In recent years there has been increasing concern about the various forms of abuse faced by birthing patients during labour and childbirth. Common examples include being scolded, slapped, pinched, stabbed with scissors or struck with a ruler or other instruments. This mistreatment is collectively termed obstetric violence.A growing body of literature examines legal responses to obstetric violence including the potential use of the criminal law. The present article explores whether, in South Africa, common-law crimes or statutory offences could be used (...) to prosecute healthcare workers for the range of harms falling within the broad definition of obstetric violence. It does not question whether criminal law is an appropriate response in this instance.The article concludes that existing crimes are sufficient to address obstetric violence. It is clear that the common-law crimes of crimen iniuria, assault, assault with intention to commit grievous bodily harm and the statutory offence of involuntary sterilisation, could be used to address both physical and emotional forms of obstetric violence. It is submitted that they cater adequately for the broad range of conduct that potentially falls into the definition of obstetric violence. Further research is required in this area and it may mean that prosecutorial guidelines are needed. (shrink)

L'ed. delle Obligationes si basa su quattro mss.: Praha, Knihovni Metropolitni Kapituly, M.CXLV ; Oxford, New College, E 289 ; Praha, Státní Knihóvna CSR, VIII E 11 ; Salamanca, Biblioteca de la Universidad, 2358 . Nell'introduzione l'A. prende in esame la tradizione manoscritta delle opere di Giovanni Tarteys, fornendo anche una breve notizia biografica di questo magister artium attivo ad Oxford tra la fine del Trecento e gli inizi del Quattrocento. Segue un'analisi comparata del De Obligationibus di Giovanni con le (...) trattazioni analoghe di altri maestri, tra i quali Rodolfo Strode, Gualterio Burley, Paolo da Venezia e Giovanni Wyclif. Discussi infine i criteri di edizione. (shrink)

This study identified the influences of maternal socio-demographic and antenatal factors on stillbirths and neonatal deaths in New South Wales, Australia. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to explore the association of selected antenatal and maternal characteristics with stillbirths and neonatal deaths. The findings of this study showed that stillbirths and neonatal deaths significantly varied by infant sex, maternal age, Aboriginality, maternal country of birth, socioeconomic status, parity, maternal smoking behaviour during pregnancy, maternal diabetes mellitus, maternal hypertension, antenatal care, plurality (...) of birth, low birth weight, place of birth, delivery type, maternal deaths and small gestational age. First-born infants, twins and infants born to teenage mothers, Aboriginal mothers, those who smoked during the pregnancy and those of lower socioeconomic status were at increased risk of stillbirths and neonatal deaths. The most common causes of stillbirths were conditions originating in the perinatal period: intrauterine hypoxia and asphyxia. Congenital malformations, including deformities and chromosomal abnormalities, and disorders related to slow fetal growth, short gestation and low birth weight were the most common causes of neonatal deaths. The findings indicate that very low birth weight (less than 2000 g) contributed 75·6% of the population-attributable risks to stillbirths and 59·4% to neonatal deaths. Low gestational age (less than 32 weeks) accounted for 77·7% of stillbirths and 87·9% of neonatal deaths. The findings of this study suggest that in order to reduce stillbirths and neonatal deaths, it is essential to include strategies to predict and prevent prematurity and low birth weight, and that there is a need to focus on anti-smoking campaigns during pregnancy, optimizing antenatal care and other healthcare programmes targeted at the socially disadvantaged populations identified in this study. (shrink)

