Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy. 12 percent of the opium latex is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for illegal drug trade. The latex contains the related opiates codeine and thebaine, non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine; the traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch the immature seed pods by hand. The word "meconium" referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies; the production methods have not changed since ancient times. Through selective breeding of the Papaver somniferum plant, the content of the phenanthrene alkaloids morphine, to a lesser extent thebaine has been increased. In modern times, much of the thebaine, which serves as the raw material for the synthesis for oxycodone, hydrocodone and other semisynthetic opiates, originates from extracting Papaver orientale or Papaver bracteatum.
For the illegal drug trade, the morphine is extracted from the opium latex, reducing the bulk weight by 88%. It is converted to heroin, two to four times as potent, increases the value by a similar factor; the reduced weight and bulk make it easier to smuggle. The Mediterranean region contains the earliest archeological evidence of human use. Evidence from ancient Greece indicates that opium was consumed in several ways, including inhalation of vapors, medical poultices, as a combination with hemlock for suicide; the Sumerian, Egyptian, Minoan, Roman and Arab Empires all made widespread use of opium, the most potent form of pain relief available, allowing ancient surgeons to perform prolonged surgical procedures. Opium is mentioned in the most important medical texts of the ancient world, including the Ebers Papyrus and the writings of Dioscorides and Avicenna. Widespread medical use of unprocessed opium continued through the American Civil War before giving way to morphine and its successors, which could be injected at a controlled dosage.
Opium has been collected since prehistoric times, since 3400 BCE. A common name for males in Afghanistan is "Redey", which in Pashto means "poppy"; this term may be derived from the Sanskrit words rddhi and hrdya, which mean "magical", "a type of medicinal plant", "heart-pleasing", respectively. The upper Asian belt of Afghanistan, northern India, Burma still account for the world's largest supply of opium. At least 17 finds of Papaver somniferum from Neolithic settlements have been reported throughout Switzerland and Spain, including the placement of large numbers of poppy seed capsules at a burial site, which have been carbon-14 dated to 4200 BCE. Numerous finds of P. somniferum or P. setigerum from Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have been reported. The first known cultivation of opium poppies was in Mesopotamia 3400 BCE, by Sumerians, who called the plant hul gil, the "joy plant". Tablets found at Nippur, a Sumerian spiritual center south of Baghdad, described the collection of poppy juice in the morning and its use in production of opium.
Cultivation continued in the Middle East by the Assyrians, who collected poppy juice in the morning after scoring the pods with an iron scoop. Opium production continued under the Egyptians. Opium was used with poison hemlock to put people and painlessly to death, but it was used in medicine. Spongia somnifera, sponges soaked in opium, were used during surgery; the Egyptians cultivated opium thebaicum in famous poppy fields around 1300 BCE. Opium was traded from Egypt by the Phoenicians and Minoans to destinations around the Mediterranean Sea, including Greece and Europe. By 1100 BCE, opium was cultivated on Cyprus, where surgical-quality knives were used to score the poppy pods, opium was cultivated and smoked. Opium was mentioned after the Persian conquest of Assyria and Babylonian lands in the 6th century BCE. From the earliest finds, opium has appeared to have ritual significance, anthropologists have speculated ancient priests may have used the drug as a proof of healing power. In Egypt, the use of opium was restricted to priests and warriors, its invention is credited to Thoth, it was said to have been given by Isis to Ra as treatment for a headache.
