by putting poison pills in place and have rebuffed hedge fund activists' demands for higher dividends and share buybacks. Although shareholder influence is more extensive than it was, central aspects of the Japanese “community firm” ‐ in particular, managerial autonomy and a commitment to stable or “lifetime” employment for core of employees ‐ largely remain in place. The Japanese experience suggests that there are limits to the global convergence of company law systems, and that the widespread association of Anglo‐American practices with the “modernization” of corporate governance may have been misplaced.
Masaru Hayakawa and D. Hugh Whittaker
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199563630
- eISBN:
- 9780191721359
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563630.003.0003
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability, HRM / IR
Livedoor's audacious takeover bid for Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. (NBS) in 2005 precipitated a flurry of judicial, legislative, administrative, and management actions, which have strongly ...
More
Livedoor's audacious takeover bid for Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. (NBS) in 2005 precipitated a flurry of judicial, legislative, administrative, and management actions, which have strongly influenced thinking and practice related to corporate control in Japan. This chapter considers a number of statutory changes in the area of company law and securities regulations governing takeovers and analyses a series of judicial rulings, specifically involving Livedoor‐NBS and Steel Partners‐Bull‐Dog Sauce, and the contested use of poison pills and similar defense measures in these cases. It further looks at the recommendations and influence of the Corporate Value Study Group, before considering management responses. The chapter highlights a shift (as well as continuity) in perceptions about management control and legitimate defenses against takeovers, and predicts continued evolution, along a “Japanese” trajectory.Less
Livedoor's audacious takeover bid for Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. (NBS) in 2005 precipitated a flurry of judicial, legislative, administrative, and management actions, which have strongly influenced thinking and practice related to corporate control in Japan. This chapter considers a number of statutory changes in the area of company law and securities regulations governing takeovers and analyses a series of judicial rulings, specifically involving Livedoor‐NBS and Steel Partners‐Bull‐Dog Sauce, and the contested use of poison pills and similar defense measures in these cases. It further looks at the recommendations and influence of the Corporate Value Study Group, before considering management responses. The chapter highlights a shift (as well as continuity) in perceptions about management control and legitimate defenses against takeovers, and predicts continued evolution, along a “Japanese” trajectory.
Susan R. Grayzel
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197266663
- eISBN:
- 9780191905384
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266663.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The anticipation and fear of what chemical weapons might do to a civilian population haunted the interwar imaginary in the aftermath of the introduction and widespread use of poison gas on the ...
More
The anticipation and fear of what chemical weapons might do to a civilian population haunted the interwar imaginary in the aftermath of the introduction and widespread use of poison gas on the battlefields of the First World War. In no place, perhaps, was this more apparent than France, one of the few nations whose civilian and combatant populations bore direct witness to this innovative weaponry. One object—the gas mask—emerged to mitigate the physical effects of gas warfare. It would come to play a crucial role in the calculated management of the destabilising emotions of anxiety and fear that accompanied the deployment of chemical arms, but its emotional life extended beyond its intended aims. This chapter combines the material and emotional history of total war by using a single object to uncover more fully the dislocation and devastation wrought by modern, industrial war. It does so by analysing key aspects of the life of the civilian gas mask from its first appearance in France during the First World War to its symbolic power in interwar civil defence and war resistance.Less
The anticipation and fear of what chemical weapons might do to a civilian population haunted the interwar imaginary in the aftermath of the introduction and widespread use of poison gas on the battlefields of the First World War. In no place, perhaps, was this more apparent than France, one of the few nations whose civilian and combatant populations bore direct witness to this innovative weaponry. One object—the gas mask—emerged to mitigate the physical effects of gas warfare. It would come to play a crucial role in the calculated management of the destabilising emotions of anxiety and fear that accompanied the deployment of chemical arms, but its emotional life extended beyond its intended aims. This chapter combines the material and emotional history of total war by using a single object to uncover more fully the dislocation and devastation wrought by modern, industrial war. It does so by analysing key aspects of the life of the civilian gas mask from its first appearance in France during the First World War to its symbolic power in interwar civil defence and war resistance.