The origin of marine invertebrate larvae has been an area of controversy in developmental evolution for over a century. Here, we address the question of whether a pelagic “larval” or benthic “adult” morphology originated first in metazoan lineages by testing the hypothesis that particular gene co-option patterns will be associated with the origin of feeding, indirect developing larval forms. Empirical evidence bearing on this hypothesis is derivable from gene expression studies of the sea urchin larval gut of two closely related (...) but differently developing congenerics, Heliocidaris tuberculata (feeding indirect-developing larva) and H. erythrogramma (nonfeeding direct developer), given two subsidiary hypotheses. (1) If larval gut gene expression in H. tuberculata was co-opted from an ancestral adult expression pattern, then the gut expression pattern will remain in adult H. erythrogramma despite its direct development. (2) Genes expressed in the larval gut of H. tuberculata will not have a coordinated expression pattern in H. erythrogramma larvae due to loss of a functional gut. Five structural genes expressed in the invaginating archenteron of H. tuberculata during gastrulation exhibit substantially different expression patterns in H. erythrogramma with only one remaining endoderm specific. Expression of these genes in the adult of H. erythrogramma and larval gut of H. tuberculata, but not in H. erythrogramma larval endoderm, supports the hypothesis that they first played roles in the formation of adult structures and were subsequently recruited into larval ontogeny during the origin and evolution of feeding planktotrophic deuterostome larvae. (shrink)

A provocative Target Article in this issue of AJOB proposes a new approach to decision-making for babies born in the “gray-zone” at the margins of viability. Titled “Postponed Withholding: balanced...

A common ethical code for everybody involved in health care is desirable, but there are important limitations to the role such a code could play. In order to understand these limitations the approach to ethics using principles and their application to medicine is discussed, and in particular the implications of their being prima facie. The expectation of what an ethical code can do changes depending on how ethical properties in general are understood. The difficulties encountered when ethical values are applied (...) reactively to an objective world can be avoided by seeing them as a more integral part of our understanding of the world. It is concluded that an ethical code can establish important values and describe a common ethical context for health care but is of limited use in solving new and complex ethical problems. (shrink)

It is a point of some interest to the historian of the social and intellectual development of Athens to determine, if possible, the exact dates between which the philosopher Anaxagoras made that city his home. As everyone knows, the tradition of the third and later centuries was not uniform. The dates from which the Alexandrian chronologists had to arrive at their results may be conveniently summed up under three headings, date of Anaxagoras' arrival at Athens, date of his prosecution and (...) escape to Lampsacus, length of his residence at Athens, The received account , was that Anaxagoras was twenty years old at the date of the invasion of Xerxes and lived to be seventy-two. This was apparently why Apollodorus placed his birth in Olympiad 70 and his death in Ol. 88. I, thus giving the years 500–428 B.C. of our reckoning, The further statement of Apollodorus that Anaxagoras xs1F24ρξατο xs03D5ιλοσοxs03D5εxs1FD6ν xs22EFπxs22EF Καλλίον has given rise to discussion; but when we remember that Demetrius of Phalerum had made what ‘Diogenes’ regards as an equivalent statement in his register of archons, and had said that Anaxagoras was twenty years old at the time, I think there can be no doubt of the meaning. Demetrius had clearly mentioned something about Anaxagoras which was looked on as giving the date at which he ‘began to philosophize,’ and had given his age at the time. The natural interpretation is that Demetrius mentioned the year of Anaxagoras’ arrival at Athens, and that this was taken as the time at which he ρξαtο φιλοσοφεlσ And it is further reasonable to suppose that this date was the source of the further statement of Demetrius, that Anaxagoras was born in or about 500 B.C. We may, I think, infer that Demetrius recorded the arrival of Anaxagoras in Athens under the year 480, giving his approximate age at that time. (shrink)

One of the ways in which a poet may show his quality is by discrimination and originality in his choice of adjectives. Poetry likes to adorn the bare noun; a noun such as ‘the sky’ calls out for an attribute. But in practice the poet has to take care to avoid the cliche. He can seldom write ‘the blue sky’; even ‘the azure sky’ has become trite. He has to search for the epithet which will be both apt and original.

