H ISTORY offers us a tool to avoid the condemnation George Santayana (1863–1952) envisioned for those who forget the past. In studying the history of anesthesia, and in particular the singular events that brought anesthesia into the consciousness of the world in Boston in 1845 and 1846, we find much to admire, but even more that we might hope not to repeat. The first public demonstrations of an...

It is well established that small-sized live feed with sufficient DHA, EPA and ARA as starter feed is the key factor for the success in larviculture of marine fishes with altricial larvae having limited yolk, which are in an undeveloped state at hatching. Copepods form a major component of the natural diet of many fish larvae and the wide range of body sizes of copepods both within and between ...

One of the aspects of consciousness deserving of study is what might be called its subjective unity—the way in which, though conscious experience moves from object to object, and can be said to have distinct ‘states,’ it nevertheless in some sense apparently forms a singular flux divided only by periods of unconsciousness. The work of William James provides a valuable, and rather unique, source...

Compounds differ in the degree to which they are semantically compositional (compare, e.g., "carwash","handbag", "beefcake" and "humbug"). Since even relatively transparent compounds such as "carwash"may leave the uninitiated reader with uncertainty about the intended meaning (soap for washing cars? aplace where you can get your car washed?), an efficient way of retrieving the meani...

Storytelling is fundamental to how people think about and understand their lives, and the use of stories in family medicine is no exception. As healers, we tell our stories in ways that make sense to us. But of course our patients tell their own stories, and we cannot understand the physician-patient interaction without understanding their narratives of our encounters. Joseph Campbell, the famo...

A better understanding of the mechanisms through which we perceive our sensory environment is vital for anaesthesiology and consciousness science. Through a pragmatic approach based on tracking afferent signals, have gradually understood how stimuli are processed from peripheral sensor, nervous system, into spinal cord, thalamus, cerebral cortex. This sensibly heralded classical, still dominant...

Standing on the south bank of Thames, today, its chimneys reconstructed, brickwork restored, roof replaced, Battersea Power Station betrays few troubles that plagued development and redevelopment (Figure 1). Like many London’s power stations, began as two separate units: A, western wing, opened in 1933, B, eastern 1955. Unlike these other however, which ‘B’ building formed an ad hoc response to...

Models of larval dispersal rarely incorporate the behavior of larvae, yet many potential settlers of marine invertebrates and fishes may navigate toward suitable settlement sites by responding to gradients of environmental stimuli. Accordingly, a variety of stimuli may be used for navigation (directed movements to the source of stimuli) and partial navigation (e.g., migration to a current that ...