Lawrence Danson
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198186281
- eISBN:
- 9780191674488
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186281.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter analyses Oscar Wilde's Pen, Pencil, and Poison, a biographical essay about an art critic who was also a murderer. It suggests that this work is elusive in its deadpan satire of ...
More
This chapter analyses Oscar Wilde's Pen, Pencil, and Poison, a biographical essay about an art critic who was also a murderer. It suggests that this work is elusive in its deadpan satire of aestheticism, and that it highlighted the congruity between crime and culture, the efficacy of sin in the creation of personality, and the relation between the hidden life and the public reckoning. The chapter also discusses Frank Harris's comments on this essay.Less
This chapter analyses Oscar Wilde's Pen, Pencil, and Poison, a biographical essay about an art critic who was also a murderer. It suggests that this work is elusive in its deadpan satire of aestheticism, and that it highlighted the congruity between crime and culture, the efficacy of sin in the creation of personality, and the relation between the hidden life and the public reckoning. The chapter also discusses Frank Harris's comments on this essay.
Tanya Pollard
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199270835
- eISBN:
- 9780191710322
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270835.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book asks why Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were so preoccupied with drugs and poisons, and why both critics and supporters of the theater as well as playwrights themselves so ...
More
This book asks why Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were so preoccupied with drugs and poisons, and why both critics and supporters of the theater as well as playwrights themselves so frequently adopted a chemical vocabulary to describe the effects of the theater on audiences. Drawing on original medical and literary research, it is shown that the potency of the link between drugs and plays in the period demonstrates a model of drama radically different than our own — a model in which plays exert an immediate impact on spectators’ bodies as well as minds. Early modern physiology held that the imagination and emotions were part of the body and exerted a material impact on it, yet scholars of medicine and drama alike have not recognized the consequences of this idea. Plays, which alter our emotions and thought, simultaneously change us physically. This book argues that the power of the theater in Shakespeare’s England as well as the striking hostility to it stems from the widely held contemporary idea that drama acted upon the body as well as the mind. In yoking together pharmacy and theater, this book offers a new model for understanding the relationship between texts and bodies. Just as bodies are constituted in part by the imaginative fantasies they consume, the theater’s success (and notoriety) depends on its power over spectators’ bodies.Less
This book asks why Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were so preoccupied with drugs and poisons, and why both critics and supporters of the theater as well as playwrights themselves so frequently adopted a chemical vocabulary to describe the effects of the theater on audiences. Drawing on original medical and literary research, it is shown that the potency of the link between drugs and plays in the period demonstrates a model of drama radically different than our own — a model in which plays exert an immediate impact on spectators’ bodies as well as minds. Early modern physiology held that the imagination and emotions were part of the body and exerted a material impact on it, yet scholars of medicine and drama alike have not recognized the consequences of this idea. Plays, which alter our emotions and thought, simultaneously change us physically. This book argues that the power of the theater in Shakespeare’s England as well as the striking hostility to it stems from the widely held contemporary idea that drama acted upon the body as well as the mind. In yoking together pharmacy and theater, this book offers a new model for understanding the relationship between texts and bodies. Just as bodies are constituted in part by the imaginative fantasies they consume, the theater’s success (and notoriety) depends on its power over spectators’ bodies.
Sandra L. Bloom and Brian Farragher
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195374803
- eISBN:
- 9780199865420
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374803.003.0009
- Subject:
- Social Work, Health and Mental Health
This chapter explores the multiple communication problems that arise normally among groups of people and that are exacerbated under the impact of recurrent stress. Under conditions of chronic stress, ...