One day towards the end of the eighth century the scribe of cod. Paris. Lat. 7530, a miscellany to which we owe the carmen de figuris , began to copy out for us, on the 28th leaf of the MS, the Thyestes of Varius. He transcribed the title and the prefatory note, which run thus: INCIPIT THVESTA VARII. Lucius Varius cognomento Rufus Thyesten tragoediam magna cura absolutam post Actiacam uictoriam Augusti ludis eius in scaena edidit, pro qua fabula sestertium deciens (...) accepit. Then he changed his mind: he proceeded with a list of the notae employed by Probus and Aristarchus, and the masterpiece of Roman tragedy has rejoined its author in the shades. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: To report the outcome of applications to 43 research ethics committees. SETTING: Four regional health authorities in England. FINDINGS: The research ethics committees varied considerably in their practices. The time lapse until notification of the outcome of the approval ranged from just under one week to 23 weeks with a mean of 8.6 weeks. Four research ethics committees failed to notify the research team of an outcome of their request for approval. CONCLUSION: A national research ethics committee is needed (...) to review national and multi-location research studies in the light of the fragmented and variable practice of local research ethics committees. (shrink)

Believing that there is still something to be said about the early history of clausulae in Latin prose, I set myself to trace the practice of the early orators, then that of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, accepting its conventional dating to 86–82 B.C., and lastly that of Cicero in De Inventione, assuming it to be roughly contemporary with the ad Herennium, and in his early speeches. But clausula-study itself, besides shedding light on the methods of composition used by the still (...) unidentifiable Auctor ad Herennium, cast doubts on the conventional dating of his work. I gave a brief outline of my conclusions in C.R., N.S. vi , 134–6.1 propose to attempt here a detailed justification of those relating to the date of the work, with a few modifications of some points. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:61 PROJECTIONISM, REALISM, AND HUME'S MORAL SENSE THEORY* Introduction The character of Hume's moral theory is currently a topic of considerable discussion.1 We find in the recent literature essentially two sorts of interpretation of Hume's theory. On the one side there is the view that, for Hume, the distinction between virtue and vice is reducible to the moral sentiments of approval and disapproval. Associated with this view is the (...) further claim that Hume ascribes to us the belief that virtue and vice exist as the counterparts to these sentiments; and, in addition, that this belief is, for Hume, a mistaken one. For reasons which will become obvious this may be described as the Projectionist account of Hume. On the other side, there is the attempt to represent Hume's moral theory as a form of realism, i.e., a theory according to which there are moral properties belonging to actions, or the agents who perform them, which provide objective correlates of the feelings which those actions, or the agents concerned, induce in us as spectators. Now clearly an important part of what is at stake between these different interpretations is the question of how seriously we should take Hume's own description of this theory as one according to which moral distinctions are derived from a moral sense. It is characteristic of the Projectionist interpretation to suggest that 'sense' is equivalent here to 'sentiment', and, indeed, that Hume's moral sense theory is tantamount to the denial that there is anything in Objects' themselves corresponding to our moral (or aesthetic) sentiments. The Realist interpretation, on the other hand, stresses the importance of Hume's references in 62 the Treatise to a moral (and aesthetic) sense, and the precedent provided in this respect by Hutcheson; and it takes seriously the idea that this sense enables us to become acquainted, via the sentiments involved, with the qualities of virtue and vice. My own interest in these different interpretations concerns their disagreement about the way in which we should understand Hume's notion of a moral sense. I wish to argue against the Projectionist interpretation, and its dismissive treatment of Hume's references to a moral sense, though it is a further question whether the view of Hume which emerges deserves the name of 'Realism'. 1. The Projectionist Interpretation It seems clear that the notion of a moral sense cannot be intended literally, i.e., as though there is a form of moral sense-perception strictly comparable to the modes of perception provided by the external senses. It is, presumably, part of the definition of a sense that it is a faculty whose function depends upon stimulation of an organ or, at least, receptors peculiar to that sense; and, furthermore, in the case of the various external senses there is -- except for the contact sense of touch -- a distinctive medium of perception. For both these reasons moral sense theorists can only be proposing an analogy with the external senses. In Hume's case in particular, however, there appear to be reasons for doubting whether the analogy can be more than superficial. Perhaps the most obvious of these lies with Hume's insistence on the action-guiding character of the distinction between moral good and evil (see e.g., T 437-462). For it seems clear that sense-perceptions g as such can have no direct influence upon our actions. 