A figure of the Minoan "goddess of the narcotics", wearing a crown of three opium poppies, c. 1300 BCE, was recovered from the Sanctuary of Gazi, together with a simple smoking apparatus. The Greek gods Hypnos and Thanatos were depicted wreathed in poppies or holding them. Poppies frequently adorned statues of Apollo, Pluto, Aphrodite and Isis, symbolizing nocturnal oblivion; as the power of the Roman Empire declined, the lands to the south and east of the Mediterranean Sea became incorporated into the Islamic Empires. Some Muslims believe hadiths, such as in Sahih Bukhari, prohibits every intoxicating substance, though the use of intoxicants in medicine has been wi
First Transcontinental Railroad
The First Transcontinental Railroad was a 1,912-mile continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U. S. rail network at Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. Construction was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds; the Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 mi of track from Oakland/Alameda to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California constructed 690 mi eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory; the Union Pacific built 1,085 mi from the road's eastern terminus at Council Bluffs near Omaha, Nebraska westward to Promontory Summit. The railroad opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869 when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially drove the gold "Last Spike" with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit.
The coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West. It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast quicker and less expensive. Paddle steamers linked Sacramento to the cities and their harbor facilities in the San Francisco Bay until 1869, when the CPRR completed and opened the Western Pacific grade to Alameda and Oakland; the first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus at the Alameda Mole on September 6, 1869 where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco. The road's rail terminus was moved two months to the Oakland Long Wharf about a mile to the north. Service between San Francisco and Oakland Pier continued to be provided by ferry; the CPRR purchased 53 miles of UPRR-built grade from Promontory Summit to Ogden, Utah Territory, which became the interchange point between trains of the two roads.
The transcontinental line was popularly known as the Overland Route after the principal passenger rail service that operated over the length of the line until 1962. Building a railroad line that connected the United States coast-to-coast was advocated in 1832 when Dr. Hartwell Carver published an article in the New York Courier & Enquirer advocating building a transcontinental railroad from Lake Michigan to Oregon. In 1847 he submitted to the U. S. Congress a "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean", seeking a congressional charter to support his idea. Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the Department of War, the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855; these included an extensive series of expeditions of the American West seeking possible routes. A report on the explorations described alternative routes and included an immense amount of information about the American West, covering at least 400,000 sq mi.
It included the region's natural history and illustrations of reptiles, amphibians and mammals. The report failed however to include detailed topographic maps of potential routes needed to estimate the feasibility and select the best route; the survey was detailed enough to determine that the best southern route lay south of the Gila River boundary with Mexico in vacant desert, through the future territories of Arizona and New Mexico. This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase. In 1856 the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the US House of Representatives published a report recommending support for a proposed Pacific railroad bill: The necessity that now exists for constructing lines of railroad and telegraphic communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this continent is no longer a question for argument. In order to maintain our present position on the Pacific, we must have some more speedy and direct means of intercourse than is at present afforded by the route through the possessions of a foreign power.
The U. S. Congress was divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city. Three routes were considered: A northern route along the Missouri River through present-day northern Montana to Oregon Territory; this was considered impractical due to extensive winter snows. A central route following the Platte River in Nebraska through to the South Pass in Wyoming, following most of the Oregon Trail. Snow on this route remained a concern. A southern route across Texas, New Mexico Territory, the Sonora desert, connecting to Los Angeles, California. Surveyors found during an 1848 survey that the best route lay south of the border between the United States and Mexico; this was resolved by the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. Once the central route was chosen, it was obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento, but there was considerable difference of opinion about the eastern terminus. Three locations along 250 miles of Missouri River were considered: St. Joseph, accessed via the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad.
Kansas City, Kansas / Leavenworth, Kansas accessed via the Leavenworth and Western Railroad, controlled by Thomas Ewing Jr. and by John C. Fremont. Council Bluffs, Iowa / Omaha, accessed via an extension of Union Pacific financier Thomas C. Durant's proposed Mississippi and
Legitimacy (criminal law)
In law, "legitimacy" is distinguished from "legality". An action can be legal but not legitimate or vice versa it can be legitimate but not legal. Thomas Hilbink suggests that the power to compel obedience to the law, is derived from the power to sway public opinion, to the belief that the law and its agents are legitimate and deserving of this obedience. Where as Tyler says,'Legitimacy is...a psychological property of an authority, institution, or social arrangement, that leads those connected to it to believe that it is appropriate and just’. Thus viewed, the legal legitimacy is the belief that the law and agents of the law are rightful holders of authority. Peter Kropotkin suggests that, Acceptance to rule of law developed in response to the rampant abuse of authority by the nobility. "Whatever this law might be," Kropotkin writes, "it promised to affect peasant alike. To establish that a government action can be legal whilst not being legitimate, it is possible for a government action to be legitimate without being legal.