More
This chapter explores the multiple communication problems that arise normally among groups of people and that are exacerbated under the impact of recurrent stress. Under conditions of chronic stress, breakdowns in organizational communication networks occur. The feedback loops that are necessary for consistent and timely error correction no longer function. Without adequate networks of communication, the normal conflict that exists in human groups will escalate and increasing amounts of important information become “undiscussable” while the organization as a whole becomes increasingly alexithymic–unable to talk about the issues that are causing the most problems and that remain, therefore unsolvable. One of the consequences of this is the emergence of collective disturbances that may turn into chronic unresolved conflict and violence. Without the ability to discuss vital subjects, the organizational grapevine becomes poisoned, conflict compounds and without adequate communication, collective disturbances emerge and if not stopped, will lead to violence.Less
This chapter explores the multiple communication problems that arise normally among groups of people and that are exacerbated under the impact of recurrent stress. Under conditions of chronic stress, breakdowns in organizational communication networks occur. The feedback loops that are necessary for consistent and timely error correction no longer function. Without adequate networks of communication, the normal conflict that exists in human groups will escalate and increasing amounts of important information become “undiscussable” while the organization as a whole becomes increasingly alexithymic–unable to talk about the issues that are causing the most problems and that remain, therefore unsolvable. One of the consequences of this is the emergence of collective disturbances that may turn into chronic unresolved conflict and violence. Without the ability to discuss vital subjects, the organizational grapevine becomes poisoned, conflict compounds and without adequate communication, collective disturbances emerge and if not stopped, will lead to violence.
Tanya Pollard
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199270835
- eISBN:
- 9780191710322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270835.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines how depictions of poisonous cosmetics express early modern anxieties about the dangerous powers of seductive spectacles, with an emphasis on the theater. Understood in the early ...
More
This chapter examines how depictions of poisonous cosmetics express early modern anxieties about the dangerous powers of seductive spectacles, with an emphasis on the theater. Understood in the early modern period as medicinal or restorative for women, cosmetics, based on substances such as mercury and arsenic, betrayed expectations by proving corrosive and harmful to their wearers. Taking as its starting point a fatal face-painting scene in The Devil’s Charter by Barnabe Barnes, the chapter explores representations of poisonous face-paints in plays, anti-cosmetic treatises, medical writings, and anti-theatrical diatribes. It goes on to demonstrate how this association worked to identify the theater as a seductive poison. Ultimately, it shows that the depictions of women suffering from poisonous face-paint offer a disturbingly literal image of the vulnerability of the body to the invasive force of spectacle.Less
This chapter examines how depictions of poisonous cosmetics express early modern anxieties about the dangerous powers of seductive spectacles, with an emphasis on the theater. Understood in the early modern period as medicinal or restorative for women, cosmetics, based on substances such as mercury and arsenic, betrayed expectations by proving corrosive and harmful to their wearers. Taking as its starting point a fatal face-painting scene in The Devil’s Charter by Barnabe Barnes, the chapter explores representations of poisonous face-paints in plays, anti-cosmetic treatises, medical writings, and anti-theatrical diatribes. It goes on to demonstrate how this association worked to identify the theater as a seductive poison. Ultimately, it shows that the depictions of women suffering from poisonous face-paint offer a disturbingly literal image of the vulnerability of the body to the invasive force of spectacle.
Tanya Pollard
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199270835
- eISBN:
- 9780191710322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270835.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter draws together the book’s concerns with the effects of the theater and the vulnerability of the body by examining the poisoned ear and the venomous power of language in Hamlet. It ...
More
This chapter draws together the book’s concerns with the effects of the theater and the vulnerability of the body by examining the poisoned ear and the venomous power of language in Hamlet. It considers the play’s preoccupation with the vulnerability of the ears and the parallels between words and dangerous drugs as offering a model of corrosive theatrical power with both affective and material consequences. Drawing on early modern anatomical studies of ears as well as early modern debates about the material impact of words, the intensity of fears about the vulnerability of the body to language is demonstrated.Less
This chapter draws together the book’s concerns with the effects of the theater and the vulnerability of the body by examining the poisoned ear and the venomous power of language in Hamlet. It considers the play’s preoccupation with the vulnerability of the ears and the parallels between words and dangerous drugs as offering a model of corrosive theatrical power with both affective and material consequences. Drawing on early modern anatomical studies of ears as well as early modern debates about the material impact of words, the intensity of fears about the vulnerability of the body to language is demonstrated.
Thomas I. Faith
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038686
- eISBN:
- 9780252096624
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038686.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Military History
This book offers an institutional history of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), the department tasked with improving the Army's ability to use and defend against chemical weapons during and after ...
