View allAll Photos Tagged Devastatingly
With devastating kicks and punches, the Fusa is not a Rahi to be trifled with. While their hopping mode of locomotion may look silly, they are very efficient, able to travel long distances in search of food and water. They have a large stomach pouch in which they store extra water and food for later.
Imperial affliction, such as flood, has been hugely devastating here in Wisconsin. I wish those who suffer may recover soon.
********************************************
There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.
None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.
When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.
~ Emily Dickinson
********************************************
*Taken with my friend's 350D
Ladli — which in Indian languages (Hindi and Urdu) means ‘beloved daughter.’
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Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India and other Asian countries. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In 1957, Valencia experienced a devastating flood that forever changed the city’s relationship with the Turia River. Nearly three quarters of the city was inundated by floodwater and over 60 people lost their lives. The following year, the city embraced a plan to divert the river around its western outskirts to the Mediterranean Sea.
The ambitious plan, known as “Plan Sur,” was completed in 1969. Although the new channel was a missed opportunity for renewal and innovation, the remnants of the old riverbed became a chance to create the landscape network which became today’s Jardín del Turia. But actually, a park wasn’t the aldermen first idea. In an effort to alleviate traffic congestion and to connect the hinterland more with the beach for economic reasons, they envisioned an elaborate highway system through the heart of the City. But by 1970 the citizens pushed back and protested the highway proposal. Their statement “The bed of Turia is ours and we want green!” By the end of the decade, the City approved legislation to turn the riverbed into a park and commissioned Ricard Bofill to create a master plan in 1982. The plan created a framework for the riverbed and divided it into 18 zones. Currently, all but one of the zones has been developed.
The resulting design establishes a monumental five-mile green ribbon within a dense and diverse urban fabric, including the historic center of the city. It has an average span of 600 feet from bank to bank. The park comprises over 450 acres and is characterized by bike paths, event spaces, active recreation fields, fountains, and many notable structures, such as the Alameda Bridge by Santiago Calatrava.
Technical stuff
This panorama consists of 16 individual – handheld – photos. It spans an angle of about 190 degrees. I merged them with the Photomerge tool in PS CC. For a good result the individual images should overlap by approximately 40%. But don’t go beyond 70%. It’s my experience that PS isn’t able to take it all in.
The merge resulted into a rather good baseline. I had to rework some small parts, but nothing really difficult. After that, I imported the image in Aurora HDR 2018. Before doing that, I had to resize the image to less then 14750 pixels length-wise. For some reason Aurora (the stand-alone version) doesn’t allow for bigger images to be exported TIFF or any other format. If anyone knows why, please feel free to comment. I’m really curious why.
As always I added copyright watermarks. Alas, they’re there to stay due to the frequent copying of my photos. So, don't bother commenting on that.
Zabala Reformed Church, rebuilt after the devastating earthquake of 1473, is a landmark of late Gothic architecture in Transylvania in the 15th century.
Then the sanctuary was enlarged, the walls of the nave were raised and in the south wall of the nave were opened ogival windows which retain Gothic moldings with simple but varied patterns. From the 15th century the sanctuary had a Gothic ribbed vault, but due to frequent earthquakes it deteriorated in the 18th century and was demolished. In its place was built in 1759 a coffered ceiling painted with floral ornaments in the Renaissance style. The floral models in the Oriental Gallery, made in 1764, were painted in 1895, in honor of the 1000th anniversary of the Hungarians' establishment in the Pannonian Plain.
For centuries this fortified church has also played an important role in the defense of the region. The defensive wall surrounding the church, which once reached a height of 8 m, was built in the 15th century but demolished in 1838 to its present height.
My heart goes out to all those who have been affected by the devastating tragedy in the province to our east, after a collision on Friday (6 April 2018) between a Saskatchewan junior hockey team’s bus and a tractor-trailer in rural Saskatchewan. That afternoon, the Broncos junior hockey team of Humboldt, Saskatchewan, were en route to a playoff game in Nipawin. Twenty-nine people were on board the team bus. Fifteen people were killed, including the coach, assistant coach, bus driver and a team announcer. Others remain in hospital. The tractor-trailer driver survived. There has been such a huge outpouring from people across Canada, and beyond. Such sadness, especially as so many young lives lost.
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Though I have already completed the mammoth task of documenting our amazing holiday in Trinidad & Tobago, 12-21 March 2017, I still have a few odds and ends that I want to add, mainly birds photographed at the Asa Wright Centre, like this one. I'm just not getting out to see new things and take new photos. Winter is dragging on and on and on, but also I have so many things that have to be a priority for the time being. It has taken me just over a year to edit and post 773 photos from this trip, as of today!
This was just one of several species of Hummingbird that my six friends and I were lucky enough to see on our trip to Trinidad & Tobago. Though this species is found on both islands, this one was photographed on 20 March 2017, at the Asa Wright Nature Centre, high up in the Northern Range mountains of Trinidad. I seem to have ended up with a lot more photos of this species than any other, so I hope you aren't getting bored of seeing them : )
"The white-necked jacobin (Florisuga mellivora) is a large and attractive hummingbird that ranges from Mexico, south to Peru, Bolivia and south Brazil. It is also found on Tobago (sub-species F. m. flabellifera) and in Trinidad (sub-species F. m. mellivora)
Other common names are great jacobin and collared hummingbird.
The white-necked jacobin is a widespread inhabitant of forest, usually being seen at a high perch or just above the canopy. It is less common at lower levels, except near hummingbird feeders.
The approximately 12 cm long male white-necked jacobin is unmistakable with its white belly and tail, a white band on the nape and a dark blue hood. Immature males have less white in the tail and a conspicuous rufous patch in the malar region. Females are highly variable, and may resemble adult or immature males, have green upperparts, white belly, white-scaled green or blue throat, and white-scaled dark blue crissum (the area around the cloaca), or be intermediate between the aforementioned plumages, though retain the white-scaled dark blue crissum. Females are potentially confusing, but the pattern on the crissum is distinctive and not shared by superficially similar species.
These birds usually visit flowers of tall trees and epiphytes for nectar, and also hawk for insects." From Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-necked_jacobin
This adventure was only the second holiday of any kind, anywhere, that I have had in something like 30 or 35 years! The other holiday was a wonderful, one-week trip with my dear friends from England, Linda and Tony, when we went down south to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons in September 2012. I have had maybe half a dozen weekends away, including to Waterton National Park, which have helped keep me going.
Six birding/photographer friends and I decided that we would take this exciting trip together (from 12-21 March 2017), spending the first two or three days on the island of Tobago and then the rest of the time at the Asa Wright Nature Centre on the nearby, much larger island of Trinidad. We decided to take a complete package, so everything was included - accommodation at both places, all our food, and the various walks and day trips that we could choose from. Two of my friends, Anne B. and Brenda, saw to all the planning of flights and accommodations, which was so very much appreciated by the rest of us. I could never have done all this myself! We were so lucky with our flights, as we were just in time to get Black Friday prices, which were 50% off!
What a time we had, seeing so many beautiful and interesting things - and, of course, everything was a lifer for me. Some of these friends had visited Costa Rica before, so were familiar with some of the birds. There was a lot more to see on Trinidad, so we were glad that we chose Tobago to visit first and then spend a longer time at Asa Wright. It was wonderful to be right by the sea, though, at the Blue Waters Inn on the island of Tobago. Just gorgeous.
The Asa Wright Nature Centre, on Trinidad, is such an amazing place! We stayed in cabins up or down hill from the main building. Really, one doesn't need to travel away from the Centre for birding, as so many different species visit the Hummingbird feeders that are right by the huge, open veranda, and the trees of the rain forest high up the mountainous road. The drive up and down this narrow, twisting, pot-holed road was an adventure in itself! Never would I ever do this drive myself - we had a guide who drove us everywhere in a minibus. I had read many accounts of this road, lol! There was enough room for two vehicles to pass each other, and the honking of horns was almost continuous - either to warn any vehicle that might be coming fast around the next bend or as a sign that drivers knew each other. The drive along this road, from the coast to Asa Wright, took just over an hour each way.
I still miss the great food that was provided every single day at Asa Wright and even the Rum Punch that appeared each evening. I never drink at all, so I wasn't sure if I would even try the Punch - glad I did, though, as it was delicious and refreshing. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all served buffet-style, with a great variety of dishes from which to choose. To me, pure luxury. So very, very grateful to have been invited to be part of this amazing adventure.
This is a video that I came across on YouTube, taken by Rigdon Currie and Trish Johnson, at many of the same places we visited on Trinidad and Tobago. Not my video, but it made me feel like I was right there still. Posting the link here again, so that I won't lose it.
I also came across the following 27-minute YouTube video of the flora and fauna of Trinidad, filmed by John Patrick Smith in February 2015.
Ladli — which in Indian languages (Hindi and Urdu) means ‘beloved daughter.’
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LADLI - The loved one! campaign by SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIC
Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
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"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. The 2001 Census conducted by Government of India, showed a sharp decline in the child sex ratio in 80% districts of India. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000.
It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
Over the years, laws have been made stricter and the punishment too is more stringent now. But since many people manage to evade punishment, others too feel inclined to take the risk. Just look at the way sex-determination tests go on despite a stiff ban on them. Only if the message goes out loud and clear that nobody who dares to snuff out the life of a female foetus would escape effective legal system would the practice end. It is only by a combination of monitoring, education, socio-cultural campaigns, and effective legal implementation that the deep-seated attitudes and practices against women and girls can be eroded.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Zabala Reformed Church, rebuilt after the devastating earthquake of 1473, is a landmark of late Gothic architecture in Transylvania in the 15th century.
Then the sanctuary was enlarged, the walls of the nave were raised and in the south wall of the nave were opened ogival windows which retain Gothic moldings with simple but varied patterns. From the 15th century the sanctuary had a Gothic ribbed vault, but due to frequent earthquakes it deteriorated in the 18th century and was demolished. In its place was built in 1759 a coffered ceiling painted with floral ornaments in the Renaissance style. The floral models in the Oriental Gallery, made in 1764, were painted in 1895, in honor of the 1000th anniversary of the Hungarians' establishment in the Pannonian Plain.
For centuries this fortified church has also played an important role in the defense of the region. The defensive wall surrounding the church, which once reached a height of 8 m, was built in the 15th century but demolished in 1838 to its present height.
After the devastating winter rainfall which commenced in early January, a swollen River Ouse can be seen passing under the Scarborough Railway Bridge in York. this bridge carries the line from York Scarborough, and a Firs Transpennine Express Class 185 can be seen passing over the bridge destined for Scarborough.
History of the Valerie Theatre:
Mrs. Pearl G. Maddox built the Valerie Theatre in 1927, naming it the Valerie after her daughter. It was considered one of the most modern and beautiful theaters in the area. Mrs. Maddox furnished the theatre with velour curtains, a brightly lit marquee and an electric air circulation machine. In the early years, the theatre ran silent movies with a in house pianist who played scores along to the film. The first movie shown was “The Only Woman” in 1927 and the last was “The Untouchables” in 1987.
Herbert Pittman of Clearwater leased the theater when “talking equipment” was installed. Prices were 10 cents for children and 25 cents for adults. At a time when other towns prohibited Sunday shows, City Council boldly adopted a resolution to permit Sunday movies, boosting trade in the City and making the theatre a social focal point for many years. The theater was closed for a short time for reconstruction purposes after a devastating fire in 1939.