An example of such matters arises. Legitimacy is the right to the recognition by the ruled of that right. Social institutions need legitimacy if they are to develop and reproduce themselves effectively; this is as true for the police. But peculiar to the police function is the statesponsored use of violence and force, the resolution of conflict, the enforcement of legally-prescribed conduct and rule-following. Police legitimacy and public consent are necessary conditions of the justifiable use of state power: those who are subject to policing must see the police as right and proper. By linking legitimacy to public compliance, Tyler’s work generates a psychology of authorization and consent; the legitimacy of the police and the law leads to a respect for legal guidelines for action that dictates appropriate and binding behaviour. These guidelines may not be aligned with everyone’s moral system. We do not always agree with the moral force of every law, but legitimacy involves the public recognition that the social order needs a system of laws that generate compliance and respect above and beyond individual preferences with specific laws.
When people believe it is morally just to obey the law, so long as they know that a particular act is illegal the immorality of illegal behaviour becomes a given. A different sort of morality ‘kicks in.’ Naturally, there are other reasons why individuals do comply with the law. According to Lawrence Solum, since legitimacy has different shades of meaning and is undertheorized, it is easy to make claims about legitimacy that are ambiguous or theoretically unsound so one needs to be extra care full before deploying the idea of legitimacy. Compliance may be related in large part to habitual or routinized orientations. If one complies with the law because such compliance is ‘ingrained in everyday life’, it is unlikely that one will perceive breaking the law as an option when confronted with a situation which, objectively at least, offers such an opportunity. There will be those who are deterred by the presence of formal or informal mechanisms of social control. Genetic and psychological factors may be an influence.
Acceptance Legitimacy Legal anthropology Narrative Rational-legal authority http://www.umass.edu/legal/Hilbink/250/S07%20model2.pdf http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2010/01/legal-theory-lexicon-legitimacy.html http://www.legalanthology.ch/globalization/3-contributions/types-of-reception/ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901885 Max Weber By Frank Parkin Extra-Legal Power and Legitimacy: Perspectives on Prerogative edited by Clement Fatovic, Benjamin A. Kleinerman Narration and Narrative in Legal Discourse Legal Anthropology: An Introduction By James M. Donovan
Bitters
A bitters is traditionally an alcoholic preparation flavored with botanical matter so that the end result is characterized by a bitter, sour, or bittersweet flavor. Numerous longstanding brands of bitters were developed as patent medicines, but now are sold as digestifs, sometimes with herbal properties, cocktail flavorings; the botanical ingredients used in preparing bitters have consisted of aromatic herbs, roots, and/or fruit for their flavour and medicinal properties. Some of the more common ingredients are cascarilla, gentian, orange peel, cinchona bark. Most bitters contain both water and alcohol, the latter of which functions as a solvent for botanical extracts as well as a preservative; the alcoholic strength of bitters varies across different brands and styles. The earliest origins of bitters can be traced back as far as the ancient Egyptians, who may have infused medicinal herbs in jars of wine; this practice was further developed during the Middle Ages, where the availability of distilled alcohol coincided with a renaissance in pharmacognosy, which made possible far more concentrated herbal bitters and tonic preparations.