63 Then there is Hume's denial that morality consists in any matter of fact (T 468; EPM 292). If virtue and vice are to be considered the objects of some form of moral sense-perception their existence presumably does become a matter of fact. Finally, a moral sense theory seems to imply that judgements of virtue and vice are straightforwardly true or false, according to whether or not we perceive veridical Iy; while Hume's own discussion sometimes points to a non-propositional view of moral utterances as the expression of certain feelings or sentiments. These last two points remind us that Hume often appears to deny that values belong as intrinsic properties to the objects evaluated. This is obviously true of the following, much quoted, passage: Take any... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:125. HUME ON PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES Hume's view of the primary/secondary quality distinction is, I believe, a matter of considerable interest. It bears upon Hume's position in relation to Locke and Berkeley, and has important implications for general features of his epistemology and metaphysics. The central part of my discussion will therefore be taken up with a consideration of those passages from his writings in which Hume refers (...) to the primary/ secondary quality distinction. Hume's treatment of this aspect of the 'modern philosophy' may be seen against the background of his discussion of perception and its objects, and it is therefore this with which I begin. HUME'S SYSTEM I refer to Hume's system in relation to perception and the manner in which objects affect the senses. Hume's avowed purpose here is to discuss the way in which objects appear to the senses (in particular, those of sight and touch), rather than to account for their real nature and operations. Our ignorance of the nature of bodies reflects the fact that we are limited in experience to those properties of objects which discover themselves 2 to the senses. In determining the nature of Hume's system there are, I think, two (related) factors to be taken into account: (i) Hume's distinction between perceptions and objects; and (ii) Hume's critique of the Naive or Direct Realist theory of perception. (i) Perceptions and Objects The distinction which Hume wishes to make between perceptions and objects, and his general account of the relation between them, is embodied in his 126. discussion of the idea of external existence (T 6). We may observe, that 'tis universally allow'd by philosophers, and is besides pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is ever really present with the mind but its perceptions or impressions and· ideas, and that external objects become known to us only by the perceptions they 3 occasion. We should note that what Hume is describing here is, in essence, the Indirect Realist account of perception, i.e. that we are acquainted with an external reality only in the form of perceptions ('impressions') which arise from sensory contact with it. That Hume is prepared to speak elsewhere of per4 ceptions in their relation to external objects as images is indicative of his commitment to a Representative theory. There are, of course, severe limitations upon our understanding of the relation between perceptions and objects. As every idea is deriv'd from a preceding perception, 'tis impossible our idea of a perception, and that of an object or external existence can ever represent what are specifically different from each other. In so far as external objects are supposed to differ from perceptions in their specific identity, we can form only a relative idea of them (T 68). Nevertheless the idea of bodies or objects is clearly to be distinguished from that of perceptions; while being specifically the same, like ideas and impressions, these items, or rather the ideas involved, are attended with the supposition of a difference, that is unknown and incomprehensible (T 244). As different existences perceptions and objects may be conceived to differ in respect of their relational properties, for example, but otherwise whatever is true of the one must also be true of the other. These two sets of distinctions — between, on the one hand, ideas and impressions and, on the other, perceptions and objects — may usefully be compared and 127. contrasted. In each case the items with which we are concerned are numerically different but specifically identical; and, furthermore, the relation between the items which make up each pair is a causal one. The obvious difference between the two cases is that while both impressions and ideas are objects of experience, the causal dependence of the one upon the other being revealed by the order of their appearance before the mind, we do not directly experience external objects as opposed to perceptions. Questions concerning the 'real nature' of objects or bodies belong to the province of natural - rather than 'moral' - philosophy, which indeed has reasonable hypotheses to offer (T 48). As for our idea of body, this comprises nothing more than the ideas... (shrink)