In 1961, filming began in Citrus, Marion and Levy County for the movie “Follow That Dream” staring Elvis Presley, daily clips from the movie were viewed with Elvis in attendance at the Valerie. The courthouse scene took place in the heart of downtown inverness, at the Citrus County Old Courthouse which has been restored and is now a museum. The Valerie remained vacant from 1987 until the city purchased it in 2009. With community involvement and detailed planning, a grand reopening was held for the Valerie Theatre Cultural Center in June 2015. The Valerie is now run by The City of Inverness.
for the data above is given to the following websites:
www.citruspa.org/_web/datalets/datalet.aspx?mode=commerci...
cinematreasures.org/theaters/20491
inverness.gov/636/Valeries-History
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
Me having a walk in the aftermath of the devastating storm on Duffins trail in Discovery bay , Martin’s photographs , Ajax , Ontario , Canada , May 21. 2022
Me having a walk in the aftermath of the devastating storm
Looking down at the front end of my bicycle
Bicycle
Hours after the destructive storm of 21 May 2022
old apple trees with beautiful blossoms
old orchard on the waterfront trail of Lake Ontario
blue sky in Squires beach
May 2022
Blossoms
Flowering trees
apple trees with blossoms
old orchard on the waterfront trail
Old orchard
Trees with blossoms
vista with colourful trees ,
bulrushes
tall grasses
the large stone block walls
system to keep the Carp from entering Duffins marsh and creek system
viewed from the bridge across the marsh in Squires beach
Having a nice walk with granny in the woods
Family
Sunset
May 2022
Shrubs
Oak tree
Trees
Stones
Reflections
Reflection
Dogwood
Orange yellow Tamarack tree
Duffins trail
blue sky
cloud cover
yellow Tamarack tree
Tamarack tree
Tamarac
American Larch tree
Beautiful Nettles and it’s flowers
Nettles
Waterfront trail on Lake Ontario
Waterfront trail of Lake Ontario
Black eye Susan’s
Colourful bird houses
Autumn
Shadows
Reflections
Garter snake
Large mushroom
Bird houses
Autumn
Duffins creek
Discovery bay
cropped photograph
closeup photograph
Martin’s photographs
Ajax
Ontario
Canada
Duffins creek
Favourites
IPhone XR
Mushroom
Large Mushroom
wildflowers
Trout lilies
Lake Ontario
Mouth of Duffins creek marsh
white Deadnetles
River
Dogwood
Woods
Granny
Favourites
White Trilliums
Duffins marsh
Duffins trail
Ferns
Trilliums
Large tree
iPhone 6s
Looking down at the front end of my bicycle on the fourth day after the devastating storm damage of May 21 on Duffins trail in Discovery bay , Martin’s photographs , Ajax , Ontario , Canada , May 24. 2022
Looking down at the front end of my bicycle
Bicycle
Four days after the destructive storm of 21 May 2022
old apple trees with beautiful blossoms
old orchard on the waterfront trail of Lake Ontario
blue sky in Squires beach
May 2022
Blossoms
Flowering trees
apple trees with blossoms
old orchard on the waterfront trail
Old orchard
Trees with blossoms
vista with colourful trees ,
bulrushes
tall grasses
the large stone block walls
system to keep the Carp from entering Duffins marsh and creek system
viewed from the bridge across the marsh in Squires beach
Having a nice walk with granny in the woods
Family
Sunset
May 2022
Shrubs
Oak tree
Trees
Stones
Reflections
Reflection
Dogwood
Orange yellow Tamarack tree
Duffins trail
blue sky
cloud cover
yellow Tamarack tree
Tamarack tree
Tamarac
American Larch tree
Beautiful Nettles and it’s flowers
Nettles
Waterfront trail on Lake Ontario
Waterfront trail of Lake Ontario
Black eye Susan’s
Colourful bird houses
Autumn
Shadows
Reflections
Garter snake
Large mushroom
Bird houses
Autumn
Duffins creek
Discovery bay
cropped photograph
closeup photograph
Martin’s photographs
Ajax
Ontario
Canada
Duffins creek
Favourites
IPhone XR
Mushroom
Large Mushroom
wildflowers
Trout lilies
Lake Ontario
Mouth of Duffins creek marsh
white Deadnetles
River
Dogwood
Woods
Granny
Favourites
White Trilliums
Duffins marsh
Duffins trail
Ferns
Trilliums
Large tree
Ladli — which in Indian languages (Hindi and Urdu) means ‘beloved daughter.’
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India and other Asian countries. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The fascinating and devastating story of a lawyer who used to defend DES-makers until he discovered his was a DES son.
by John Saar, 09 May 1983
More about DES Sons:
A “Letter from a DES Survivor”, a DES Son Testimonial by Larry Murphy
Take the Quiz: DES Sons - the Truth and the Unknown
DES Sons numbers and studies. DES and gender identity.
Our posts tagged: DES Sons - DES - DES-exposed - NCBI
Attention escort pilots: A new threat from the secretive Hellionic Conclave has emerged. Already being called the "Devil's Talon," the small ship appears to be built around a single devastating neutron cannon of the type typically found on much larger ships. Be advised that while its recharge time between shots is significant, a single hit can take down lightly armored fighters. Treat this ship with respect.
My entry for the Show Us What You Got contest.
Koski Mehmed Pasha Mosque - Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Even after the ravages of a devastating war, Mostar has risen like the proverbial Phoenix, and not only the historic Stari Most bridge, but further down the Neretva river banks, there are more beautiful sights are to be behold.
On the left bank of the Neretva river, just about 150 metres north of the Old Bridge, stands the second biggest mosque in Mostar - the Koski-Mehmed Pasha Mosque. Construction of the mosque took a few years after it started in the early 17th century, and was completed in 1619. Visitors are allowed to climb the minaret, which offers a panoramic view of the city. Like most buildings in the old town of Mostar, the Koksi Mehmed Pasha Mosque was seriously damaged during the war in the 1990s and was later restored.
Camera/Lens: Nikon D700; 24-70mm f/2.8;
Exposure: 30 sec Aperture: f/10; ISO: 100;
Copyright 2012 - Yen Baet - All Rights Reserved.
Do not use any of my images without permission.
This view shows how devastating the fire was to the forest. This picture was taken at around 7,000 feet in elevations and nothing is growing in this area yet. The cold weather has kept the ground plants from being able to germinate yet. The only colors I saw around here were brown and black.
In the lower elevations the flowers are starting to grow and the area will probably look pretty awesome in about a month. This area will need to warm up a little bit to catch up.
If you look in the distance at the mountain covered in snow, the fire started on the other side of that mountain. I drove the Sierra Vista Scenic Byway and for 30 miles I saw nothing but burnt land from the Creek Fire. When you think about how far the fire traveled to get to where I took this picture, it is pretty mind boggling. The fire burned just shy of 400,000 acres of land or 330 square miles. That is a lot of burned land.
The fascinating and devastating story of a lawyer who used to defend DES-makers until he discovered his was a DES son.
by John Saar, 09 May 1983
More about DES Sons:
A “Letter from a DES Survivor”, a DES Son Testimonial by Larry Murphy
Take the Quiz: DES Sons - the Truth and the Unknown
DES Sons numbers and studies. DES and gender identity.
Our posts tagged: DES Sons - DES - DES-exposed - NCBI
Ladli — which in Indian languages (Hindi and Urdu) means ‘beloved daughter.’
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
LADLI - The loved one! campaign by SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIC
Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. The 2001 Census conducted by Government of India, showed a sharp decline in the child sex ratio in 80% districts of India. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000.
It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
Over the years, laws have been made stricter and the punishment too is more stringent now. But since many people manage to evade punishment, others too feel inclined to take the risk. Just look at the way sex-determination tests go on despite a stiff ban on them. Only if the message goes out loud and clear that nobody who dares to snuff out the life of a female foetus would escape effective legal system would the practice end. It is only by a combination of monitoring, education, socio-cultural campaigns, and effective legal implementation that the deep-seated attitudes and practices against women and girls can be eroded.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ladli — which in Indian languages (Hindi and Urdu) means ‘beloved daughter.’
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India and other Asian countries. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The fascinating and devastating story of a lawyer who used to defend DES-makers until he discovered his was a DES son.
by John Saar, 09 May 1983
More about DES Sons:
A “Letter from a DES Survivor”, a DES Son Testimonial by Larry Murphy
Take the Quiz: DES Sons - the Truth and the Unknown
DES Sons numbers and studies. DES and gender identity.
Our posts tagged: DES Sons - DES - DES-exposed - NCBI
Kaikoura New Zealand where the mountains meet the sea.
A devastating 7.8 earthquake hit Kaikoura and surrounding districts causing massive destruction just after midnight on the 14th November 2016.
Two people lost their lives. State Highway 1 that runs up and down the coast was completely blocked off by landsides and deep trenches in the road both north and south of Kaikoura. Many houses and businesses premises were wrecked; There was no communications, water or sewerage. The only way in or out for a few days was by air.
There were 1200 tourists stranded and they had to be either air lifted by helicopter or shipped by Navy frigate to Christchurch. The seabed has lifted up to 2 metres causing crayfish, paua and fish to be left high and dry and dying above the high water line.
The coastal township population of about 3.800 relies heavily on tourists, with its whale watch, dolphin & albatross encounter ventures, fishing charters, hunting, fishing, diving and attractions like the fur seal colony and sea birds such as hutton’s shearwaters and blue penguins. All of these ventures as well as the fishing and farming industry will be severely effected. SH1 and the railway (also destroyed) are major routes for freight and people travelling both North and South and there will be major disruptions and detours until the infrastructure is repaired.
Kaikoura is one of our favourite coastal areas and it seems SH1 may not be open for perhaps many months so we will miss our regular visits there until those repairs are made.
This image was captured exactly 1 year to the day of the earthquake!
In June 2020, after experiencing a devastating spring due to COVID, New York State announced that certain businesses could begin partially opening again. New York City’s response included a program called Open Restaurants, which allowed restaurants to use sidewalks and parking spaces for outdoor, socially distant dining. Owners quickly built temporary enclosures in the streets in front of their businesses to try and recover from months of shutdown. Small stretches of Brooklyn in early 2021 display the variety and feel of these enclosures. Hopefully, the Open Restaurants initiative will help these businesses to survive and may even lead to a more permanent reorienting of streets to prioritize people over cars.
A mutilated French soldier after WW I
Gueules cassées (broken faces)[1] is a French expression for facially disfigured servicemen which originated in World War I. Colonel Yves Picot is said to have coined the term when he was refused entry to a gathering for the war-disabled.[1][2]
Contents
1Background
2Gueules cassées
3In film
4External links
5References
Background[edit]
Trench warfare protected the bodies but left the heads exposed.[3] The introduction of the steel helmet in 1915 made head shots more 'survivable', but this reduction of mortality meant a mutilated life for thousands.[1]
At the start of the war those wounded to the head were generally not considered able to survive and they would not usually be 'helped first'.[4] This changed in the course of the war, as progress was made in medical practices like oral and maxillofacial surgery and most notably in the new field of plastic surgery.[5] Surgeons conducted experiments with bone, cartilage and tissue transplants and the likes of Hippolyte Morestin, Harold Gillies and Léon Dufourmentel made enormous advances.[3] Because of the experimental character of this surgery some chose to remain as they were and others could just not be helped yet.[4] Some of the latter were helped by all kinds of new prosthetics to make them look more or less 'normal'.[6]
Gueules cassées[edit]
An estimated 4.2 million French were wounded, 300,000 of whom were classified as 'mutilated'. Of those some 15,000 can be called gueules cassées.[7] Right after the war those facially disfigured were not considered war veterans and exempt from support and veteran's benefits, but that changed later. In 1921 the Union des Blessés de la Face et de la tête (association of the wounded to the face and the head) was formed. The Colonel Picot mentioned above was one of its founders and a later president of the association.[1] It still exists, currently under the name Gueules Cassées with, considering the mutilations, the somewhat sour slogan sourire quand même ("smiling nonetheless").
In film[edit]
J'accuse! (1938), Abel Gance. The film features actual mutilated veterans.
Johnny Got His Gun (1971), Dalton Trumbo
The Officers' Ward (2001), François Dupeyron
See You Up There (2017), Albert Dupontel
External links[edit]
(in French) Website of the association
Broken gargoyles, article in The Guardian about much the same thing among Australian veterans
"Facing the Faceless: Erased Face as a Figure of Aesthetic and Historical Experience", a scholarly article about the phenomenon of disfiguration in art and literature and in relation to "gueules cassées". See Jirsa, Tomáš. Czech and Slovak Journal of Humanities, 5 (1), 2015, 104-119.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gueules_cassées
Mutilation and Disfiguration
By Julie Anderson PDF EPUB KINDLE Print
The First World War created disfigured and mutilated bodies on a grand scale. Never before had the bodies of soldiers been so devastated by a conflict. Developments in established weapons such as cannons and machine guns, and terrifying innovations such as poison gas, created a relative army of disfigured and mutilated men. Some men lost multiple limbs and sensory organs such as eyes. No part of the body was safe from the potential of severe and life-changing wounds. Owing to new and advanced medical specialities, surgical techniques, and technical innovations, soldiers survived wounds that in previous conflicts might have killed them. Wounds healed, but often bodies were left badly disfigured and mutilated. These men had to manage not only the result of their bodily wounds, but also their emotional trauma and their new role as disabled veterans. For these damaged men, their war was over, but recovery, rehabilitation, and reintegration presented a new set of challenges.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Medical Specialities and Specialist Hospitals
3 Amputation
4 Prosthetics
5 Mutilation
6 Plastic surgery
7 Remembering the Disfigured and Mutilated
8 Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Citation
Introduction↑
While war is no stranger to mangled bodies, the First World War was unprecedented as it created a significant number of mutilated and disfigured men, many more than in previous conflicts. This article focuses particularly on the Western Front, a battleground established early in the war, where new forms of weaponry created new types of bodily injury.[1] The siege-style warfare of bombing and shelling on the Western Front meant that significant numbers of men were killed and others badly wounded on the periphery of a direct hit. New developments in weapons such as machine guns and grenades and more frightening and mysterious weaponry such as poison gas created an unprecedented range of mutilating and disfiguring wounds internally and externally.[2] These innovations in weapons and unspecific targeting circumvented the basic personal safety equipment provided to the fighting men, such as helmets and gas masks, and wreaked havoc on the body. No part of the soldier’s body was safe. Limbs were shattered by shrapnel and needed to be amputated to save patients’ lives. Gas blistered lungs and caused lifelong breathing difficulties and blindness. Gunshot wounds left random scars on bodies, a permanent reminder of war. The nature of trench warfare on the Western Front meant that faces were particularly vulnerable to gunshot wounds. Repairing faces presented a challenge to the medical profession and exposed a new type of visual horror.