More
This book offers an institutional history of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), the department tasked with improving the Army's ability to use and defend against chemical weapons during and after World War I. Taking the CWS's story from the trenches to peacetime, the book explores how the CWS's work on chemical warfare continued through the 1920s despite deep opposition to the weapons in both military and civilian circles. As the book shows, the advocates for chemical weapons within the CWS allied with supporters in the military, government, and private industry to lobby to add chemical warfare to the country's permanent arsenal. Their argument: poison gas represented an advanced and even humane tool in modern war, while its applications for pest control and crowd control made a chemical capacity relevant in peacetime. But conflict with those aligned against chemical warfare forced the CWS to fight for its institutional life—and ultimately led to the U.S. military's rejection of battlefield chemical weapons.Less
This book offers an institutional history of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), the department tasked with improving the Army's ability to use and defend against chemical weapons during and after World War I. Taking the CWS's story from the trenches to peacetime, the book explores how the CWS's work on chemical warfare continued through the 1920s despite deep opposition to the weapons in both military and civilian circles. As the book shows, the advocates for chemical weapons within the CWS allied with supporters in the military, government, and private industry to lobby to add chemical warfare to the country's permanent arsenal. Their argument: poison gas represented an advanced and even humane tool in modern war, while its applications for pest control and crowd control made a chemical capacity relevant in peacetime. But conflict with those aligned against chemical warfare forced the CWS to fight for its institutional life—and ultimately led to the U.S. military's rejection of battlefield chemical weapons.
Geoffrey Tweedale
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199243990
- eISBN:
- 9780191697326
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243990.003.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
This chapter begins with a discussion of the growth of Turner Brothers's asbestos business. The company, which began as a five-hand operation in 1880 eventually became ‘Asbestos Giant’ Turner & ...
More
This chapter begins with a discussion of the growth of Turner Brothers's asbestos business. The company, which began as a five-hand operation in 1880 eventually became ‘Asbestos Giant’ Turner & Newall. The chapter also details the rising cases of asbestos poisoning and government regulation of the asbestos industry.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the growth of Turner Brothers's asbestos business. The company, which began as a five-hand operation in 1880 eventually became ‘Asbestos Giant’ Turner & Newall. The chapter also details the rising cases of asbestos poisoning and government regulation of the asbestos industry.
Martin Wiggins
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112280
- eISBN:
- 9780191670749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112280.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
By 1600, the assassin needed no introduction to playgoers: allusions in early seventeenth-century plays tell us that he was a stock character, whose participation in murder plots could be taken for ...
More
By 1600, the assassin needed no introduction to playgoers: allusions in early seventeenth-century plays tell us that he was a stock character, whose participation in murder plots could be taken for granted, and whose behaviour followed familiar patterns. That the assassin became an unfashionable character type in the later 1590s is a hypothesis; but it is a fact that he was used more sparingly and more sparely in new plays written in those years. However, the character did not simply dwindle out of existence in the early Jacobean period: instead, we see a remarkable revival of interest from about 1600. An unlikely driving force behind this recrudescence was the development of a taste for the new genre of tragicomedy. In the early seventeenth century, there emerged an interest (not confined to formal tragicomedies) in assassins who do not complete their mission. The individual form of murder which gave most scope for adaptation to tragicomedy was poisoning.Less
By 1600, the assassin needed no introduction to playgoers: allusions in early seventeenth-century plays tell us that he was a stock character, whose participation in murder plots could be taken for granted, and whose behaviour followed familiar patterns. That the assassin became an unfashionable character type in the later 1590s is a hypothesis; but it is a fact that he was used more sparingly and more sparely in new plays written in those years. However, the character did not simply dwindle out of existence in the early Jacobean period: instead, we see a remarkable revival of interest from about 1600. An unlikely driving force behind this recrudescence was the development of a taste for the new genre of tragicomedy. In the early seventeenth century, there emerged an interest (not confined to formal tragicomedies) in assassins who do not complete their mission. The individual form of murder which gave most scope for adaptation to tragicomedy was poisoning.
Linda C. Fentiman
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780814724828
- eISBN:
- 9780814770290
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814724828.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Family Law
In the past several decades, medicine, the media, and popular culture have focused on mothers as the primary source of health risk for their children, even though American children are healthier than ...