Is the tonal ordering of music, and the order of European triadic tonality in particular, the developed manifestation of an essential musical structure—a structure naturally suited to our human capacity to organize sounds musically? Historically and geographically, triadic tonality is a highly local phenomenon, limited to music beginning in the mid-seventeenth century and, until the nineteenth century, almost wholly confined to the Western European musical tradition. Some theorists accordingly regard tonality as a dispensable aesthetic convention—and one which, moreover, has had (...) its day. For many listeners, however, works within this tradition possess a distinctive ability to embody musical movement and expression. This paper examines Roger Scruton's defense of tonality as developed in the European common practice period. I examine his reasons for supposing that tonality is an ineliminable feature of sounds heard and understood as music. Those reasons, I conclude, are inconclusive; on their own they do not show that tonality either will or should persist as an authoritative musical order. Triadic tonality has, at best, an uncertain future. (shrink)

These minute annotations, put together for a paper read to the Cambridge Philological Society on February 15, are mostly taken from jottings which I made some thirty years ago in the margin of Leo's edition. There they would have stayed, but for the appearance in 1918 of the Illinois index uerborum compiled by Messrs Oidfather, Pease, and Canter, which is not merely what its title promises, but also aims at recording the conjectures of the present century, and has enabled me (...) to cancel three or four proposals which I found anticipated. Other people, from Dr U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff downward, so often print emendations of mine as their own, or indeed as anyone else's, that I am even more anxious than I otherwise should be to avoid printing as mine the emendations of other people. (shrink)

I have not read the Thebais more than three times, nor ever with intent care and interest; and although in putting these notes together I have consulted a large number of editions—Bernartius, Tiliobroga, Geuartius, Cruceus, Gronouius, Barthius, Veenhusen, Beraldus , ed. Bipontina, Lemaire , Queck, O. Mueller , Kohlmann, Wilkins, Garrod, Klotz, and the translations of Marolles, Nisard, and Mozley —it may well be that profitable matter has escaped me and that some of my comments have been made before.

This is the way to say in Latin ‘you see my face, though you cannot see the rest of me’. So her. X 53 ‘tua, quae possum, pro te uestigia tango’, 135 ‘non oculis sed, qua potes, aspice mente’, art. III 633 ‘corpora si nequeunt, quae possunt, nomina tangunt’, trist. IV 2 57 ‘haec ego summotus, qua possum,. mente uidebo’, 3 17 sq. ‘esse tui memorem… quodque potest, secum nomen habere tuum’, 10 112 ‘tristia, quo possum, carmine fata leuo’, ex (...) Pont. IV 4 45 ‘absentem, qua possum, mente uidebo’.1 But that is not what Ovid seeks to say: he means ‘you see my face in such fashion as you can’, not in the flesh but in counterfeit presentment; and Latin expresses this meaning otherwise. As Ovid here speaks of his own likeness on a ring, so in ex Pont. II 8 55 he speaks of the likenesses of Augustus Tiberius and Liuia on a medal; and he says ‘nos quoque uestra iuuat quod, qua licet, ora uidemus’. Arellius Fuscus in Sen. suas. 4 I puts the same thought in the same way, ‘cur non ab infantia rerum naturam deosque, qua licet, uisimus, cum pateant nobis sidera et interesse numinibus liceat ?’ In her. XIII 41 sq. ‘qua possum, squalore tuos imitata labores dicar’ many MSS have changed the adverb into quo agreeing with the substantive hard by; and similarly here the ‘quae potes’ of the text has come from ‘qua potes’. (shrink)

A Cautious man, as I said at the outset, will not edit Lucilius; for it is an editor's business to pronounce an opinion on all the difficulties in his author, and when the author is in fragments the opinion will oftener be wrong than right. But a critic of Lucilius who is not also his editor, and can pick and choose among the pieces, is in a somewhat happier case; and I will now go on to attempt the correction or (...) elucidation of certain passages where I seem to myself to have arrived at probable conclusions. (shrink)

‘ If Rome, addlepate that she is, misprises a thing, let that be no concern of yours. For at Rome every living soul—ah, would that I might utter it! But utter it I surely may, when I consider what dismal old squaretoes we are from the day when we are boys no more. Then, then—forgive me —but I do burst out laughing.’ Down to the middle of u. n my text and punctuation are those of most editors, and I shall (...) uphold them against the MS readings retained by Casaubon and recalled by Buecheler. From that point onward the punctuation is my own, except that it partly agrees with K. F. Hermann's, adopted in 1910 by Mr Leo. (shrink)

According to the Ars Amatoria the notorious rape took place on the occasion of a primitive dramatic entertainment staged in a theatre, in which the seats and furnishings were also primitive. There is no time for a description of the arts of the performers—a tibicen and a ludius—before the Romans, impatient for action, receive their signal from Romulus. Nor is there any mention of a god in whose honour the entertainment had been provided.

