‘A confession of ignorance’: deaths from old age and deciphering cause-of-death statistics in Scotland, 1855–1949

A large amount of the research undertaken in an attempt to discover the reasons underlying the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century mortality decline in Britain has relied on the statistics published by the Registrars General. The processes by which individual causes of death are recorded and then processed in order to create the statistics are not, however, well understood. In this article, the authors build on previous work to piece together a time series of causes of death for Scotland, which removes many of the discontinuities encountered in the published statistics that result from the Registrar General deciding to update the nosology, or classification system, which was being used to compile his figures. Having regrouped individual causes of death to ‘smooth’ the time series, the authors use the new groups to examine the changing causes of death in Scotland for selected age groups, before turning to undertake a detailed examination of mortality amongst those aged 55 or more. The authors find that when deaths from ‘old age’ in the latter age group are separated from other ‘ill-defined’ causes, it becomes obvious that there was a ‘rebranding’ of cause of death. The authors then use individual-level data from two Scottish communities to further dissect the roles played by ‘informants’ and ‘doctors’ in this rebranding, in order to see how these roles may have altered over time and what the consequences might be for one's view of how mortality changed in Scotland between 1855 and 1949. Finally, the authors argue that their findings have important implications for some of historical demography's most prominent theories: the McKeown thesis and the theory of epidemiological transition.     

Potential Use of Bacterial Community Succession in Decaying Human Bone for Estimating Postmortem Interval,,

Bacteria are taphonomic agents of human decomposition, potentially useful for estimating postmortem interval (PMI) in late‐stage decomposition. Bone samples from 12 individuals and three soil samples were analyzed to assess the effects of decomposition and advancing time on bacterial communities. Results indicated that partially skeletonized remains maintained a presence of bacteria associated with the human gut, whereas bacterial composition of dry skeletal remains maintained a community profile similar to soil communities. Variation in the UniFrac distances was significantly greater between groups than within groups (p < 0.001) for the unweighted metric and not the weighted metric. The members of the bacterial communities were more similar within than between decomposition stages. The oligotrophic environment of bone relative to soft tissue and the physical protection of organic substrates may preclude bacterial blooms during the first years of skeletonization. Therefore, community membership (unweighted) may be better for estimating PMI from skeletonized remains than community structure (weighted).     

Suicide of an adolescent girl with sodium nitrite ordered on the internet

Nitrites are commonly used in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries. Recently, they have been identified in cases of voluntary intoxication. We report the case of a 13-year-old girl who was found lifeless on her bed next to a glass containing a white powder and a bottle containing a white powder with a moistened appearance. External examination and autopsy revealed a nonspecific asphyxia syndrome, which was confirmed by the pathological analysis. Analysis of the samples revealed metoclopramide in the peripheral blood at a concentration of 0.402 mg/L (LC–HRMS). An analysis of the gastric contents was carried out after sodium nitrite was detected in the powders found near the body (Raman spectrometry). Nitrites were found in the gastric fluid at a concentration of 30.9 mg/L. Death occurred secondary to anoxia, following ingestion of nitrites; suicide kits are available on the web and nitrites are relatively easy to source and inexpensive. Nitrites are delivered in powder form to be dissolved in liquid, which may then be consumed with metoclopramide (or an alternative anti-emetic drug) to maximize absorption and reduce emesis. The toxic effect of nitrites lies in their oxidizing power, causing the transformation of hemoglobin into methemoglobin, which, when it accumulates, induces tissue anoxia resulting in death. There has been an alarming increase in the number of cases linked to suicide using nitrites or a nitrite suicide kit. The fact that nitrites are readily available online underscores the importance of establishing effective preventive measures such as limiting the access and use of this chemical.     

Correction to: Beyond Performance: Racial Prejudice and Whites’ Mistrust of Government

Political Behavior -     

‘War don don’: stability,normalcy and Sierra Leone

There are few consistently reliable indicators of stability in post-conflict countries, but police behaviour is one of them. Based on the premise that stability has less to do with the introduction of specific institutions and procedures, and more to do with how people assess their environment and go about their routine business, this article uses police reform in Sierra Leone, 1996–2005, to provide a contextual explanation of the meaning of stability and the normalcy underpinning it. Rather than focusing on programme implementation, or on the normative indicators associated with international stabilisation and reconstruction projects, it argues that stability is the cumulative result of political realities and visible low-level activities which individually reinforce or offset each other.     

Institutional divergence and convergence in the Asia-Pacific? ASEAN in practice and in theory

This paper gives attention to the geopolitics related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an alternative model of regionalism in theory and practice. Offering a rough periodization of ASEAN in IR theory, it considers interacting theoretical and empirical developments, and their geopolitics as one way to think about, first, ASEAN, its defining dynamics and processes of change, and, second, ASEAN's relationship to a larger IR theory literature defined by US preoccupations and the institutional trajectory of the European Union. Three periods are considered: a Cold War period, when ASEAN norms and practices developed relatively insulated from great power expectations and theorizing about ASEAN was minimal; the 1990s, when constructivist theorizing encouraged new thinking about alternative institutional models; and the 2000s, a period characterized by correlating great power pressures and a ‘functional’ turn in academic and theoretical debates about ASEAN. Special attention is given to the United States as a major, leading actor in both world politics and the institutionalization of international relations as a discipline, as well as the possibilities and constraints of institutional divergence in theory and practice.     

Manufacturing output,employment and real wages in the 1980s: Labour's loss until the century's end

During the 1980s most developing countries experienced sharp declines in manufacturing output and real wages, whilst their manufacturing sectors were supposedly ‘restructured’ or made more competitive by having to confront market forces. This article examines the extent to which macroeconomic adjustment and industrial restructuring policies succeeded in achieving their objectives.     

Responding to Catastrophic Terrorism

Current approaches to conventional terrorism are too restrictive for the environment of catastrophe and must be supplemented by insights from disaster management and escalation theory. Although disaster management alone cannot address weaknesses in strategic planning, when complemented by the concept of escalation, the two become a useful aid to understanding events directly related to extremes of scale, complexity, or longevity. Responding to catastrophic terrorism will thus require security interests to be balanced by strategic focus, policy coherence, operational skills, and cultural values.