Since Joanna Bourke’s seminal book Dismembering the Male was published in 1996, there has been a growing interest from historians in the historiography of the impact of war, and its permanent and devastating effects on the body.[3] Wounding is discussed in texts that focus on medical care in the conflict, such as Leo van Bergen’s 1999 book, Before My Helpless Sight.[4] Although van Bergen’s book focussed on wounding in all warring nations on the Western Front, much of the research which followed his book has centred on individual nations. The work which centres on mutilation and disfigurement concentrates on the ways that men with specific wounds were treated in hospitals and rehabilitation centres and, after their demobilisation, the ways in which they negotiated their identity, health, and perceptions of those around them. Ana Carden-Coyne and Jeffrey Reznick have concentrated on Britain; Sabine Kienitz, Heather Perry, and Wolfgang Eckart have examined Germany; Beth Linker has analysed disabled veterans in the United States.[5] There have been few comparative studies except for Deborah Cohen’s study on disabled ex-servicemen’s experiences in Britain and Germany, Marjorie Gehrhardt’s study of facial disfigurement in Britain, France, and Germany and Susanne Michl’s book comparing Germany and France.[6] Sophie Delaporte’s study on the facially disfigured in France is the most specific, as it concentrates on a particular type of wound in one nation.[7] As might be expected, analysis of mutilation and disfigurement has been confined to the largest nations: Britain, France, and Germany, and to a lesser extent the United States, with the exception of Pieter Verstraete and Christine van Everbroeck’s work on Belgian soldiers’ wounds.[8] There remains plenty of scope for historians in the future to analyse the impact of this specific type of wounding, treatment regimens, and reception in other nations.
Medical Specialities and Specialist Hospitals↑
While there are a number of arguments centring on whether or not war advanced medical practice, war certainly led to new techniques and technologies in the field of treating cases of mutilation and disfigurement.[9] Complex war wounds led to collaboration between different medical specialities to repair unprecedented bodily damage.
Two medical specialties in particular developed new techniques to treat the vast numbers of cases of mutilating and disfiguring wounds. The first was orthopaedics. It was already an established medical speciality before the war, but throughout the war techniques were advanced and new technologies developed. Amputation was the most common operation performed by orthopaedic surgeons during the war. Plastic surgery also developed further as a result of the significant number of injuries to the face and head. Specifically concentrating on the face, plastic surgeons painstakingly operated to recreate some semblance of a soldier’s pre-war appearance. Developments in military medicine served to alleviate advances in weapons that caused bodily damage.
Dedicated hospitals and institutions were established to treat these specific wounds. Often, the hurried efforts of surgeons at the front meant that amputee soldiers required further surgical procedures to repair and improve their amputation. Patients also needed time to recover from surgery. Following procedures, a prosthesis needed to be fitted and rehabilitative therapy commenced. In many cases, specialist limb fitters were placed in hospitals to ensure that the soldiers or sailor received the best fitting prosthesis. Specialist hospitals were established as those with amputation required specific types of treatment and rehabilitation was important in order to return amputees to the work force to assist the war effort.
The organisation of hospitals and centres differed nationally. In Britain, the largest hospital for military amputees in England was Roehampton, a short distance outside London, and Erskine Hospital, just outside Glasgow, was the second largest.[10] The hospital facilities also housed limb-fitting workshops, where the amputee soldiers were fitted with their artificial limbs. There were significant numbers of specialist hospitals in Germany. At the hospitals, work therapy or Arbeitstherapie for amputees was the established method of rehabilitation, and a number of centres that focussed on different types of employment were set up for post-convalescence.[11] In most countries, hospitals combined medical care and rehabilitative regimes with the fitting of limbs and training for work. In the United States, two hospitals became centres for orthopaedic care – the Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco and the Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington.[12]
High quality centres for the treatment of facial wounds were established by a number of doctors during the war. In Britain, Harold Gillies (1882-1960) opened a specialist hospital, the Queens Hospital, to treat soldiers with facial wounds. The Dominions, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia provided specialist surgeons for their own soldiers at the hospital in the southeast of England, which by 1918 contained more than a thousand beds.[13] Gillies had originally worked with dentist, Charles Valadier (1873-1931), at the front and they concentrated on a combination of functional repair and the aesthetic of the face. In Paris, Hippolyte Morestin (1869-1919) worked to repair the faces of French soldiers wounded in war. Jacques Joseph (1865-1934) operated at the Charité in Berlin, where he performed plastic surgery on the facially wounded men of the German army. As well as providing specialist surgical treatment, the hospitals in warring nations provided specific kinds of associated therapy. For disfiguring wounds of the face, particular care had to be taken with mental health issues as well as physical restoration.
Amputation↑
Limb amputation was one of the most common practices during the war. Many thousands of limbs were amputated and lives were saved through its use. It is estimated in Germany that the number of amputations totalled 67,000 and 41,000 in Britain.[14] Many soldiers believed that they would rather die than be maimed, yet doctors at the fronts saved many thousands of soldiers through amputation.
Limbs were amputated for a number of reasons. They were often shredded as a result of shrapnel or explosions; machine guns shattered bones in arms or legs. Compound fracture, or one where the bone was shattered and projected through the skin, was a complex wound, and limbs were often amputated.[15] Often there was no bone left to join together, and the threat of complications such as infection meant that performing an amputation was safer for the patient. Environmental conditions increased the number of amputations and not all amputations were the result of traumatic injury. On the Western Front, amputations were conducted in cases of trench foot, caused by poor foot hygiene and immersion in trenches full of water. Furthermore, infection was often a complication in wounds. If gas gangrene affected an arm or leg, further amputations were conducted in order to save the soldier’s life.
Much of the work for orthopaedic surgeons on all sides of the conflict was centred on amputation. Orthopaedic surgeons conducted amputations for centuries, and innovations in anaesthetic, antiseptic use, and a range of surgical techniques improved patient outcomes during the war. Specific methods, care, and surveillance were employed to improve results and survival rates, and these were communicated to other surgeons by senior practitioners. In 1915 in Germany, Fritz Lange (1864-1952) a Munich orthopaedist published a field manual for army doctors. In Kriegs-Orthopädie (War Orthopaedics) he outlined methods to treat and transport patients with shattered limbs.[16] In Britain, Robert Jones (1857-1933), who became Director of Military Orthopaedics published Notes on Military Orthopaedics in 1917.[17] Publications such as these provided less experienced surgeons with guidance on practices and techniques to improve surgical and post-operative outcomes.
Long-held views on surgical treatment were challenged during the First World War. The range of damage to the body was often so extensive that different methods were employed to ensure the patient’s survival. Debridement, where flesh was removed, which was not employed in the early part of the war, was rediscovered and used effectively to prevent complications. The flap amputation, where a piece of skin covered the exposed amputation site, creating a padded area to make a healthy stump, was common in the 19th century and was effectively used during the war.
Surgeons at the front and in hospitals in their home country conducted thousands of amputations, from fingers to legs. Many soldiers endured multiple amputations, as the force of an explosion tore limbs from the body. However, American-born Ethelbert “Curley” Christian (1882-1954) who served in the Canadian army, was thought to be the only soldier to survive having all four of his limbs amputated.
Many surgeons became very skilled in the art of amputation through extensive practice. Surgeons at the front or on-board ships often amputated numbers of patients at a time. Often their hurried procedures left painful nerves exposed or an unsuitable stump so those amputations were tidied up away from the front by hospital surgeons who had more time to perform surgery in less pressured conditions. Some soldiers had four or five re-amputations in order to create a stump suitable for a prosthesis to be fitted.
There was much discussion amongst surgeons about where to amputate. In the First World War, surgeons undertook the practice of limb saving, which meant that they amputated as little of the limb as possible. One of the most important factors for a patient’s successful recovery after amputation was the correct surgical creation of the stump. Irregular stumps often made it difficult for technicians to fit an artificial limb. The stump was a vital component of the body-prosthesis nexus and needed to be surgically well-formed in order to provide a strong basis for the good fit and the best function of the prosthesis.
The stump had to be strong and painless. Many soldiers endured bulbar nerve surgery, as their stumps were sometimes painful due to exposed nerves. While they were in the hospital, many soldiers hardened their stumps by rubbing them with methylated spirits and wrapped them in tight bandages as they were healing. The stump also needed to shrink before it was fitted with a prosthesis. Soldiers learned to use their artificial limbs which often took many months. Early in the war, many soldiers were discharged from hospitals early, as hospitals experienced difficulty coping with the number of amputees. However, lack of instruction in the use of the limb affected soldiers’ stumps and, as one soldier noted, hospitals were full of men requiring treatment for sores on their stumps.[18]
Prosthetics↑
Prostheses were provided for amputee soldiers. New materials and designs were developed, ensuring that amputees were provided with the most advanced artificial limb available. Nations mobilised designers to create prosthetic limbs and a workforce to make them. In Germany, a great deal of effort was put into developing new devices to assist amputees.[19] Owing to their experience in the Civil War, American manufacturers, whose numbers had increased significantly after that conflict, were invited to Britain to share their expertise and develop new prosthetics.[20] For the first time, limb manufacturers worked closely with surgeons, a co-operation between the art of surgery and the craft of limb manufacture and fitting.
In the early part of the war, limb designs were similar to those developed in the 19th century. Heather Perry states that from the beginning of the war, German orthopaedists realised that they would need better prosthetics than were available.[21] Usually, arms and legs were made of wood, although metal was used as the war progressed, and were attached to the body using a range of leather straps and laces. A full leg amputation was often attached with a strap over the shoulder, as wooden prosthetic legs were very heavy. Arms were attached to the body with complicated harnesses, which often made them quite difficult to use.
As there were so many amputees, the pace of production of prosthetics was difficult to maintain throughout the war. One American orthopaedic surgeon estimated in 1915 that French limb makers were only able to manufacture 700 prostheses for the 7,000 amputees that required them.[22] In Britain, some of the 200 American prosthetic limb manufacturers were invited to establish workshops at the Queen Mary’s Limb fitting hospital at Roehampton, just outside London.[23] As many soldiers required prostheses, attempts to improve the speed at which limbs were supplied by making standard parts and fitting them together was adopted. Nevertheless, the number of amputees put pressure on the limb fitter’s ability to make the prosthesis and train the amputees to use their artificial limbs effectively. Limb fitters, surgeons, and disabled soldiers were concerned with three main issues: fit, function and camouflage.
Prosthetic arms were more difficult than legs to produce, as it was problematic to attach arms to the body. A complicated series of leather straps and laces was required, which made an artificial arm heavy and difficult for the wearer to manoeuvre. A range of implements to fit the arm prosthesis were developed, including eating utensils and tools. Small design adjustments made a difference in improving the prosthesis’ usefulness to the soldier. Often, this made the limb aesthetically different, creating an unfamiliar limb and an altered human form. Efforts were made to maintain recognisable physical standards, yet make limbs functional. The Openshaw hand had two little fingers strengthened with metal so that items could be carried. Yet functional limbs were not often very attractive to the public, so attempts were made to hide artificial limbs, particularly outside the work environment. In Germany, the “Sunday arm” was worn when a soldier wanted to disguise his amputation. If the limbs fitted well, functioned properly, and maintained standards of acceptable physiognomy, it was easier to hide the fact that a soldier or sailor wore an artificial limb.
Despite these new innovations, many artificial arms and legs were discarded when the men left hospital and only used on special occasions.[24] Poor fit, a lack of training in their use, and the soldier’s inability to adapt to the limb often meant that prostheses remained unused.
A prosthetic limb was compensation from the state for bodily loss, though some nations rewarded their disabled veterans more comprehensively than others. In addition to pensions, the British government provided a limb to each amputee veteran and by 1925 all amputees from the war were given a second limb as a substitute when a limb went for repair. In the United States, the Office of the Surgeon General effectively mandated the use of artificial limbs, to ensure that amputee veterans “passed” as able-bodied citizens after they were discharged.[25] In Germany, prostheses were provided by the state and centred on a veteran’s ability to work.
Mutilation↑
The bodies of the wounded were mutilated. Skin was cauterised and flayed from the body, burnt and mangled. Gunshot and shrapnel wounds left permanent marks and disfigurement. The skin on men’s trunks and backs was blistered and damaged from gas. Broken limbs could be repaired or removed and skin healed over what were once gaping wounds. But evidence of wounding left indelible marks on the body, which the medical profession could not remove. Moreover, the surgery required to repair injuries and sew skin together left visible scars. Amputation of a limb left a scarred stump. The mutilation of sexual organs was an issue that caused intense physical and psychological trauma, and for which nothing could be done. Wounds to soldiers’ sexual organs are rarely mentioned in the medical literature and there are few figures available on the number of soldiers who suffered this type of injury. In her book The Forbidden Zone, the former nurse Mary Borden (1886-1968) wrote about the level of damage to bodies including “mangled testicles”.[26] Not all disfigurement was external. Gas also caused internal wounds and scarring on the lungs, which caused breathing problems. The extent of the emotional impact of wounding was difficult to measure. The psychological and emotional trauma associated with disfigurement and mutilation went hand-in-hand with physical injury. There were many ways that war wounds affected the body and mind, causing permanent scarring.