In what follows, I analyze Ralph Strode's treatise on obligations. I have used a hitherto unpublished edition of the text (based on 14 manuscripts) made by Prof. E.J. Ashworth. I first give a brief description of Strode's text, which is all the more necessary given that it is not available to the average reader; I also offer a reconstruction of the rules proposed by Strode, following the style of reconstruction used in my analysis of Burley's and Swyneshed's (...) rules elsewhere—that is, essentially based on the idea that obligationes can be viewed as logical games. In the second part, I address Strode's explicit arguments contra Swyneshed. In the third part, I discuss Strode's epistemic and pragmatic approach to obligationes. (shrink)

An introduction, designed for the lay reader, developing four central issues with as little technical language as possible.—S. A. E.

Building on Aristotle and Dewey, Mesthene argues that language plays the role of agent in the process of coming to know. He suggests a metaphysical hypothesis to account for the intelligibility of the world and elucidate the role of language in the knowing process. Mesthene's hypothesis is both interesting and important but stands in need, as the author admits, of a good bit of further investigation. J. H. Randall contributes a foreword to this volume.—A. E. J.

This book is both an introduction to the philosophy of religion and a defence of the reasonableness, though not a proof of the truth, of Christianity. The topics of miracles, freedom, God's existence, religious experience, and evil are taken up in that order, with Hume, Kant, Aquinas, Otto, and Tennant serving as points of departure for the various discussions. Smart's approach to philosophy of religion runs counter to contemporary mainstreams. He sees the traditional problems, as traditionally formulated, as genuine problems. (...) Religions make claims to truth, and the defenders of religion must show that it is reasonable to believe that such claims are true. Smart's arguments are clear and lucid, but he does not seem to fully appreciate the force of objections to traditional Christian theism.—A. E. J. (shrink)

Those who believe that linguistic philosophy has no principles are not likely to have their opinion dispelled by Waismann's book. The book, written prior to World War II, withdrawn from the publisher and constantly modified thereafter, does not attempt to present a set of philosophical or metaphilosophical principles. What it does present is a method, applied both to traditional philosophical problems and to the central themes of linguistic philosophy. If the method has a principle, it is to be found in (...) the concept of a grammatical rule. Philosophical questions are clarified by appeal to rules of grammar, beyond which there can be no appeal. Principles was written as a textbook, and could be quite useful as such since all the important issues of analytic philosophy are raised. Despite the obvious influence of Wittgenstein, the treatment of the issues, the linguistic philosophy presented, is Waismann's own unique blend. The blend is interesting and often fruitful.—A. E. J. (shrink)

This selection includes Spinoza's interpretation and comments on Descartes writings, together with Spinoza's Thoughts on Metaphysics. The translation reads easily and the introduction is genuinely useful.—S. A. E.

This represents the first modern translation of any of the writings of von Humboldt and the only introduction to his works in English. Included are many of his reflections on history, religion and politics, the latter being of special interest. On the whole, the translation is readable and the problems discussed, though somewhat dated, are of interest to those concerned with the perennial problems of the philosophies of man and culture.—S. A E.

The underlying assumption of this book is that "speeding up the process of securing maximal contributions from ethical theory for solving moral problems involves the fullest self-conscious focusing on method." With clarity and insight the author explores various ethical theories and their relationships to one another, trying always to bring about an understanding of what is truly at stake in various theoretical controversies and to relate ethical theory to the business of morality itself.—S. A. E.