More
In the past several decades, medicine, the media, and popular culture have focused on mothers as the primary source of health risk for their children, even though American children are healthier than ever. The American legal system both reflects and reinforces this conception of risk. This book explores how this occurs by looking at unconscious psychological processes, including the ways in which we perceive risk, which shape the actions of key legal decisionmakers, including prosecutors, judges, and jurors. These psychological processes inevitably distort the way that ostensibly neutral legal principles are applied in ways that are biased against mothers. The book shows how assertions that mothers and mothers-to-be have “risked” their children’s health play out in practice. Pregnant women, women who do or do not breastfeed, and mothers whose children are injured or killed by the mother’s abusive male partner end up facing civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution. The book also illustrates how America’s resistance to the precautionary principle has led to an epidemic of children poisoned by lead. Vaccination is the only area in which parents are permitted to opt out of medically recommended health care for their children. The book explores the role of “choice” in children’s health and how it is applied unevenly to mothers and others, including manufacturers of toxic products. The book ends with recommendations for real improvement in children’s health.Less
In the past several decades, medicine, the media, and popular culture have focused on mothers as the primary source of health risk for their children, even though American children are healthier than ever. The American legal system both reflects and reinforces this conception of risk. This book explores how this occurs by looking at unconscious psychological processes, including the ways in which we perceive risk, which shape the actions of key legal decisionmakers, including prosecutors, judges, and jurors. These psychological processes inevitably distort the way that ostensibly neutral legal principles are applied in ways that are biased against mothers. The book shows how assertions that mothers and mothers-to-be have “risked” their children’s health play out in practice. Pregnant women, women who do or do not breastfeed, and mothers whose children are injured or killed by the mother’s abusive male partner end up facing civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution. The book also illustrates how America’s resistance to the precautionary principle has led to an epidemic of children poisoned by lead. Vaccination is the only area in which parents are permitted to opt out of medically recommended health care for their children. The book explores the role of “choice” in children’s health and how it is applied unevenly to mothers and others, including manufacturers of toxic products. The book ends with recommendations for real improvement in children’s health.
Nicholas P. Money
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199732562
- eISBN:
- 9780199918515
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732562.003.0006
- Subject:
- Biology, Natural History and Field Guides, Plant Sciences and Forestry
Few mushroom species are regarded as poisonous, but there are cases of serious illness and lethal poisoning caused by nominally edible species. These include muscle wasting, and eventual heart ...
More
Few mushroom species are regarded as poisonous, but there are cases of serious illness and lethal poisoning caused by nominally edible species. These include muscle wasting, and eventual heart failure, caused by the yellow knight mushroom. Regional differences in toxicity may explain these incidents. Wider concern is raised by experiments showing that rodents fed large doses of popular mushrooms show signs of tissue damage. It is possible that toxins may be common among mushrooms, but are usually produced in high concentrations only in the most notorious species. Poisoning by these species, including the death cap and a deadly webcap, are caused, usually, by errors in identification. Treatment options are very limited. The biological significance of mushroom toxins is unclear, but these compounds are probably active against predatory invertebrates. Mushroom toxicity has been utilized as a literary device by poets and as a hateful metaphor by fascists and Christian fundamentalists.Less
Few mushroom species are regarded as poisonous, but there are cases of serious illness and lethal poisoning caused by nominally edible species. These include muscle wasting, and eventual heart failure, caused by the yellow knight mushroom. Regional differences in toxicity may explain these incidents. Wider concern is raised by experiments showing that rodents fed large doses of popular mushrooms show signs of tissue damage. It is possible that toxins may be common among mushrooms, but are usually produced in high concentrations only in the most notorious species. Poisoning by these species, including the death cap and a deadly webcap, are caused, usually, by errors in identification. Treatment options are very limited. The biological significance of mushroom toxins is unclear, but these compounds are probably active against predatory invertebrates. Mushroom toxicity has been utilized as a literary device by poets and as a hateful metaphor by fascists and Christian fundamentalists.
Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300214963
- eISBN:
- 9780300217827
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300214963.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter focuses on George Eglisham's book The Forerunner of Revenge and why it gained such an attentive domestic audience. The Forerunner was an undeniably skilful piece of writing, using ...