Evidence of disability caused through war wounds was often camouflaged. Bodily wounds were hidden by clothing, as with an arm or leg amputation. However, not all scarring could be disguised. One of the more common disfiguring wounds was to the face, and the effects of the damage was difficult to hide. Although surgical techniques developed extensively during the war, some faces were too badly mutilated and the only option was to hide the remaining mutilation. Masking the facially wounded was a way to integrate them into society. Prosthetic appliances for the face were developed before the First World War; in France, silver facial prostheses were developed as early as 1833.[27] During the First World War, new techniques were utilised for those whom surgery could not help. Artists were fundamental in the creation of camouflage of mutilated faces. In Britain, Frances Derwent-Wood (1871-1926) worked in what became known as the “tin noses shop” to create masks for British soldiers. In late 1917, after consultation with Wood, Anna Coleman-Ladd (1878-1939) opened the Studio for Portrait Masks in Paris, administered by the American Red Cross and situated in the city's Latin Quarter. In her workshop in France, Coleman-Ladd made masks for men to wear to hide their disfigured faces and became highly skilled at creating and fitting them.[28] Other artists such as Jane Poupelet (1874-1932) and Robert Wlérick (1882-1944) assisted Coleman-Ladd, and the studio was incorporated into the Vale-de-Grâce military hospital after the war.[29] Made of materials such as tin and enamel, the masks were carefully painted in the patient’s skin tones and correct eye colour to ensure a lifelike appearance. Ladd would take plaster casts of a soldier's face in an attempt to re-create an identical cheekbone or eye-socket on the opposite side. Ladd then crafted a full or partial mask out of copper, which she painted to match the skin while the soldier was wearing it. Of the nearly 3,000 or so French soldiers requiring masks, Ladd made about 185. These partial masks were attached to the face with spectacles or ribbon and provided the wearer the means to cover the parts of their faces that were missing or that contemporary surgical skill did not have the means to repair.
The masks were often uncomfortable to wear as the tin rubbed the face.[30] Many French veterans did not wear their masks, instead preferring to tie a cloth around the disfigured portion of their face.[31] The question remains: were the masks to protect the disfigured servicemen, or for the public who did not want to see the unsettling visage of the mutilated face? Some of the men rarely wore their masks, while other conceived it as an important part of their identity.
In national contexts, the experience of facial wounding differed radically. In Britain, many of those with facial wounds were isolated in hospitals. Conversely, in France, the gueules cassées named themselves as a distinct group of war wounded and established a powerful organisation which represented them.[32]
While many soldiers tried to hide the evidence of mutilation and the disfiguring impact of conflict on their bodies, the medical profession exposed the wounded and their wounds. Mutilation and disfigurement was documented through medical illustrations, paintings, and casts of wounds. Photography was used to chart a patient’s progress and demonstrate the healing process. Generally, these images and objects were used to train new medical personnel. Through this documentation, medical practitioners were able to track the progress of their outcomes and improve their practice. A number of artists, from sculptors to painters, documented the experience of wounded servicemen. In Germany, Joseph documented the healing of facial wounds of soldiers through photography. Albums full of photographs of the facially wounded from a hospital in Britain show their initial wound and the final result of many surgical procedures.[33] Other, more traditional forms of art were used to document soldiers and sailors’ wounds. In Britain, Henry Tonks (1862-1937) drew the facially wounded in pastel drawings for Gillies. Kathleen Scott (1878-1947), a noted sculptor, volunteered to help Gillies, declaring with characteristic aplomb that the "men without noses are very beautiful, like antique marbles." Artists from the British colonies and dominions also illustrated the wounding and recovery process, including New Zealander Herbert Cole (1867-1930) and Australian Daryl Lindsay (1889-1976).[34] In addition, the work of artists, photographers, and surgeons was designed to assist in the psychological healing process, which was just as important as the physical reconstruction of the face.
Plastic surgery↑
During the war, plastic surgery of the face became a medical specialty in itself. Surgical methods for repairing faces damaged as a result of gunshot wounds or shells advanced during the war. It has been argued that the sheer number of facially wounded men provided the means for surgeons to advance medical practice.[35] The number of injuries to the face was significant; it has been estimated that approximately 280,000 men suffered facial wounding in France, Germany, and Great Britain.[36]
Prior to the war, plastic surgery of the face was an established practice and certain areas of the face were surgically altered as related to social and cultural acceptability. In particular, surgeons operated and tried to surgically improve the aesthetics of syphilitic and “racially unacceptable” noses.[37] In cases of facial wounding, many surgeons merely sewed up wounds, less concerned with aesthetics than a successful surgical outcome. The smashed eye sockets, non-existent jaws, and noses presented by the war wounded were a real challenge to the technical expertise of surgeons. Repairing facial wounds became more an aesthetic exercise, as wounded servicemen got the best treatment possible for the sacrifice of their faces to the war effort. In some cases, the facially wounded soldier found it difficult to be accepted by his own family – let alone strangers whom he encountered. Instead of merely sewing up the face, the male aesthetic was considered in the surgical repair of the men’s faces. Indeed, Sander Gilman argues that the war had a positive effect on the acceptability of plastic surgery for aesthetic reasons.[38] He argues that reconstructive surgery became masculinised and therefore more acceptable. Yet plastic surgery in the First World War was more than just facial repair by a surgeon – it required a constant series of collaborations between surgeons, dentists, nurses, photographers, and artists. Reconstructive dentistry in particular was fundamental to the rebuilding of the face. The mechanical dentist provided knowledge of the reconstruction of the bones of the jaw, which provided the expertise and skill for the face to be rebuilt and functions such as chewing and swallowing restored. The collaboration between these individuals overlapped as expertise was required throughout the process of healing and reconstruction.[39]
This new approach and its collective of experts required spaces to treat patients. Surgeons persuaded their respective military medical authorities that they needed to set up special centres for treating maxillofacial wounds. Centres were established in all warring nations which provided specialist surgery, care, which helped men to accept and live with their disfigurement as well as they could outside the confines of the hospital. In Britain, facially wounded soldiers were sent to centres for treatment and were isolated from the wider public. Visits by the public to these hospitals were not encouraged as men grappled with accepting their frightening facial wounds. In these hospitals, mirrors were banned from the wards and benches in the local area were painted blue in order to warn the public that a soldier with facial wounds might sit there.[40]
Transporting soldiers with facial wounds to the hospitals was problematic. Often, for those with multiple wounds, the reconstruction of the face was left until last, as doctors dealt with other wounds considered life threatening. By the time patients got to specialist units, their faces had started to heal, which made reconstruction difficult for maxillofacial surgeons to repair their wounds.[41] In Britain, Harold Gillies went so far as to have tags printed with the address of his specialist unit at Aldershot hospital which were then distributed in field hospitals, so that he was able to conduct surgery and limit the permanent damage to the facially wounded soldier.[42]
Many surgeons and medical practitioners devised innovative ways to treat the facially wounded. One of the most successful innovations was the tubed pedicle. The procedure created a flap of skin from the chest or forehead, which was moved into place on the face.[43] The flap remained attached to the body, but was stitched into a tube to keep the blood supply intact and reduced the incidence of infection. Jaws were repaired by transplanting bone from other parts of the body, or using bones from other sources. While the results and outcomes were not always successful, a significant amount of effort was undertaken in order to restore the mutilated faces of soldiers.
Remembering the Disfigured and Mutilated↑
After the war, film, photography, and literature reminded the public of the physical effects of war on the body. In particular, the pacifist movement utilised depictions of mutilated men to highlight their anti-war message. The army of disabled men in all nations reminded the public of the human suffering that war caused. The impact of the war and its disfigured and mutilated had lasting cultural resonances, as seen throughout the century since its commencement, in the on-going production of a wide range of media relating to these men’s experiences and the war itself.
In different nations, the mutilated and disfigured from the war were treated differently. The veteran with an empty sleeve or trouser leg, an uneven gait, or a stiff arm with a gloved hand became commonplace in the post-war world. In many ways, their bodily loss represented their wartime experience, and was accepted by the public, often uneasy at the scale of the physical and emotional sacrifice of so many men. That said, many veterans with amputations walked carefully to hide their limp or wore a realistic hand or glove on their artificial arm in an attempt to disguise their amputation, no doubt for a number of reasons. However, those with facial disfigurement experienced complex feelings about their war service and their place in post-war society. The facially wounded in France, perhaps defiantly, showed their faces in public, whereas in other countries, many of those with facial disfigurements preferred to avoid exposure to a curious public. For many veterans mutilated and disfigured during the war, remembering their war service and devastating injuries was uncomfortable, and the physical reminder of the war – their missing body part, scarred body, weak lungs, or disfigured face – sometimes elicited unwanted attention.
The powerful and disturbing image of the disfigured and mutilated, particularly those with facial wounds, was used by a range of groups and individuals to convey a message. Pacifists used artists’ work to highlight the devastation of war, to ensure peace was maintained. The anti-war museum in Germany took photos of the mutilated and showed them in order to remind the public of the horrific maiming capacity of modern weaponry. Ernst Friedrich’s (1894-1967) War Against War showed twenty-four photographs from Joseph’s clinic at the Charité in Berlin to remind visitors to the exhibition of the terrifying visage that war created. Other artists such as Georg Grosz (1893-1959) who is probably best known for his work Ecce Homo (1922), also used the mutilated face to demonstrate the lasting horror of the legacy of war. After the war, exhibitions of casts of the disfigured faces of veterans were shown in hospitals in London, Berlin, and Paris.[44] It is difficult to ascertain the reasons why the public attended these exhibitions, but they served a potent reminder of the devastating effects of modern weaponry.
Novels, photography, and film have been inspired by the experiences of the war mutilated. The 2001 film La chambre des officiers, based on the novel by Marc Dugain, focused on the experiences of a number of officers in a specialist French facial ward. When a young boy is confronted by his father’s radically altered face, he shouts “Non mon papa, non mon papa!” The 1971 film Johnny’s Got His Gun was adapted from the 1938 novel of the same name written by Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976). Both films depicted the physical and mental trauma of the disfigured and mutilated from the war and reminded audiences that for some disabled veterans, the emotional trauma of war had to be overcome on a daily basis.
The prosthetics created by the association between medical personnel, crafts people, and artists are a physical reminder of the technology of war, as much as the weaponry which wrought the damage on the soldiers’ bodies and which fills war museums around the world. Some of the material culture of disfigurement in the First World War is ephemeral. Very few of the masks made so painstakingly by artists such as Derwent Wood and Coleman-Ladd exist. Some veterans came to depend heavily on their masks to camouflage their disfigurement, and as part of their physical construction of self, they were buried wearing them. Although numbers of facially wounded men did not wear their masks on a daily basis, special occasions warranted their use, similar to the German “Sunday arm”, which was saved for church to protect others’ sensibilities. Artificial limbs survive in greater numbers, probably because veterans had a number of them throughout their lives, and the prosthetic arms and legs were fashioned of wood, leather, and metal and possess a robustness that a thin tin mask does not.
The war mutilated and disfigured were remembered in public commemoration of the war, yet this differed in national contexts. Amputees were publicly remembered and participated in Armistice Day commemorations. Other veterans, whose clothes hid their disfigurement, also participated in the marches to various cenotaphs that took place around the world on the date selected for reflection on war and loss. However, the facially disfigured in many nations did not take part; instead they remained in the shadows of remembrance. In France, unlike many other nations, the public saw the mutilated as they paraded with other war wounded. National contexts are fundamental to understanding the treatment and life experience of the mutilated and disfigured from the war.
Conclusion↑
It is clear that the First World War produced many thousands of mutilated and disfigured men. Veterans with metal or wooden legs or empty sleeves were seen on the streets of large cities around the world for decades before the First World War and the 1914-1918 conflict added significant numbers of amputees. Those with facial mutilation, whose injuries were virtually impossible to disguise, added a new type of war horror, as the public saw their war-ravaged faces. Medical specialities were created and new spaces were established to treat the disfigured and mutilated. The war provided the means for new medical innovations to be developed in these institutions, and the number of wounded meant treatment and techniques were tested and proven during the war. Co-operation between medical professionals improved outcomes for the severely wounded. New therapeutic regimes and a state responsibility for treating the mutilated and disfigured meant that veterans from the war re-established themselves as useful working citizens. However, different forms of mutilation and disfigurement engendered different reactions from the veteran, those around them, and the state.
Julie Anderson, University of Kent
Section Editors: Michael Neiberg; Sophie De Schaepdrijver
Notes
↑ Significantly lowered death rates from disease as opposed to wounds were particular to the Western Front. For an overview of the impact of disease see Ozdemir, Hikmet: The Ottoman Army 1914-1918. Disease and Death on the Battlefield, Salt Lake City 2008.
↑ For details on weapons see Audoin-Rouzeau, Stephane: Weapons. Issued by 1914-1918 Online, online: encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/weapons.
↑ See Bourke, Joanna: Dismembering the Male. Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War. London 1996.
↑ See van Bergen, Leo: Before My Helpless Sight. Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front, 1914-1918, Farnham 2009.
↑ See Carden-Coyne, Ana: The Politics of Wounds. Military Patients and Medical power in the First World War, Oxford 2015; Reznick, Jeffrey S.: Healing the Nation. Soldiers and the Culture of Caregiving in Britain During the Great War, Manchester 2004; Reznick, Jeffrey S.: John Galsworthy and Disabled Soldiers of the Great War, Manchester 2009; Kienitz, Sabine: Beschädigte Helden. Kriegsinvalidität und Körperbilder 1914-1923, Paderborn 2008; Perry, Heather: Recycling the Disabled. Army, medicine and modernity in WW1 Germany, Manchester 2014; Eckart, Wolfgang U.: Medizin und Krieg. Deutschland 1914-1924, Paderborn 2014; Linker, Beth: War’s Waste, Rehabilitation in World War I America, Chicago 2011.