Many of the various brands and styles of digestive bitters made today reflect herbal stomachic and tonic preparations whose roots are claimed to be traceable back to Renaissance era pharmacopeia and traditions. By the 19th century, the British practice of adding herbal bitters to Canary wine had become immensely popular in the former American colonies. By 1806, American publications referenced the popularity of a new preparation termed cocktail, described as a combination of “a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar and bitters.”Of the commercial aromatic bitters that would emerge from this period the most well known is Angostura bitters. In spite of its name, the preparation contains no medicinal bark from the angostura tree. In 1824, German physician Dr. Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert compounded a cure for sea sickness and stomach maladies, among other medicinal uses. Dr. Siegert subsequently formed the House of Angostura to sell the bitters to sailors. Another renowned aromatic bitters with 19th-century roots is Peychaud's Bitters, which were developed by apothecary Antoine Amédée Peychaud in New Orleans, is most associated with the Sazerac cocktail.
A broadly popular style of bitters that emerged from the period is orange bitters, the flavor of which ranges from dryly aromatic to fruity, is most made from the rinds of Seville oranges and various spices. Orange bitters are called for in older cocktail recipes. An early recipe for such bitters can be found in the The English and Australian Cookery Book: "Make your own bitters as follows, we can vouch for their superiority. One ounce and a half of gentian-root, one ounce and a half of lemon-peel, one ounce and a half of orange-peel. Steep these ingredients for about a month in a quart of sherry, strain and bottle for use. Bitters are a fine stomachic, but they must be used with caution." Bitters prepared from the tree bark containing the antimalarial quinine were included in historical cocktail recipes, which served to mask the intensely bitter flavor of this medicine. Trace quantities of quinine are still included as a flavoring in tonic water, used today in drinks with gin. Pioneering mixologist Jerry Thomas was responsible for an increase in the popularity of bitters in the United States when he released How to Mix Drinks or The Bon-Vivant's Companion in 1862.
Digestive bitters are consumed either neat or with ice at the end of a meal in many European and South American countries. Many, including popular Italian-style amaros and German-style Kräuter liquors, are used in cocktails as well; some notable examples of digestive bitters available today include: Cocktail bitters are used for flavoring cocktails in drops or dashes. In the United States, many cocktail bitters are classified as alcoholic non-beverage products; as alcoholic non-beverage products, they are available from retailers who do not sell liquor, such as supermarkets in many US states. Some notable examples of cocktail bitters include: Angostura bitters – from Venezuela in 1830 from Trinidad and Tobago Boker’s Bitters – called for in many cocktails in Jerry Thomas' drink guide, many believe he misspelled it as Bogart's bitters, it is essential to the Martinez cocktail. Peychaud's Bitters – from New Orleans, but now produced in Kentucky Amaro Digestif Flavored liquor Gentian Kräuterlikör Orange bitters Purl Shrub Swedish bitters
Topical medication
A topical medication is a medication, applied to a particular place on or in the body. Most topical administration means application to body surfaces such as the skin or mucous membranes to treat ailments via a large range of classes including creams, gels and ointments. Many topical medications are epicutaneous. Topical medications may be inhalational, such as asthma medications, or applied to the surface of tissues other than the skin, such as eye drops applied to the conjunctiva, or ear drops placed in the ear, or medications applied to the surface of a tooth; the word topical derives from Greek τοπικός topikos, "of a place". The definition of the topical route of administration sometimes states that both the application location and the pharmacodynamic effect thereof is local. In other cases, topical is defined as applied to a localized area of the body or to the surface of a body part regardless of the location of the effect. By this definition, topical administration includes transdermal application, where the substance is administered onto the skin but is absorbed into the body to attain systemic distribution.
Such medications are hydrophobic chemicals, such as steroid hormones. Specific types include transdermal patches which have become a popular means of administering some drugs for birth control, hormone replacement therapy, prevention of motion sickness. One example of an antibiotic that may be applied topically is chloramphenicol. If defined as having local effect, the topical route of administration can include enteral administration of medications that are poorly absorbable by the gastrointestinal tract. One poorly absorbable antibiotic is vancomycin, recommended by mouth as a treatment for severe Clostridium difficile colitis. A medication's potency is changed with its base. For example, some topical steroids will be classified one or two strengths higher when moving from cream to ointment; as a rule of thumb, an ointment base is more occlusive and will drive the medication into the skin more than a solution or cream base. The manufacturer of each topical product has total control over the content of the base of a medication.