More
This chapter focuses on George Eglisham's book The Forerunner of Revenge and why it gained such an attentive domestic audience. The Forerunner was an undeniably skilful piece of writing, using elements from a variety of well-known genres — the petition, the providentialist murder pamphlet, even the revenge tragedy — to frame its compelling narratives. It reworked the whispers around the ‘strange tragedies’ of 1624–25 into a powerful secret history that finally explained the traumatic succession of mysterious deaths. And it spoke convincingly to multiple anxieties, echoing critiques of Buckingham found in earlier verse libels and tapping into deeply embedded fears about poison and court politics. It also made unusually systematic use of forensic evidence to provide credible ‘proof’ of Buckingham's guilt in James' poisoning.Less
This chapter focuses on George Eglisham's book The Forerunner of Revenge and why it gained such an attentive domestic audience. The Forerunner was an undeniably skilful piece of writing, using elements from a variety of well-known genres — the petition, the providentialist murder pamphlet, even the revenge tragedy — to frame its compelling narratives. It reworked the whispers around the ‘strange tragedies’ of 1624–25 into a powerful secret history that finally explained the traumatic succession of mysterious deaths. And it spoke convincingly to multiple anxieties, echoing critiques of Buckingham found in earlier verse libels and tapping into deeply embedded fears about poison and court politics. It also made unusually systematic use of forensic evidence to provide credible ‘proof’ of Buckingham's guilt in James' poisoning.
Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300214963
- eISBN:
- 9780300217827
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300214963.003.0019
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
The 1626 dissolution of Parliament was the key turning point of Charles's reign. Frustrated in their desire for justice and convinced of Buckingham's role in James'murder, many of Charles' subjects ...
More
The 1626 dissolution of Parliament was the key turning point of Charles's reign. Frustrated in their desire for justice and convinced of Buckingham's role in James'murder, many of Charles' subjects engaged in disillusioned and seditious talk. This chapter considers such talk in order to trace the capacity of elite and plebeian English men and women to engage in radical political thought. Most English discourse on the problem of justice denied was anxious rather than regicidal. Nonetheless, it played with dangerous ideas about armed resistance as it continued to demonize Buckingham as the root cause of the kingdom's suffering. At least one contemporary reader of Eglisham came to believe that the secret history of James I's murder had implicated Charles as well as Buckingham, but for the time being most contemporaries remained preoccupied with the duke, and the image of Buckingham the poisoner became a prominent part of the monstrous portraits fashioned by libellers and rumour-mongers during the turbulent final months of his life.Less
The 1626 dissolution of Parliament was the key turning point of Charles's reign. Frustrated in their desire for justice and convinced of Buckingham's role in James'murder, many of Charles' subjects engaged in disillusioned and seditious talk. This chapter considers such talk in order to trace the capacity of elite and plebeian English men and women to engage in radical political thought. Most English discourse on the problem of justice denied was anxious rather than regicidal. Nonetheless, it played with dangerous ideas about armed resistance as it continued to demonize Buckingham as the root cause of the kingdom's suffering. At least one contemporary reader of Eglisham came to believe that the secret history of James I's murder had implicated Charles as well as Buckingham, but for the time being most contemporaries remained preoccupied with the duke, and the image of Buckingham the poisoner became a prominent part of the monstrous portraits fashioned by libellers and rumour-mongers during the turbulent final months of his life.
Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300214963
- eISBN:
- 9780300217827
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300214963.003.0020
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This last two years of Buckingham's life was engulfed by critique and scandal. Elements of the secret history appeared in many forms — seditious talk and rumour, verse libel and underground print, ...
More
This last two years of Buckingham's life was engulfed by critique and scandal. Elements of the secret history appeared in many forms — seditious talk and rumour, verse libel and underground print, political disinformation and Tacitean history. Each retelling deployed the poisoning stories for different ends, adding layers of new meanings to Eglisham's narratives. In the course of these redeployments, the secret history's political meanings shifted markedly, especially when anti-Catholic Englishmen embraced allegations that Eglisham had originally intended to advance the international Catholic cause. By tracking the widespread circulation and appropriation of the poisoning charges, this chapter documents this shift in meanings and explores how the secret history of James I' murder dovetailed with other anxieties about Buckingham and Charles in the later 1620s.Less
This last two years of Buckingham's life was engulfed by critique and scandal. Elements of the secret history appeared in many forms — seditious talk and rumour, verse libel and underground print, political disinformation and Tacitean history. Each retelling deployed the poisoning stories for different ends, adding layers of new meanings to Eglisham's narratives. In the course of these redeployments, the secret history's political meanings shifted markedly, especially when anti-Catholic Englishmen embraced allegations that Eglisham had originally intended to advance the international Catholic cause. By tracking the widespread circulation and appropriation of the poisoning charges, this chapter documents this shift in meanings and explores how the secret history of James I' murder dovetailed with other anxieties about Buckingham and Charles in the later 1620s.
Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300214963
- eISBN:
- 9780300217827
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300214963.003.0031
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This epilogue explores how later writers kept the debate over the murder of James I alive well into the nineteenth century. The attribution of James' murder to a nefarious Catholic conspiracy, ...
More
This epilogue explores how later writers kept the debate over the murder of James I alive well into the nineteenth century. The attribution of James' murder to a nefarious Catholic conspiracy, partially articulated in the later 1620s and reworked by William Prynne and others in the early 1640s, continued to play a small but conspicuous role in anti-popish rhetoric during the Restoration. And competing narratives of James' death would circulate in all kinds of politically engaged historiography well into the eighteenth century. In 1862, Norman Chevers, the Victorian physician-turned-historian, offered the first ‘medical review of Eglisham's story’ that aimed to seek out and test ‘any medical evidence in proof’ of the poisoning allegations. Using ‘modern’ medical science and forensic reasoning he dismantled the case for poisoning.Less
This epilogue explores how later writers kept the debate over the murder of James I alive well into the nineteenth century. The attribution of James' murder to a nefarious Catholic conspiracy, partially articulated in the later 1620s and reworked by William Prynne and others in the early 1640s, continued to play a small but conspicuous role in anti-popish rhetoric during the Restoration. And competing narratives of James' death would circulate in all kinds of politically engaged historiography well into the eighteenth century. In 1862, Norman Chevers, the Victorian physician-turned-historian, offered the first ‘medical review of Eglisham's story’ that aimed to seek out and test ‘any medical evidence in proof’ of the poisoning allegations. Using ‘modern’ medical science and forensic reasoning he dismantled the case for poisoning.
Paul Julian Weindling
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206910
- eISBN:
- 9780191677373
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206910.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In July 1941, Adolf Hitler declared the Jews as the ‘ferment of social decay’ and boasted that he had discovered how the ‘Jewish race’ as a ‘bacillus’, ‘virus’, ‘toxin’, or consumptive ‘parasite’ ...
More
In July 1941, Adolf Hitler declared the Jews as the ‘ferment of social decay’ and boasted that he had discovered how the ‘Jewish race’ as a ‘bacillus’, ‘virus’, ‘toxin’, or consumptive ‘parasite’ poisoned and infected Nazi Germany's body politic. Convinced that infectiousness was an attribute of Jewish racial inferiority, the lethal threat of the Jewish pathogens justified resort to a strong antidote: Hitler prescribed the elimination of ‘Jewish bacteria’ to revive the vitality of the Aryan race. The Nazi war machine mobilized tropical medicine and bacteriology to provide a shield of immunity against lethal diseases in the east. Hitler's sense of continuing the legacy of Robert Koch's bacteriological breakthroughs was consistent with camouflaging genocide by means of the terminology and technologies of disinfection. Expertise in hygiene and liberal notions of social reform facilitated the development of the lethal trinity of showers, crematoria, and poison gas chambers to sweep away lice and other insect pests.Less
In July 1941, Adolf Hitler declared the Jews as the ‘ferment of social decay’ and boasted that he had discovered how the ‘Jewish race’ as a ‘bacillus’, ‘virus’, ‘toxin’, or consumptive ‘parasite’ poisoned and infected Nazi Germany's body politic. Convinced that infectiousness was an attribute of Jewish racial inferiority, the lethal threat of the Jewish pathogens justified resort to a strong antidote: Hitler prescribed the elimination of ‘Jewish bacteria’ to revive the vitality of the Aryan race. The Nazi war machine mobilized tropical medicine and bacteriology to provide a shield of immunity against lethal diseases in the east. Hitler's sense of continuing the legacy of Robert Koch's bacteriological breakthroughs was consistent with camouflaging genocide by means of the terminology and technologies of disinfection. Expertise in hygiene and liberal notions of social reform facilitated the development of the lethal trinity of showers, crematoria, and poison gas chambers to sweep away lice and other insect pests.