↑ Cohen, Deborah: The War Come Home. Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany 1914-1939, Berkeley 2001; Gehrhardt, Marjorie: The Men with Broken Faces. Bern 2015; Michl, Susanne: Im Dienste des Volkskörpers. Deutsche und französische Ärzte im Ersten Weltkrieg, Göttingen 2007.
↑ Sophie, Delaporte: Les Gueules Cassées: Les Blessés de la Face de la Grande Guerre, Paris 1996.
↑ Verstraete, Pieter and Van Everbroeck, Christine: Le silence mutilé. les soldats invalides belges de la Grande Guerre, Namur (Belgium) 2014.
↑ See Cooter, Roger: Medicine and the Goodness of War, in: Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 7/2 (1990).
↑ See Alper, Helen (ed.): A History of Queen Mary’s University Hospital Roehampton, Roehampton 1997. The University of Glasgow is currently cataloguing the Erskine House papers, online: universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/launc...
↑ Perry, Recycling the Disabled 2014, p. 96.
↑ Linker, War’s Waste 2011, p. 81.
↑ Bamji, Andrew: Facial Surgery. the Patient’s Experience, in: Cecil, Hugh and Liddle, Peter H. (eds.): Facing Armageddon. The First World War Experienced, London 1996, p. 495.
↑ For Germany, see Whalen, Robert Gerald: Bitter Wounds. German Victims of the Great War, 1914-1939, Ithaca 1984, p. 40. For Britain, see Bourke, Dismembering the Male 1996.
↑ There were no sulphalidamides or antibiotics, which were not developed until the 1930s and the Second World War respectively.
↑ Perry, Recycling the Disabled 2014, p. 31.
↑ This was a collection of articles that had been published in medical journals such as the British Medical Journal.
↑ William Towers, 11038, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, London.
↑ Anderson, Julie / Perry, Heather R.: Rehabilitation and Restoration. Orthopaedics and disabled soldiers in Germany and Britain in the First World War, in: Medicine, Conflict, and Survival, 30/4 (2014), p. 240.
↑ Conference on Artificial Limbs for Disabled Servicemen, in: British Medical Journal (31 July 1915), p. 190.
↑ Perry, Recycling the Disabled 2014, p. 46.
↑ Osgood, Robert B.: A Survey of the Orthopaedic Services in the US Army Hospitals, General Base and Debarkation, in: American Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery 17 (1919), pp. 359-82.
↑ Guyatt, Mary: Better Legs. Artificial Limbs for British Veterans of the First World War, in: Journal of Design History 14/4 (2001), p. 201.
↑ Heather, Perry: Re-arming the Disabled Veteran. Artificially Rebuilding State and Society in World War One Germany, in: Ott, Katherine et al. (eds.): Artificial Parts, Practical Lives. Modern Histories of Prosthetics, New York 2002.
↑ See Linker, War’s Waste 2011.
↑ Borden, Mary: The Forbidden Zone, London 2013, p. 43 [originally published in 1929].
↑ Wallace, Antony F.: The Progress of Plastic Surgery, Oxford 1982, p. 96.
↑ There is a short film of Anna Coleman-Ladd working in her studio in Paris with her assistants. The film depicts them making masks and fitting them to a disfigured soldier. Online: www.smithsonianmag.com/history/faces-of-war-145799854/.
↑ Gehrhardt, The Men with Broken Faces 2015, p. 49.
↑ Nicolson, Juliet: The Great Silence 1918-1920. Living in the Shadow of the Great War, London 2009, pp. 66-67.
↑ Delaporte, Sophie: Gueules Cassées de la Grande Guerre, in: Delaporte, F. / Fournier, E. / Devauchelle, B. (eds.): La Fabrique du Visage. De la Physiognomonie Antique à la Premiere Greffe du Visage, Turnhout 2010, p. 301.
↑ See Delaporte, Les Gueules Cassées 1996.
↑ Online: gilliesarchives.org.uk.
↑ Alberti, Samuel J.M.M. (ed.): War, Art and Surgery. The Work of Henry Tonks and Julia Midgley, London 2014, p. 9.
↑ Gehrhardt, The Men with Broken Faces 2015, p. 5.
↑ Winter, Jay: Forms of kinship and remembrance in the aftermath of the Great War, in: Winter, J. / Sivan, E. (eds.): War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge 1999, p. 48.
↑ See Gilman, Sander L.: Making the Body Beautiful. A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, Princeton 1999.
↑ Ibid., p. 164.
↑ Gerhardt argues that expertise was required in stages. Gehrhardt, The Men with Broken Faces 2015, p. 45.
↑ Bamji, Facial Surgery 1996, p. 498.
↑ Gehrhardt, The Men with Broken Faces 2015, p. 5.
↑ Bamji, Andrew: Queen Mary’s Sidcup, 1974-1994. A Commemoration, 1994, p. 13.
↑ Santoni-Rugiu, Paolo / Sykes, Philip J.: A History of Plastic Surgery, New York 2007, p. 96.
↑ Maliniak, Jacques W.: Sculpture in the Living. Rebuilding the Face and Form by Plastic Surgery, New York 1934, p. 30.
Selected Bibliography
Alberti, Samuel J. M. M. (ed.): War, art and surgery. The work of Henry Tonks and Julia Midgley, London 2014: Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Anderson, Julie: ‘Jumpy stump’. Amputation and trauma in the First World War, in: First World War Studies 6/1, 2015, pp. 9-19.
Anderson, Julie / Perry, Heather R.: Rehabilitation and restoration. Orthopaedics and disabled soldiers in Germany and Britain in the First World War, in: Medicine, Conflict and Survival 30/4, 2014, pp. 227-251
Biernoff, Suzannah: Flesh poems. Henry Tonks and the art of surgery, in: Visual Culture in Britain 11/1, 2010, pp. 25-47.
Biernoff, Suzannah: The rhetoric of disfigurement in First World War Britain, in: Social History of Medicine 24/3, 2011, pp. 666-685.
Bourke, Joanna: Dismembering the male. Men's bodies, Britain and the Great War, Chicago 1996: University of Chicago Press.
Carden-Coyne, Ana: The politics of wounds. Military patients and medical power in the First World War, Oxford 2014: Oxford University Press.
Carden-Coyne, Ana: Reconstructing the body. Classicism, modernism, and the First World War, Oxford 2009: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, Deborah: The war come home. Disabled veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939, Berkeley 2008: University of California Press.
Delaporte, Sophie: Gueules cassées. Les blessés de la face de la Grande Guerre, Paris 2004: A. Viénot.
Eckart, Wolfgang Uwe: Medizin und Krieg. Deutschland 1914-1924, Paderborn 2014: Ferdinand Schöningh.
Gagen, Wendy Jane: Remastering the body, renegotiating gender. Physical disability and masculinity during the First World War, in: European Review of History. Revue europeenne d'histoire 14/4, 2007, pp. 525-541.
Gehrhardt, Marjorie: The men with broken faces. Gueules cassées of the First World War, Oxford; Berlin 2015: Peter Lang.
Harrison, Mark: The medical war. British military medicine in the First World War, Oxford; New York 2010: Oxford University Press.
Kienitz, Sabine: Beschädigte Helden. Kriegsinvalidität und Körperbilder 1914-1923, Paderborn 2008: F. Schöningh.
Linker, Beth: War's waste. Rehabilitation in World War I America, Chicago; London 2011: University of Chicago Press.
Özdemir, Hikmet: The Ottoman army, 1914-1918. Disease and death on the battlefield, Salt Lake City 2008: University of Utah Press.
Perry, Heather R.: Recycling the disabled. Army, medicine, and modernity in WWI Germany, Manchester 2014: Manchester University Press.
Reznick, Jeffrey S.: John Galsworthy and disabled soldiers of the Great War. With an illustrated selection of his writings, Manchester 2009: Manchester University Press.
Reznick, Jeffrey S.: Healing the nation. Soldiers and the culture of caregiving in Britain during the Great War, Manchester; New York 2004: Manchester University Press.
Van Bergen, Leo: Before my helpless sight. Suffering, dying and military medicine on the Western Front, 1914-1918, Farnham; Burlington 2009: Ashgate.
Weedon, Brenda, Alper, Helen (ed.): A history of Queen Mary's University Hospital Roehampton, Roehampton 1997: Richmond, Twickenham and Roehampton Healthcare NHS Trust.
Citation
Anderson, Julie: Mutilation and Disfiguration , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2017-08-03. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.11137.
License
This text is licensed under: CC by-NC-ND 3.0 Germany - Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works.
encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/mutilation_and_...
This is Queensland’s Channel Country, where flooding rains and devastating droughts are part of western Queensland life. Lochern National Park has 20 kilometres of Thomson River frontage, fringed with huge old coolibahs. All four species of Mitchell grass grow here. A newly described subspecies of turtle, Emmott’s short-necked turtle, lives in the park’s waterholes. Remnants of European history reflect the innovative nature of early farming life.
The diverse climate of Lochern was a boon for the Aboriginal people, who learned to utilize the dry and wet spells. They adapted to the seasonal transformation of land, reaping its bounties. Rainwater harvesting with the help of dams was done by pastoralists in the area.
The Cochrane family amalgamated Lochern in the 1920s from three holdings, each about 20, 000 acres. Mr Cochrane named Lochern after his home town in Scotland. Judy James (nee Cochrane) offered the station for purchase as a national park in 1993 when the State Government was seeking land to help protect bioregions unique to semi-arid western Queensland.
Lured by grasslands and broad floodplains, pastoralists adapted to the extreme wet and dry seasons. Cracking clay soils support waving plains of Mitchell grass, but few trees can tolerate the ground's wet expansion and dry contraction. These natural grasslands were a boon for graziers. There are many remnants of the pastoral station, including buildings and yards. These remains are not being restored but are protected.
As a small station, Lochern's sheep yards were ingeniously designed so that they could be operated single-handed. Longer handles and modified gates allowed one person to manage the drafting race, normally a minimum two-person job. Many more hands were required to run larger stations like the retired company-run operation at Bladensburg National Park (near Winton).
At the old homestead site, the two-storey chicken house and motor room are built high and dry. Now fairy martins building their funnel-shaped mud nests in the eaves.
Pastoralists built winged dams with stone-pitched ends to capture more rainwater and to prevent erosion. Robertson's Dam is a fine example of how a winged dam works.
Lochern National Park is home to Major Mitchell cockatoos, red-tailed black-cockatoos, and Bourke parrots. Wildlife around the many waterholes and along the 40 kilometre Habitat Drive can be observed at all times of the year.
Lochern's only turtle species has so far only been found in the more permanent waterholes of the Cooper Creek and Diamantina River systems within the Lake Eyre Basin. Over long dry periods, some may perish in waterholes that dry up. An increase in water extraction from the catchment and illegal gill netting for fish are known threats to the species.
When fishing in freshwater legal limits apply to a range of fish species. Species of fish that inhabit the National Park include the Australian bass, Barramundi, the Bloomfield River cod (totally protected year round throughout Queensland), Cherabins, Eel-tailed catfish, Lungfish (totally protected year round throughout Queensland), River blackfish (catch and release only), the Freshwater eel, Golden perch, Jungle perch, Mangrove jack, Mary River cod, Murray cod, Silver perch Welch's grunter (similar in appearance to silver perch), Barcoo grunter, Scooty grunter Khaki beam (similar in appearance to sooty grunter), Saratoga, Redclaw crayfish (soft red outer edge on claws of mature males), Yabby (blueclaw crayfish) (similar in appearance to redclaw crayfish but without the red outer edges on claws of mature males), and the Spiny crayfish (totally protected year round throughout Queensland).
Source: Outback Queensland, Queensland Government: Environmental Protection Agency (Queensland Parks & Wildlife Services), Queensland Government: Parks & Forests (Department of Environment and Science)
In June 2002 there was a devastating microburst in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. Rain came down so heavily and so fast that it forced the air mass at ground level sideways at high speed. Hundreds of trees were snapped off at the base of their trunks (including one in front of our neighbor's house). Right before the wind wave hit, I was looking out my back window and debris was floating sideways out of the dark sky. I said to my family, "Let's go down to the basement." It was the first and only time I have ever done that. Around the region, there was extensive property damage. A woman died when the roof of the amusement park ride she was on collapsed. In Lawrenceville the facade of an old building, a former school I think, fell onto a parked car.
It was a day without hope: March 11, 2011. The 8.9 magnitude earthquake set off a devastating tsunami that washed away coastal cities in Northeastern Japan. Thousands of homes were destroyed. Roads were impassable, transportation destroyed or shut down, and power remained down for weeks in the cold temperatures of early spring. All around were scenes of desperation, as stranded survivors cried for help, buried alive under the rubble of what remained of their cities, communities, and homes. Things couldn’t get much worse when the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor was discovered, making it impossible to return home. Over three hundred thousand were left homeless and over eighteen thousand people died.
