Illuminating Nineteenth-Century English Urban Midwifery: the register of a Coventry midwife

The three-volume register of a sworn midwife provides unique insights into midwifery practice in an English city in the second half of the nineteenth century. The register is a rare primary source, and contains 5029 entries, from July 1847 to October 1875. Considered alongside the limited sources discovered to date, this analysis casts light on our understandings of non-elite midwifery, and the wider context of women's work in the nineteenth century. The midwife's patterns of work, her relationships with clients and lying-in charities, and the impact of local economic circumstances on her practice are discussed. Despite her extensive practice, the official record of her occupation is meagre.     

Palestinian youth and non-formal service-learning: a model for personal development,long-term engagement,and peace building

Palestinian youth face developmental, cultural, and political barriers that impede them from fully engaging in civic life. Non-traditional, youth-centred pedagogies of engagement, like community-based service-learning, have shown their potential to motivate marginalised populations and provide space and roles for them to form individual identities while developing civic skills. Using data collected through focus-group interviews, this article considers the impact on West Bank youth who participated in an NGO's community-based service-learning leadership programme. Six themed findings are discussed, and the author suggests that non-school-based service-learning may have a central role to play in the civic-identity development of Palestine's most populous group of citizens.     

Deer stand fatalities in Kentucky: two cases of reverse suspension and blunt force trauma

Hunting many types of wild game is an avidly pursued outdoor activity that attracts all ages and both genders at various times of the year. Deer hunting is a popular sport in many regions of North America. A variety of weapons are used in the hunting, trapping, and killing of game. As a variety of different modalities are used, myriad types of injuries unique to the type of hunting can occur. Most deer hunting-related fatalities identified at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Kentucky are accidental firearm injuries. Less commonly encountered are fatalities resulting from elevation of the hunter in a tree stand, often associated with poor design or construction of the perch. We present 2 tree stand-related deaths. One victim died of positional asphyxia due to reverse suspension from a hunting tree stand. The second victim died of multiple blunt force injuries sustained in a 20-foot fall from a tree stand. We summarize the features of morbidity and mortality related to deer hunting based on investigations by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.     

EU update

This is the latest edition of Baker & McKenzie’s column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside web sites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.     

Does Mode Matter For Modeling Political Choice? Evidence From the 2005 British Election Study

Harold D. Clarke and Marianne C. Stewart School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75083 e-mail: hclarke{at}utdallas.edu e-mail: mstewart{at}utdallas.edu Paul Whiteley Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, England CO4 3SQ e-mail: whiteley{at}essex.ac.uk e-mail: sanders{at}essex.ac.uk (Corresponding author) Although political scientists have begun to investigate theproperties of Internet surveys, much remains to be learned aboutthe utility of the Internet mode for conducting major surveyresearch projects such as national election studies. This paperaddresses this topic by presenting the results of an extensivesurvey comparison experiment conducted as part of the 2005 BritishElection Study. Analyses show statistically significant, butgenerally small, differences in distributions of key explanatoryvariables in models of turnout and party choice. Estimatingmodel parameters reveals that there are few statistically significantdifferences between coefficients generated using the in-personand Internet data, and the relative explanatory power of rivalmodels is virtually identical for the two types of data. Ingeneral, the in-person and Internet data tell very similar storiesabout what matters for turnout and party preference in Britain.Determining if similar findings obtain in other countries shouldhave high priority on the research agenda for national electionstudies. Authors' note: We thank the U.K. Economics and Social ResearchCouncil (ESRC) and Gary Williams, Senior Science Manager atthe ESRC, for their generous support of, and interest in, thisproject. We also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers forhelpful comments and suggestions.     

Racially conditional donation: the example of umbilical cord blood

While direction of donated tissue to family members has long been accepted, direction to members of specific racial groups has been opposed, on the basis that it is discriminatory and contrary to the ethos the institution of organ donation seeks to promote. It has, however, recently been proposed that racially conditional donation may provide a useful--and ethically acceptable--way to address the social inequalities and injustices experienced by certain cultural groups. This article examines the ethical, legal and cultural arguments for and against racially conditional donation, concluding that the practice is more likely to undermine the values of equity and justice than to promote them and that it may also lead to other unfavourable personal and social outcomes.     

A just soldier's dilemma: facing a war that does not meet jus ad bellum criteria

In our challenging times individuals in military services may find themselves in the position of being called to contribute to a war whose overall justice they personally find morally suspect, or about which they have moral qualms. The right course of action in this situation can be a serious dilemma. Applying the principle of double effect to this dilemma recognizes essential state responsibility for war, but does not discount the soldier's personal moral responsibilities or individual will. This novel application of the principle of double effect treats damage produced by participating in a questionable war as a side-effect of pursuing other—clearly justifiable—intentions. The just war tradition already uses the principle of double effect when weighing the permissibility of individuals' acts in war, such as choosing bombing targets. The proposal here is to evaluate the decision to contribute to the war effort at all. This adaptation of the classic just war principle of double effect can be used to justify some—but not all—individual participation when a war's state-level justification is suspect.