Paul Julian Weindling
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206910
- eISBN:
- 9780191677373
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206910.003.0020
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Armed with the discovery that the louse was the carrier of typhus, Nazi Germany's military hygienists set out to ameliorate the squalid conditions in the trenches on the Western Front during World ...
More
Armed with the discovery that the louse was the carrier of typhus, Nazi Germany's military hygienists set out to ameliorate the squalid conditions in the trenches on the Western Front during World War I. They built up defences against incursions by rats, lice, and mosquitoes, and derided North African French troops as typhus carriers. The confrontation with alien species of disease carriers led to draconian delousing of civilians and racial stigmatization; in the Near East, German hygiene experts came to the threshold of genocide. The network of hygiene institutes was rapidly mobilized for strategic tasks. The shock of encountering typhus in Serbia forced the disease onto the Allies' medical agenda. But two elements were distinctive on the German side — the German interest in the use of poison gas for delousing and mounting racial prejudice against the Polish Jews. Typhus worsened as the military situation deterioriated, and medical animosity against the eastern Jews — derided as treacherous vermin — intensified. Epidemics provided a pretext for genocide.Less
Armed with the discovery that the louse was the carrier of typhus, Nazi Germany's military hygienists set out to ameliorate the squalid conditions in the trenches on the Western Front during World War I. They built up defences against incursions by rats, lice, and mosquitoes, and derided North African French troops as typhus carriers. The confrontation with alien species of disease carriers led to draconian delousing of civilians and racial stigmatization; in the Near East, German hygiene experts came to the threshold of genocide. The network of hygiene institutes was rapidly mobilized for strategic tasks. The shock of encountering typhus in Serbia forced the disease onto the Allies' medical agenda. But two elements were distinctive on the German side — the German interest in the use of poison gas for delousing and mounting racial prejudice against the Polish Jews. Typhus worsened as the military situation deterioriated, and medical animosity against the eastern Jews — derided as treacherous vermin — intensified. Epidemics provided a pretext for genocide.
Paul Julian Weindling
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206910
- eISBN:
- 9780191677373
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206910.003.0051
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Campaigns against insects in the east became entwined with preparations for biological warfare. The idea of unleashing disease pathogens to destroy Nazi Germany's enemies fascinated disinfection ...
More
Campaigns against insects in the east became entwined with preparations for biological warfare. The idea of unleashing disease pathogens to destroy Nazi Germany's enemies fascinated disinfection experts, for it seemed to them that if a disease could be prevented, it should also be possible for epidemics to be deliberately spread. The fear that Germany's opponents were stockpiling arsenals of biological and chemical weapons spurred on offensive preparations. Consequently, disease control programmes became radicalized, shifting from containment and prevention to strategies for total eradication of pathogens and their carriers. Whereas the Germans clung to delousing by poison gas, the Allies adopted innovative DDT-based methods, and accelerated louse- and mosquito-control studies. Ironically, Germany's development of biological warfare remained stunted. Leading figures in biological warfare profoundly disagreed over theoretical approaches to epidemiology. As the German sanitary measures became more draconian, they accelerated genocide.Less
Campaigns against insects in the east became entwined with preparations for biological warfare. The idea of unleashing disease pathogens to destroy Nazi Germany's enemies fascinated disinfection experts, for it seemed to them that if a disease could be prevented, it should also be possible for epidemics to be deliberately spread. The fear that Germany's opponents were stockpiling arsenals of biological and chemical weapons spurred on offensive preparations. Consequently, disease control programmes became radicalized, shifting from containment and prevention to strategies for total eradication of pathogens and their carriers. Whereas the Germans clung to delousing by poison gas, the Allies adopted innovative DDT-based methods, and accelerated louse- and mosquito-control studies. Ironically, Germany's development of biological warfare remained stunted. Leading figures in biological warfare profoundly disagreed over theoretical approaches to epidemiology. As the German sanitary measures became more draconian, they accelerated genocide.