March 11, 2011 was a day without hope for me, as well. Like many around the world, I couldn’t believe that yet another massive earthquake and tsunami of such magnitude—like the Southeast Asian tsunami of 2004—had wrought so much destruction and devastation. Yet on this same day, I attended the funeral for my husband who had died suddenly on March 2, 2011. I felt as if I was buried by the rubble of grief over his lost life and the life we shared together for nearly twenty years.
Even those unacquainted with the biblical narrative have likely heard the familiar story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It is one of the critical events in John’s Gospel for it is the last miracle Jesus performs prior to his entry into Jerusalem and his crucifixion.(1) As readers of this story, we have the privilege of knowing the triumphant ending, but for Mary, Martha, and all who loved Lazarus, his death and burial must have also felt like a day without hope. Mary and Martha had sent word to Jesus informing him of their brother’s illness. Surely he would rush to their aid and save their ailing brother. Lord, he whom you love is ill.
But rather than rushing to their side, or simply speaking the words of healing as he had done for others, Jesus delays going to them. The Gospel reads: Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, so when he heard that he was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Jesus delays going to them and this sets up one of the difficult tensions in this passage. Jesus loves this family, and yet his delay means Lazarus will die, and worse, his delay will prompt the grief, heartache, and misunderstanding that must have arisen by his absence.
When Jesus does arrive, Lazarus has been dead for four days. Jewish belief taught that after three days the soul would leave the body and corruption would set in. So for those who mourned Lazarus, there was no hope of resuscitation or of saving him now. The fourth day was truly a day without hope. And yet this is the day Jesus shows up.
The story of the raising of Lazarus is prefaced by a statement of its purpose: This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. In stating that he will be glorified, Jesus is not declaring that now that he has arrived to save the day, he will be admired and praised as the hero of the story. Rather, the raising of Lazarus will speed his own death. From that day on the religious leaders counseled together how they might put him to death. The glory of the resurrection would first be the horror and despair of Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
The passion of Jesus bleeds through the surface of the story. Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled,” and he wept. The crowd who saw him weeping said, “See how he loved him!” Yet they couldn’t possibly understand all that was going on. Jesus knows that calling Lazarus out of the tomb means that he must enter it himself. The narrative makes that fact abundantly clear. The belief in Jesus as a result of this miracle prompts the religious leaders to plot his death. But for Jesus there is no other way because only in this act can he be the resurrection and the life for the world.
Yet, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus are not simply props for a spiritual story. They are real people trapped in death and grief, who do not yet know the end of the story. Jesus will bring life, but he does so as one who ministers among the suffering. Although the readers of this story were not there, Jesus holds them in mind too. Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
For some women affected by the tsunami of March 11, 2011, a social enterprise is helping them to remove the grave clothes. Nozomi, which means ‘hope’ in Japanese, is the name of an initiative bringing sustainable income, community, and hope to the women in Northeastern Japan. One third of the women involved are single mothers and grandmothers; most of these women lost their livelihood, a family member, and/or their home when the tsunami crashed into their world in 2011. With broken pieces of pottery left in the wake of the tsunami, they are now creating jewelry. Broken shards are transformed into beautiful treasures. Their lives, too, are filled with renewed dignity and hope following the devastation of the tsunami.
The raising of Lazarus is our human story. We who dwell in days without hope can be brought to life. Jesus stands at the edge of every tomb, shouting “Come forth!” He calls forth life and liberation from all of our hopeless fourth days. He calls forth life in the midst of certain and confirmed death. We can substitute our own name for that of Lazarus, hear the call of Jesus, and walk into the light of day. In the entombed, hopeless reality of life’s darkness and suffering, we can hear an untimely voice. And it is a voice that calls us by name.
Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.
July 9, 2017
...but a devastatingly painful bite!
The greenhead horsefly is a regular beach nuisance. Only the females bite, as they seek out blood protein to fortify themselves for the rigors of mating and laying eggs.
They use those two white scissor-like blades to hack away at your flesh. Then once they have a pool of blood formed, they lap it up.
Nauset Beach
Cape Cod National Seashore
Orleans, Massachusetts,
Cape Cod - USA
Photo by brucetopher
© Bruce Christopher 2017
All Rights Reserved
...always learning - critiques welcome.
Tools: Canon 7D & iPhone 6s.
No use without permission.
Please email for usage info.
February 8, 2016 - Risso Dolphins Slaughter – at Taiji, Japan
Another destructive and devastating day in Taiji for innocent Dolphins migrating past the coast. Killers show again their greed and bloodlust as they find and drive a pod of Risso to the infamous Cove.
At sunrise all 12 killing vessels left Taiji harbor to hunt for Dolphins. Just after 7am, Japan local time, Cove Guardians spotted 2 hunting vessels circling 3-4 miles outside the coast. Minutes later, more killing vessels joined in and formed a drive. At 7:30am, 8 of the banger boats started to drive a pod of Risso Dolphins towards the Cove. Killers fiercly drove the pod to the Cove and quickly netted the pod. The killers wasted no time and drove a majority of the pod under the tarps on the killing beach for slaughter. 12 members of the pod were slaughtered and their bodies taken to the butcher house. The remaining 4-6 family members were driven back out to sea. The drive out to sea for the 4-6 Risso was just as brutal as the drive in. These remaining pod members are now traumatized, weak, and searching for the rest of their family.
This was the 24th Risso family slaughtered in the Cove this season. The greed and bloodlust in Taiji is endless. The Captivity trade fuels this slaughter. If you support Captive Dolphin entertainment shows and swim with Dolphin programs, you support the slaughter in Taiji.
SAY NO TO CAPTIVITY !!!
Sites for more information :
Sea Shepherd Cove Guardians Page (official)
www.facebook.com/SeaShepherdCoveGuardiansOfficialPage
Cove Guardians
www.seashepherd.org/cove-guardians
Photo: Sea Shepherd
A Devastating wildfire that broke out at the Port Hills near Christchurch city last month. It was horrifying moment to see it move rapidly towards city. It was contained after a week long effort.
"Save the girl child campaign by SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIC"
Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
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"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict ( Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ). Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured. We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism".The 2001 Census conducted by Government of India, showed a sharp decline in the child sex ratio in 80% districts of India. The Census Report of 2001 reveals a highly skewed child sex ratio (0-6 year-olds), that fell from 945 females per 1,000 males in 1991 to an all-time low of 927 in 2001. Additional data from the India’s birth and death registration service indicates that the figures have further fallen to fewer than 900 females per 1,000 men over the last few years. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000. It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias.
The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
Over the years, laws have been made stricter and the punishment too is more stringent now. But since many people manage to evade punishment, others too feel inclined to take the risk. Just look at the way sex-determination tests go on despite a stiff ban on them. Only if the message goes out loud and clear that nobody who dares to snuff out the life of a female foetus would escape effective legal system would the practice end. It is only by a combination of monitoring, education, socio-cultural campaigns, and effective legal implementation that the deep-seated attitudes and practices against women and girls can be eroded.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders,the practice of female genital mutilation , honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008.
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Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance, Education and Empowerment!!!!!
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Ladli — which in Indian languages (Hindi and Urdu) means ‘beloved daughter.’
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LADLI - The loved one! campaign by SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIC
Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
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"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. The 2001 Census conducted by Government of India, showed a sharp decline in the child sex ratio in 80% districts of India. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000.
It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
Over the years, laws have been made stricter and the punishment too is more stringent now. But since many people manage to evade punishment, others too feel inclined to take the risk. Just look at the way sex-determination tests go on despite a stiff ban on them. Only if the message goes out loud and clear that nobody who dares to snuff out the life of a female foetus would escape effective legal system would the practice end. It is only by a combination of monitoring, education, socio-cultural campaigns, and effective legal implementation that the deep-seated attitudes and practices against women and girls can be eroded.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Dedicated to those who lost their lives in the bushfires and to their families and loved ones. My heart breaks for everyone, everytime I watch the news tears roll down my face seeing this devastating tragedy. Words cannot express how I feel, your in my thoughts and prayers, my heart goes out to all of you who have lost so much!
Thank you to the brave and heroic firefighters and volunteers, who have been working for days with little rest.
The death toll from Victoria's bushfires reached 181 and could rise much further, this is Australia’s worst natural disaster. Whole towns have been declared crime scenes, with fears many of the fires that broke out on Saturday and claimed so many lives were deliberately lit.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described the lighting of fires as "mass murder"
My thoughts are also with the victims of North Queensland's after devastating floods.The flood-affected residents of north Queensland are putting their own problems aside some of them plan to hand over their aid cheques to the Victorian bushfire disaster appeal.
Thank you to my flickr friends for your concern for my safety, thankfully we are nowhere near the fire or floods.
Please take a look at this special moment a CFA Volunteer captured
Thirsty koala - The most famous koala in the Australian bushfire 2009
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW6aEhrUSfQ
NO INVITES PLEASE
The 1918–20 "Spanish flu" influenza pandemic resulted in dramatic mortality worldwide.
A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν, pan, 'all' and δῆμος, demos, 'people') is an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of infected people is not a pandemic. Further, flu pandemics generally exclude recurrences of seasonal flu.
Throughout history, there have been a number of pandemics of diseases such as smallpox and tuberculosis. One of the most devastating pandemics was the Black Death (also known as The Plague), which killed an estimated 75–200 million people in the 14th century. Other notable pandemics include the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu) and the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1). Current pandemics include HIV/AIDS and the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic.
Contents
1Definition and stages
2Management
3Current pandemics
3.1HIV/AIDS
3.2Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
4Notable outbreaks
4.1Cholera
4.2Influenza
4.3Typhus
4.4Smallpox
4.5Measles
4.6Tuberculosis
4.7Leprosy
4.8Malaria
4.9Yellow fever
5Concerns about future pandemics
5.1Antibiotic resistance
5.2Viral hemorrhagic fevers
5.3Coronaviruses
5.4Influenza
5.5Zika virus
6Economic consequences
7Biological warfare
8In popular culture
9See also
10Notes
11References
12Further reading
13External links
Definition and stages[edit]
The World Health Organization's former influenza pandemic alert phases—WHO no longer uses this old system of six phases
A pandemic is an epidemic occurring on a scale that crosses international boundaries, usually affecting people on a worldwide scale.[1] Pandemics can also occur in important agricultural organisms (livestock, crop plants, fish, tree species) or in other organisms.[citation needed] A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people; it must also be infectious. For instance, cancer is responsible for many deaths but is not considered a pandemic because the disease is neither infectious nor contagious.[2]
The World Health Organization (WHO) previously applied a six-stage classification to describe the process by which a novel influenza virus moves from the first few infections in humans through to a pandemic. This starts with the virus mostly infecting animals, with a few cases where animals infect people, then moves through the stage where the virus begins to spread directly between people and ends with a pandemic when infections from the new virus have spread worldwide. In February 2020, a WHO spokesperson clarified that "there is no official category [for a pandemic]".[a][3]
In a virtual press conference in May 2009 on the influenza pandemic, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General ad interim for Health Security and Environment, WHO said "An easy way to think about pandemic ... is to say: a pandemic is a global outbreak. Then you might ask yourself: 'What is a global outbreak'? Global outbreak means that we see both spread of the agent ... and then we see disease activities in addition to the spread of the virus."[4]
In planning for a possible influenza pandemic, the WHO published a document on pandemic preparedness guidance in 1999, revised in 2005 and in February 2009, defining phases and appropriate actions for each phase in an aide-mémoire titled WHO pandemic phase descriptions and main actions by phase. The 2009 revision, including definitions of a pandemic and the phases leading to its declaration, were finalized in February 2009. The pandemic H1N1 2009 virus was neither on the horizon at that time nor mentioned in the document.[5][6] All versions of this document refer to influenza. The phases are defined by the spread of the disease; virulence and mortality are not mentioned in the current WHO definition, although these factors have previously been included.[7]
Management[edit]
See also: Mathematical modelling of infectious disease
The goals of community mitigation: (1) delay outbreak peak; (2) reduce peak burden on healthcare, known as flattening the curve; and (3) diminish overall cases and health impact.[8][9]
The basic strategies in the control of an outbreak are containment and mitigation. Containment may be undertaken in the early stages of the outbreak, including contact tracing and isolating infected individuals to stop the disease from spreading to the rest of the population, other public health interventions on infection control, and therapeutic countermeasures such as vaccinations which may be effective if available.[10] When it becomes apparent that it is no longer possible to contain the spread of the disease, it will then move on to the mitigation stage, when measures are taken to slow the spread of disease and mitigate its effects on the health care system and society. In reality, a combination of both containment and mitigation measures may be undertaken at the same time to control an outbreak.[11]
A key part of managing an infectious disease outbreak is trying to decrease the epidemic peak, known as flattening the epidemic curve.[8] This helps decrease the risk of health services being overwhelmed and providing more time for a vaccine and treatment to be developed.[8] Non-pharmaceutical interventions may be taken to manage the outbreak; for example in a flu pandemic, these actions may include personal preventive measures such as hand hygiene, wearing face-masks and self-quarantine; community measures aimed at social distancing such as closing schools and cancelling mass gathering events; community engagement to encourage acceptance and participation in such interventions; as well as environmental measures such as cleaning of surfaces.[9]
Another strategy, suppression, requires more extreme long-term non-pharmaceutical interventions so as to reverse the pandemic by reducing the basic reproduction number to less than 1. The suppression strategy, which include stringent population-wide social distancing, home isolation of cases and household quarantine, was undertaken by China during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic where entire cities were placed under lockdown, but such strategy carries with it considerable social and economic costs.[12]
Current pandemics[edit]
HIV/AIDS[edit]
Main article: AIDS pandemic
Estimated HIV/AIDS prevalence among young adults (15-49) by country as of 2008
HIV originated in Africa, and spread to the United States via Haiti between 1966 and 1972.[13] AIDS is currently a pandemic, with infection rates as high as 25% in southern and eastern Africa. In 2006, the HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women in South Africa was 29%.[14] Effective education about safer sexual practices and bloodborne infection precautions training have helped to slow down infection rates in several African countries sponsoring national education programs.[citation needed]
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)[edit]
Main article: 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic
People queueing outside a Wuhan pharmacy to buy face masks and medical supplies
A new coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, in late December 2019,[15] as causing a cluster of cases of an acute respiratory disease, referred to as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). According to media reports, more than 200 countries and territories have been affected, with major outbreaks in the United States, central China, Italy, Spain, and Iran.[16][17] On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization characterized the spread of COVID-19 as a pandemic.[18][19] As of 3 April 2020, the number of SARS-CoV-2 infected persons reached one million, the death toll was 55,132 and the number of patients recovered was 225,335.[20]
Notable outbreaks[edit]
See also: List of epidemics, Columbian Exchange, and Globalization and disease
There have been a number of significant epidemics and pandemics recorded in human history, generally zoonoses such as influenza and tuberculosis, which came about with domestication of animals. There have been a number of particularly significant epidemics that deserve mention above the "mere" destruction of cities:
Plague of Athens, from 430 to 426 BCE. During the Peloponnesian War, typhoid fever killed a quarter of the Athenian troops, and a quarter of the population over four years. This disease fatally weakened the dominance of Athens, but the sheer virulence of the disease prevented its wider spread; i.e. it killed off its hosts at a rate faster than they could spread it. The exact cause of the plague was unknown for many years. In January 2006, researchers from the University of Athens analyzed teeth recovered from a mass grave underneath the city, and confirmed the presence of bacteria responsible for typhoid.[21]
Contemporary engraving of Marseille during the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720–1721
Antonine Plague, from 165 to 180 AD. Possibly smallpox brought to the Italian peninsula by soldiers returning from the Near East; it killed a quarter of those infected, and up to five million in all.[22] At the height of a second outbreak, the Plague of Cyprian (251–266), which may have been the same disease, 5,000 people a day were said to be dying in Rome.