Although containing the same active ingredients, one manufacturer's cream might be more acidic than the next, which could cause skin irritation or change its absorption rate. For example, a vaginal formulation of miconazole antifungal cream might irritate the skin less than an athlete foot formulation of miconazole cream; these variations can, on occasion, result in different clinical outcomes though the active ingredient is the same. No comparative potency labeling exists to ensure equal efficacy between brands of topical steroids. Studies have confirmed that the potency of some topical steroid products may differ according to manufacturer or brand. An example of this is the case of brand name Valisone cream and Kenalog cream in clinical studies have demonstrated better vasoconstrictions than some forms of this drug produced by generic drug manufacturers. However, in a simple base like an ointment, much less variation between manufacturers is common. In dermatology, the base of a topical medication is as important as the medication itself.
It is important to receive a medication in the correct base, before applying to the skin. A pharmacist should not substitute an ointment for a cream, or vice versa, as the potency of the medication can change; some physicians use a thick ointment to replace the waterproof barrier of the inflamed skin in the treatment of eczema, a cream might not accomplish the same clinical intention There are many general classes, with no clear dividing line between similar formulations. As a result, what the manufacturer's marketing department chooses to list on the label of a topical medication might be different from what the form would be called. For example, Eucerin "cream" is more appropriately described as an ointment than as a cream. Topical solutions can be marketed as rinses, sprays, or drops, are of low viscosity and use water or alcohol in the base; the solution can cause drying of the skin. These are a powder dissolved in water and sometimes oil. Alcohol in topical steroids can cause drying if it is used as a base ingredient.
There is significant variability between brands. There is a risk of irritation, depending on the preservative and fragrances used in the base; some examples of topical solutions are given below: Aluminium acetate topical solution: This is colorless, with a faint acetous odour and sweetish taste. It is applied topically as an astringent after dilution with 10-40 parts of water; this is used in many types of dermatologic lotions and pastes. Commercial packed tablets and powders are available for this preparation. Povidone iodine topical solution: This is a chemical complex of iodine with polyvinylpyrrolidone, the agent being a polymer having an average molecular weight of 40,000; the povidone iodine contains 10% available iodine released when applied to skin. This preparation is employed topically as a surgical scrub and non irritating antiseptic solution, with its effectiveness being directly attributed to the presence and release of iodine from the complex. Commercial product: Betadine solution.
Lotions are similar to solutions but are thicker and tend to be more emollient in nature than solution. They are an oil mixed with water, more than not have less alcohol than solutions. Lotions can be drying. There is a significant variability in the ingre
Peddler
A peddler, in British English pedlar known as a canvasser, cheapjack, higler, monger, or solicitor, is a traveling vendor of goods. In England, the term was used for travellers hawking goods in the countryside to small towns and villages. In London more specific terms were used, such as costermonger. Peddlers have a colourful history. From antiquity, peddlers filled the gaps in the formal market economy by providing consumers with the convenience of door-to-door service, they operated alongside town markets and fairs where they purchased surplus stocks which were subsequently resold to consumers. Peddlers were able to distribute goods to the more geographically isolated communities such as those who lived in mountainous regions of Europe, they called on consumers, who for whatever reason, found it difficult to attend town markets. Thus, peddlers played an important role in linking these consumers and regions to wider trade routes; some peddlers worked as agents or travelling salesmen for larger manufacturers, thus were the precursor to the modern travelling salesman.
