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Histology of pulmonary tuberculosis in a 19th-century mummy from Comiso (Sicily, Italy)
(Elsevier BV, 2024-12-23)
Raffaele Gaeta
;
Valentina Giuffra
;
Frank Maixner
;
Giacomo Aringhieri
;
Antonio Fornaciari
;
Nakhchivan State University
Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate potential evidence of tuberculosis in mummified remains. Materials: The natural mummy of an anonymous friar from the mortuary chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Grazia in Comiso (Sicily) Methods: The mummy was studied through macroscopic examination; tissue sampling was conducted through breaches in the dorsal surface of the thorax. Radiological, histological and immunohistochemical analyses were performed on the pulmonary parenchyma. Results: The mummified remains are those of an adult male approximately 25–45 years old. In the left lung, 7 intra parenchymal calcified nodules were detected. The fibrocalcific nodules showed some lacunae surrounded by fibrous tissue containing amorphous necrotic, most probably caseous, material. Conclusions: These findings are compatible with a chronic infectious-inflammatory disease, likely a calcification of a previous Ghon complex of an apical nodular tuberculosis. Significance: Our study supports the great spread of the disease in the 19th century; a time when it reached its maximum peak in Europe. Limitations: Molecular investigations failed to detect traces of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA in the sample. Suggestions for further research: The investigation on the mummies from Comiso is still in progress, and further analyses will potentially provide paleopathological data on this community of Modern Age which could be integrated with historical and archival sources.
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Land Inequality and Demographic Outcomes: The Relationship between Access to Land and the Demographic System in 19th-century Rural Tuscany
(Elsevier BV, 2025-07-28)
M. Manfredini
;
A. Fornasin
;
M. Breschi
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Nakhchivan State University
In pre-industrial rural Italy, the disparities among smallholders, sharecroppers, and day laborers were starkly defined by their unequal access to land, which significantly influenced their living standards, family structures, and socioeconomic conditions. This paper uses nominative data from 1819 to 1859 to first explore how the different peasant categories adjusted their demographic behaviors according to their tie to the land, and then how they were possibly modified when short-term stressors, such as price increase and/or epidemics, altered the existing equilibrium. The results reveal that the groups with access to land where less vulnerable and less susceptible to economic crises compared to day laborers, who relied entirely on the market for essential food supplies. During periods of high prices, day laborers experienced a rapid decline in their economic situation, leading to increased mortality, migration, and postponement of marriages. However, access to land was also associated with a demographic pattern aimed at both controlling household consumption and maximizing the male labor force. This included strict control over marriages, increased fertility, and selective mobility, all of which could intensify during crises and periods of rising prices. These findings underscore the inadequacy of the simplistic classification of landed versus landless groups, emphasizing the necessity for a more sophisticated understanding of households based on their relationship and connections with the land.
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Socioeconomic differences in population growth in 19th century Liaoning, China: a decomposition
(Elsevier BV, 2025-07-17)
Cameron Campbell
;
James Z. Lee
;
Nakhchivan State University
We decompose population growth in 19th century Liaoning in northeast China into the shares accounted for by different socioeconomic groups, and by time periods with different economic conditions as reflected in grain prices. This decomposition reveals who benefitted the most when social and economic conditions supported population increase. Previous studies of one region for which relevant data are available, northeast China, showed that birth and death rates varied according to community, household, and individual context, but did not investigate differences in growth rates by context, or the shares of population growth accounted for by each group. Using the same dataset, we decompose population growth by synthesizing differentials in mortality and fertility into estimates of implied growth rates of population subgroups and the shares of total population growth they account for. This decomposition framework can be applied in any setting where household registers or other sources allow for the measurement of the mortality and fertility rates of population subgroups at fixed points of time. We show that advantaged socioeconomic groups contributed disproportionately to population growth in northeast China, and that more growth took place when harvests were good, that is when grain prices were low. Even though mortality and fertility responses to grain price fluctuations varied across subgroups, there is no evidence of differential response of growth rates to these fluctuations. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for our understanding of population dynamics in the late Qing.
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Does international trade promote economic growth? Europe, 19th and 20th centuries
(Elsevier BV, 2024-12-24)
Oscar Bajo-Rubio
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María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera
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Nakhchivan State University
In this paper, we analyse the relationship between international trade and economic growth in an unbalanced panel of 20 European countries in a long-term perspective, since the mid-19th century to present days, differentiating between the periods before and after the start of the Second World War. To this end, we perform Granger-causality tests between exports and GDP, and between imports and GDP, following the novel methodology of Juodis et al. (2021) for panel data models with large cross-sectional and time series dimensions. Our results support the existence of a bi-directional relationship between both trade variables and GDP, for the whole period and across subperiods.
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On the relativity of magnitudes
(Elsevier BV, 2024-08-14)
Jonathan Fay
;
Nakhchivan State University
Faced with the mathematical possibility of non-Euclidean geometries, 19th Century geometers were tasked with the problem of determining which among the possible geometries corresponds to that of our space. In this context, the contribution of the Belgian philosopher-mathematician, Joseph Delboeuf, has been unduly neglected. The aim of this essay is to situate Delboeuf’s ideas within the context of the philosophies of geometry of his contemporaries, such as Helmholtz, Russell and Poincaré. We elucidate the central thesis, according to which Euclidean geometry is given special status on the basis of the relativity of magnitudes, we uncover its hidden history and show that it is defensible within the context of the philosophies of geometry of the epoch. Through this discussion, we also develop various ideas that have some relevance to present-day methods in gravitational physics and cosmology.