Plague of Justinian, from 541 to 750, was the first recorded outbreak of the bubonic plague. It started in Egypt, and reached Constantinople the following spring, killing (according to the Byzantine chronicler Procopius) 10,000 a day at its height, and perhaps 40% of the city's inhabitants. The plague went on to eliminate a quarter to half the human population of the known world.[23][24] It caused Europe's population to drop by around 50% between 550 AD and 700 AD.[25]
Black Death, from 1331 to 1353. The total number of deaths worldwide is estimated at 75 to 200 million people.Black Death#cite ref-ABC/Reuters 1-1 Eight hundred years after the last outbreak, the plague returned to Europe. Starting in Asia, the disease reached Mediterranean and western Europe in 1348 (possibly from Italian merchants fleeing fighting in Crimea), and killed an estimated 20 to 30 million Europeans in six years;[26] a third of the total population,[27] and up to a half in the worst-affected urban areas.[28] It was the first of a cycle of European plague epidemics that continued until the 18th century.[29] There were more than 100 plague epidemics in Europe in this period.[30] The disease recurred in England every two to five years from 1361 to 1480.[31] By the 1370s, England's population was reduced by 50%.[32] The Great Plague of London of 1665–66 was the last major outbreak of the plague in England. The disease killed approximately 100,000 people, 20% of London's population.[33]
The third plague pandemic started in China in 1855, and spread to India, where 10 million people died.[34] During this pandemic, the United States saw its first outbreak: the San Francisco plague of 1900–1904.[35] Today, isolated cases of plague are still found in the western United States.[36]
Spanish flu, from 1918 to 1920. It infected 500 million people around the world,[37] including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million people.[37][38] Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the very young and the very old, with higher survival rate for those in between, but the Spanish flu had an unusually high mortality rate for young adults.[39] Spanish flu killed more people than World War I did and it killed more people in 25 weeks than AIDS did in its first 25 years.[40][41] Mass troop movements and close quarters during World War I caused it to spread and mutate faster; the susceptibility of soldiers to Spanish flu might have been increased due to stress, malnourishment and chemical attacks.[42] Improved transportation systems made it easier for soldiers, sailors, and civilian travelers to spread the disease.[43]
Aztecs dying of smallpox, Florentine Codex (compiled 1540–1585)
Encounters between European explorers and populations in the rest of the world often introduced local epidemics of extraordinary virulence. Disease killed part of the native population of the Canary Islands in the 16th century (Guanches). Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox. Smallpox also ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone, including the emperor, and Peru in the 1530s, aiding the European conquerors.[44] Measles killed a further two million Mexican natives in the 17th century. In 1618–1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans.[45] During the 1770s, smallpox killed at least 30% of the Pacific Northwest Native Americans.[46] Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians.[47] Some believe the death of up to 95% of the Native American population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases such as smallpox, measles, and influenza.[48] Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the indigenous peoples had no such immunity.[49]
Smallpox devastated the native population of Australia, killing around 50% of Indigenous Australians in the early years of British colonisation.[50] It also killed many New Zealand Māori.[51] As late as 1848–49, as many as 40,000 out of 150,000 Hawaiians are estimated to have died of measles, whooping cough and influenza. Introduced diseases, notably smallpox, nearly wiped out the native population of Easter Island.[52] Measles killed more than 40,000 Fijians, approximately one-third of the population, in 1875,[53] and in the early 21st century devastated the Andamanese population.[54] The Ainu population decreased drastically in the 19th century, due in large part to infectious diseases brought by Japanese settlers pouring into Hokkaido.[55]
Researchers concluded that syphilis was carried from the New World to Europe after Columbus' voyages. The findings suggested Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions of Europe.[56] The disease was more frequently fatal than it is today. Syphilis was a major killer in Europe during the Renaissance.[57] Between 1602 and 1796, the Dutch East India Company sent almost a million Europeans to work in Asia. Ultimately, fewer than a third made their way back to Europe. The majority died of diseases.[58] Disease killed more British soldiers in India and South Africa than war.[59]
As early as 1803, the Spanish Crown organized a mission (the Balmis expedition) to transport the smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies, and establish mass vaccination programs there.[60] By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans.[61] From the beginning of the 20th century onwards, the elimination or control of disease in tropical countries became a driving force for all colonial powers.[62] The sleeping sickness epidemic in Africa was arrested due to mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk.[63] In the 20th century, the world saw the biggest increase in its population in human history due to lessening of the mortality rate in many countries due to medical advances.[64] The world population has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to an estimated 6.8 billion in 2011.[65]
Cholera[edit]
Main article: Cholera outbreaks and pandemics
Since it became widespread in the 19th century, cholera has killed tens of millions of people.[66]
1817–1824 cholera pandemic. Previously restricted to the Indian subcontinent, the pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. 10,000 British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic.[67] It extended as far as China, Indonesia (where more than 100,000 people succumbed on the island of Java alone) and the Caspian Sea before receding. Deaths in the Indian subcontinent between 1817 and 1860 are estimated to have exceeded 15 million persons. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917. Russian deaths during a similar period exceeded 2 million.[68]
1826–1837 cholera pandemic. Reached Russia (see Cholera Riots), Hungary (about 100,000 deaths) and Germany in 1831, London in 1832 (more than 55,000 persons died in the United Kingdom),[69] France, Canada (Ontario), and United States (New York City) in the same year,[70] and the Pacific coast of North America by 1834. It is believed that more than 150,000 Americans died of cholera between 1832 and 1849.[71]
1846–1860 cholera pandemic. Deeply affected Russia, with more than a million deaths. A two-year outbreak began in England and Wales in 1848 and claimed 52,000 lives.[72] Throughout Spain, cholera caused more than 236,000 deaths in 1854–55.[73] It claimed 200,000 lives in Mexico.[74]
1863–75 cholera pandemic. Spread mostly in Europe and Africa. At least 30,000 of the 90,000 Mecca pilgrims fell victim to the disease. Cholera claimed 90,000 lives in Russia in 1866.[75]
In 1866, there was an outbreak in North America. It killed some 50,000 Americans.[71]
1881–96 cholera pandemic. The 1883–1887 epidemic cost 250,000 lives in Europe and at least 50,000 in the Americas. Cholera claimed 267,890 lives in Russia (1892);[76] 120,000 in Spain;[77] 90,000 in Japan and 60,000 in Persia.
In 1892, cholera contaminated the water supply of Hamburg, and caused 8,606 deaths.[78]
1899–1923 cholera pandemic. Had little effect in Europe because of advances in public health, but Russia was badly affected again (more than 500,000 people dying of cholera during the first quarter of the 20th century).[79] The sixth pandemic killed more than 800,000 in India. The 1902–1904 cholera epidemic claimed more than 200,000 lives in the Philippines.[80]
1961–75 cholera pandemic. Began in Indonesia, called El Tor after the new biotype responsible for the pandemic, and reached Bangladesh in 1963, India in 1964, and the Soviet Union in 1966. Since then the pandemic has reached Africa, South America, and Central America.
Influenza[edit]
Main article: Influenza pandemic
Advice for travelers (in French and English) on the risks of epidemics abroad; posters from the Charles De Gaulle airport, Paris
The Greek physician Hippocrates, the "Father of Medicine", first described influenza in 412 BC.[81]
The first influenza pandemic was recorded in 1580, and since then, influenza pandemics occurred every 10 to 30 years.[82][83][84]
The 1889–1890 flu pandemic, also known as Russian Flu, was first reported in May 1889 in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. By October, it had reached Tomsk and the Caucasus. It rapidly spread west and hit North America in December 1889, South America in February–April 1890, India in February–March 1890, and Australia in March–April 1890. The H3N8 and H2N2 subtypes of the Influenza A virus have each been identified as possible causes. It had a very high attack and mortality rate, causing around a million fatalities.[85]
The "Spanish flu", 1918–1919. First identified early in March 1918 in U.S. troops training at Camp Funston, Kansas. By October 1918, it had spread to become a worldwide pandemic on all continents, and eventually infected about one-third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons).[37] Unusually deadly and virulent, it ended almost as quickly as it began, vanishing completely within 18 months. Within six months, some 50 million people were dead;[37] some estimates put the total number of fatalities worldwide at over twice that number.[86] About 17 million died in India, 675,000 in the United States,[87] and 200,000 in the United Kingdom. The virus that caused Spanish flu was also implicated as a cause of encephalitis lethargica in children.[88] The virus was recently reconstructed by scientists at the CDC studying remains preserved by the Alaskan permafrost. The H1N1 virus has a small but crucial structure that is similar to the Spanish flu.[89]
The "Asian Flu", 1957–58. A H2N2 virus first identified in China in late February 1957. It caused about two million deaths globally.[90] The Asian flu spread to the United States by June 1957 and caused about 70,000 deaths in the U.S.
The "Hong Kong Flu", 1968–69. A H3N2 virus first detected in Hong Kong in early 1968, and spread to the United States later that year. This pandemic of 1968 and 1969 killed approximately one million people worldwide.[91] It caused about 34,000 deaths in the United States.
The "Swine Flu", 2009–10. An H1N1 virus first detected in Mexico in early 2009, and spread to the United States later that year. This pandemic was estimated to have killed around 284,000 people worldwide.[92][failed verification] It was estimated to have caused about 12,000 deaths in the United States alone.
Typhus[edit]
Typhus is sometimes called "camp fever" because of its pattern of flaring up in times of strife. (It is also known as "gaol fever" and "ship fever", for its habits of spreading wildly in cramped quarters, such as jails and ships.) Emerging during the Crusades, it had its first impact in Europe in 1489, in Spain. During fighting between the Christian Spaniards and the Muslims in Granada, the Spanish lost 3,000 to war casualties, and 20,000 to typhus. In 1528, the French lost 18,000 troops in Italy, and lost supremacy in Italy to the Spanish. In 1542, 30,000 soldiers died of typhus while fighting the Ottomans in the Balkans.