Images of peddlers feature in art from as early as the 12th-century. Such images were popular with the genre and Orientalist painters and photographers of the 18th and 19th centuries; some imagery depicts peddlers in a pejorative manner, while others portray idealised, Romantic visions of peddlers at work. The origin of the word, known in English since 1225, is uncertain, but is an Anglicised version of the French pied, Latin pes, pedis "foot", referring to a petty trader travelling on foot. A peddler, under English law, is defined as: “any hawker, petty chapman, caster of metals, mender of chairs, or other person who, without any horse or other beast bearing or drawing burden and trades on foot and goes from town to town or to other men’s houses, carrying to sell or exposing for sale any goods, wares, or merchandise to be delivered, or selling or offering for sale his skill in handicraft." The main distinction between peddlers and other types of street vendor is that peddlers travel as they trade, rather than travel to a fixed place of trade.
Peddlers travel around and approach potential customers directly whereas street traders set up a pitch or a stall and wait for customers to approach them. When not engaged in selling, peddlers are required to keep moving. Although peddlers may stop to make a sale, they are precluded from setting up a pitch or remaining in the same place for lengthy periods. Although peddlers travel by foot, there is no reason why they cannot use some means of assistance, such as a cart or a trolley, to assist in the transportation of goods. Peddlers have been known since antiquity and earlier, they were known by a variety of names throughout the ages, including Arabber, costermonger, huckster, itinerant vendor or street vendor. According to marketing historian, Eric Shaw, the peddler is "perhaps the only substantiated type of retail marketing practice that evolved from Neolithic times to the present." The political philosopher, John Stuart Mill wrote that "even before the resources of society permitted the establishment of shops, the supply of wants fell universally into the hands of itinerant dealers, the pedlars who might appear once a month, being preferred to the fair, which only returned once a year."Typically, peddlers operated door-to-door, plied the streets or stationed themselves at the fringes of formal trade venues such as open air markets or fairs.
In the Greco-Roman world, open-air markets served urban customers, while peddlers filled in the gaps in distribution by selling to rural or geographically distant customers. In the Bible the term ` peddler' was used to describe those; the book of Corinthians has the following phrase, "For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God.". The Greek term translated "peddling" referred to small-scale merchant who profited from acting as a middleman between others; the Apocrypha has the following, "A merchant shall hardly keep himself from doing wrong. In some economies the work of itinerant selling was left to nomadic minorities, such as gypsies, travellers, or Yeniche who offered a varied assortment of goods and services, both evergreens and novelties. In 19th century USA, peddling was the occupation of immigrant communities including Italians and Jews; the more colourful peddlers were those that doubled as healers, or fortune-tellers. Peddlers used a variety of different transport modes: they travelled by foot, carrying their wares.
Abram Goodman, who took to peddling in the US in the 1840s, reports that he travelled by foot, used a sleigh when roads were snowbound and travelled, with his pack, by boat when traversing longer distances. As market towns flourished in medieval Europe, peddlers found a role operating on the fringes of the formal economy, they called directly on homes, delivering produce to the door thereby saving customers time travelling to markets or fairs. However, customers paid a higher price for this convenience; some peddlers operated out of inns or taverns, where they acted as an agent rather than a reseller. Peddlers played an important role providing services to geographically isolated districts, such as in the mountainous regions of Europe, thereby linking these districts with wider trading routes. A 16th-century commentator wrote of the: “many pedlars and chapmen, that from fair to fai
Clark Stanley
Clark Stanley, the self-styled "Rattlesnake King," marketed snake oil as a patent medicine. Stanley claimed that, starting in 1879, after eleven years working as a cowboy, he studied for more than two years with a Hopi medicine man at Walpi, Arizona; this included learning the "secrets of snake oil". With the help of a Boston druggist he began marketing his product at Western medicine shows. In 1893 he and his rattlesnakes gained attention at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, he went on to establish production facilities in Beverly and Providence, Rhode Island. In 1916, subsequent to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, Stanley's concoction was examined and found to be of no value, it was found to contain mineral oil, a fatty compound thought to be from beef, capsaicin from chili peppers, turpentine. He was fined $20.00. The term "snake oil" became well established to mean a worthless concoction sold as medicine. Hurley, Dan. "The Rattlesnake King. Natural Causes: Death and Politics in America's Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Industry".
Archived from the original on July 9, 2011