During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), about eight million Germans were killed by bubonic plague and typhus.[93] The disease also played a major role in the destruction of Napoleon's Grande Armée in Russia in 1812. During the retreat from Moscow, more French military personnel died of typhus than were killed by the Russians.[94] Of the 450,000 soldiers who crossed the Neman on 25 June 1812, fewer than 40,000 returned. More military personnel were killed from 1500–1914 by typhus than from military action.[95] In early 1813, Napoleon raised a new army of 500,000 to replace his Russian losses. In the campaign of that year, more than 219,000 of Napoleon's soldiers died of typhus.[96] Typhus played a major factor in the Irish Potato Famine. During World War I, typhus epidemics killed more than 150,000 in Serbia. There were about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus in Russia from 1918 to 1922.[96] Typhus also killed numerous prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps and Soviet prisoner of war camps during World War II. More than 3.5 million Soviet POWs died out of the 5.7 million in Nazi custody.[97]
Smallpox[edit]
A child with smallpox infection, c. 1908
Smallpox was a contagious disease caused by the variola virus. The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans per year during the closing years of the 18th century.[98] During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300–500 million deaths.[99][100] As recently as the early 1950s, an estimated 50 million cases of smallpox occurred in the world each year.[101] After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in December 1979. To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated,[102] and one of two infectious viruses ever to be eradicated along with rinderpest.[103]
Measles[edit]
Historically, measles was prevalent throughout the world, as it is highly contagious. According to the U.S. National Immunization Program, 90% of people were infected with measles by age 15. Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, there were an estimated three to four million cases in the U.S. each year.[104] Measles killed around 200 million people worldwide over the last 150 years.[105] In 2000 alone, measles killed some 777,000 worldwide out of 40 million cases globally.[106]
Measles is an endemic disease, meaning it has been continually present in a community, and many people develop resistance. In populations that have not been exposed to measles, exposure to a new disease can be devastating. In 1529, a measles outbreak in Cuba killed two-thirds of the natives who had previously survived smallpox.[107] The disease had ravaged Mexico, Central America, and the Inca civilization.[108]
Tuberculosis[edit]
In 2007, the prevalence of TB per 100,000 people was highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, and was also relatively high in Asian countries like India.
One-quarter of the world's current population has been infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and new infections occur at a rate of one per second.[109] About 5–10% of these latent infections will eventually progress to active disease, which, if left untreated, kills more than half its victims. Annually, eight million people become ill with tuberculosis, and two million die from the disease worldwide.[110] In the 19th century, tuberculosis killed an estimated one-quarter of the adult population of Europe;[111] by 1918, one in six deaths in France were still caused by tuberculosis. During the 20th century, tuberculosis killed approximately 100 million people.[105] TB is still one of the most important health problems in the developing world.[112]
Leprosy[edit]
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is caused by a bacillus, Mycobacterium leprae. It is a chronic disease with an incubation period of up to five years. Since 1985, 15 million people worldwide have been cured of leprosy.[113]
Historically, leprosy has affected people since at least 600 BC.[114] Leprosy outbreaks began to occur in Western Europe around 1000 AD.[115][116] Numerous leprosoria, or leper hospitals, sprang up in the Middle Ages; Matthew Paris estimated that in the early 13th century, there were 19,000 of them across Europe.[117]
Malaria[edit]
Past and current malaria prevalence in 2009
Malaria is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Each year, there are approximately 350–500 million cases of malaria.[118] Drug resistance poses a growing problem in the treatment of malaria in the 21st century, since resistance is now common against all classes of antimalarial drugs, except for the artemisinins.[119]
Malaria was once common in most of Europe and North America, where it is now for all purposes non-existent.[120] Malaria may have contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire.[121] The disease became known as "Roman fever".[122] Plasmodium falciparum became a real threat to colonists and indigenous people alike when it was introduced into the Americas along with the slave trade. Malaria devastated the Jamestown colony and regularly ravaged the South and Midwest of the United States. By 1830, it had reached the Pacific Northwest.[123] During the American Civil War, there were more than 1.2 million cases of malaria among soldiers of both sides.[124] The southern U.S. continued to be afflicted with millions of cases of malaria into the 1930s.[125]
Yellow fever[edit]
Yellow fever has been a source of several devastating epidemics.[126] Cities as far north as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston were hit with epidemics. In 1793, one of the largest yellow fever epidemics in U.S. history killed as many as 5,000 people in Philadelphia—roughly 10% of the population. About half of the residents had fled the city, including President George Washington.[127] In colonial times, West Africa became known as "the white man's grave" because of malaria and yellow fever.[128]
Concerns about future pandemics[edit]
See also: Pandemic prevention
Antibiotic resistance[edit]
Main article: Antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, sometimes referred to as "superbugs", may contribute to the re-emergence of diseases which are currently well controlled.[129] For example, cases of tuberculosis that are resistant to traditionally effective treatments remain a cause of great concern to health professionals. Every year, nearly half a million new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are estimated to occur worldwide.[130] China and India have the highest rate of multidrug-resistant TB.[131] The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that approximately 50 million people worldwide are infected with MDR TB, with 79 percent of those cases resistant to three or more antibiotics. In 2005, 124 cases of MDR TB were reported in the United States. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) was identified in Africa in 2006, and subsequently discovered to exist in 49 countries, including the United States. There are about 40,000 new cases of XDR-TB per year, the WHO estimates.[132]
In the past 20 years, common bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Serratia marcescens and Enterococcus, have developed resistance to various antibiotics such as vancomycin, as well as whole classes of antibiotics, such as the aminoglycosides and cephalosporins. Antibiotic-resistant organisms have become an important cause of healthcare-associated (nosocomial) infections (HAI). In addition, infections caused by community-acquired strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in otherwise healthy individuals have become more frequent in recent years.
Viral hemorrhagic fevers[edit]
Viral hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola virus disease, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Marburg virus disease and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever are highly contagious and deadly diseases, with the theoretical potential to become pandemics.[133] Their ability to spread efficiently enough to cause a pandemic is limited, however, as transmission of these viruses requires close contact with the infected vector, and the vector has only a short time before death or serious illness. Furthermore, the short time between a vector becoming infectious and the onset of symptoms allows medical professionals to quickly quarantine vectors, and prevent them from carrying the pathogen elsewhere. Genetic mutations could occur, which could elevate their potential for causing widespread harm; thus close observation by contagious disease specialists is merited.[citation needed]
Coronaviruses[edit]
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A new strain of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) causes Coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19.[134]
COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the WHO on 11 March 2020.
Some coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans, and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans. Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath, and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death. Standard recommendations to prevent the spread of infection include regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs, and avoiding close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing. The recommended distance from other people is 6 feet, a practice more commonly called social distancing.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome[edit]
In 2003 the Italian physician Carlo Urbani (1956–2003) was the first to identify severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) as a new and dangerously contagious disease, although he became infected and died. It is caused by a coronavirus dubbed SARS-CoV. Rapid action by national and international health authorities such as the World Health Organization helped to slow transmission and eventually broke the chain of transmission, which ended the localized epidemics before they could become a pandemic. However, the disease has not been eradicated and could re-emerge. This warrants monitoring and reporting of suspicious cases of atypical pneumonia.[135]
Influenza[edit]
Main article: Influenza pandemic
President Barack Obama is briefed in the Situation Room about the 2009 flu pandemic, which killed as many as 17,000 Americans.[136]
Wild aquatic birds are the natural hosts for a range of influenza A viruses. Occasionally, viruses are transmitted from these species to other species, and may then cause outbreaks in domestic poultry or, rarely, in humans.[137][138]
H5N1 (Avian flu)[edit]
Main article: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1
In February 2004, avian influenza virus was detected in birds in Vietnam, increasing fears of the emergence of new variant strains. It is feared that if the avian influenza virus combines with a human influenza virus (in a bird or a human), the new subtype created could be both highly contagious and highly lethal in humans. Such a subtype could cause a global influenza pandemic, similar to the Spanish flu or the lower mortality pandemics such as the Asian Flu and the Hong Kong Flu.
From October 2004 to February 2005, some 3,700 test kits of the 1957 Asian Flu virus were accidentally spread around the world from a lab in the U.S.[139]
In May 2005, scientists urgently called upon nations to prepare for a global influenza pandemic that could strike as much as 20% of the world's population.[140]
In October 2005, cases of the avian flu (the deadly strain H5N1) were identified in Turkey. EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said: "We have received now confirmation that the virus found in Turkey is an avian flu H5N1 virus. There is a direct relationship with viruses found in Russia, Mongolia and China." Cases of bird flu were also identified shortly thereafter in Romania, and then Greece. Possible cases of the virus have also been found in Croatia, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom.[141]
By November 2007, numerous confirmed cases of the H5N1 strain had been identified across Europe.[142] However, by the end of October, only 59 people had died as a result of H5N1, which was atypical of previous influenza pandemics.
Avian flu cannot be categorized as a "pandemic" because the virus cannot yet cause sustained and efficient human-to-human transmission. Cases so far are recognized to have been transmitted from bird to human, but as of December 2006 there had been few (if any) cases of proven human-to-human transmission.[143] Regular influenza viruses establish infection by attaching to receptors in the throat and lungs, but the avian influenza virus can attach only to receptors located deep in the lungs of humans, requiring close, prolonged contact with infected patients, and thus limiting person-to-person transmission.
Zika virus[edit]
Main articles: 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic, Zika virus, and Zika fever
An outbreak of Zika virus began in 2015 and strongly intensified throughout the start of 2016, with more than 1.5 million cases across more than a dozen countries in the Americas. The World Health Organization warned that Zika had the potential to become an explosive global pandemic if the outbreak was not controlled.[144]
Economic consequences[edit]
In 2016, the Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future estimated that pandemic disease events would cost the global economy over $6 trillion in the 21st century—over $60 billion per year.[145] The same report recommended spending $4.5 billion annually on global prevention and response capabilities to reduce the threat posed by pandemic events.
Biological warfare[edit]
Further information: Biological warfare
In 1346, according to secondhand and uncorroborated accounts by Mussi, the bodies of Mongol warriors who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa (now Theodosia). After a protracted siege, during which the Mongol army under Jani Beg was suffering the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the arrival of the Black Death in Europe. However, historians believe it would have taken far too long for the bodies to become contagious.[146]
The Native American population was devastated after contact with the Old World by introduction of many fatal diseases.[147][148][149] In a well documented case of germ warfare involving British commander Jeffery Amherst and Swiss-British officer Colonel Henry Bouquet, their correspondence included a proposal and agreement to give smallpox-infected blankets to Indians in order to "Extirpate this Execrable Race". During the siege of Fort Pitt late in the French and Indian War, as recorded in his journal by sundries trader and militia Captain, William Trent, on 24 June 1763, dignitaries from the Delaware tribe met with Fort Pitt officials, warned them of "great numbers of Indians" coming to attack the fort, and pleaded with them to leave the fort while there was still time. The commander of the fort refused to abandon the fort. Instead, the British gave as gifts two blankets, one silk handkerchief and one linen from the smallpox hospital to two Delaware Indian dignitaries.[150] The dignitaries were met again later and they seemingly hadn't contracted smallpox.[151] A relatively small outbreak of smallpox had begun spreading earlier that spring, with a hundred dying from it among Native American tribes in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes area through 1763 and 1764.[151] The effectiveness of the biological warfare itself remains unknown, and the method used is inefficient compared to respiratory transmission and these attempts to spread the disease are difficult to differentiate from epidemics occurring from previous contacts with colonists,[152] as smallpox outbreaks happened every dozen or so years.[153] However historian Francis Jennings believes that the attempt at biological warfare was "unquestionably effective at Fort Pitt".[154]
During the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army conducted human experimentation on thousands, mostly Chinese. In military campaigns, the Japanese army used biological weapons on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.
Diseases considered for or known to be used as a weapon include anthrax, ebola, Marburg virus, plague, cholera, typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, brucellosis, Q fever, machupo, Coccidioides mycosis, Glanders, Melioidosis, Shigella, Psittacosis, Japanese B encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, and smallpox.[155]
Spores of weaponized anthrax were accidentally released from a military facility near the Soviet closed city of Sverdlovsk in 1979. The Sverdlovsk anthrax leak is sometimes called "biological Chernobyl".[155] In January 2009, an Al-Qaeda training camp in Algeria was reportedly wiped out by the plague, killing approximately 40 Islamic extremists. Some experts said the group was developing biological weapons,[156] however, a couple of days later the Algerian Health Ministry flatly denied this rumour stating "No case of plague of any type has been recorded in any region of Algeria since 2003".[157]
In popular culture[edit]
This section contains a list of miscellaneous information. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles. (March 2020)
Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) reflects the social upheaval and terror that followed the plague that devastated medieval Europe.
Pandemics appear in multiple fiction works. A common use is in disaster films, where the protagonists must avoid the effects of the plague, for example zombies.[clarification needed]
Literature
The Decameron, a 14th-century writing by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, circa 1353
The Last Man, an 1826 novel by Mary Shelley
The Betrothed, an 1842 historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni describing the plague that struck Milan around 1630.
Pale Horse, Pale Rider, a 1939 short novel by Katherine Anne Porter
The Plague, a 1947 novel by Albert Camus
Earth Abides, a 1949 novel by George R. Stewart
I Am Legend, a 1954 science fiction/horror novel by American writer Richard Matheson
The Andromeda Strain, a 1969 science fiction novel by Michael Crichton
The Last Canadian, a 1974 novel by William C. Heine
The Black Death, a 1977 novel by Gwyneth Cravens describing an outbreak of the Pneumonic plague in New York[158]
The Stand, a 1978 novel by Stephen King
And the Band Played On, a 1987 non-fiction account by Randy Shilts about the emergence and discovery of the HIV / AIDS pandemic
Doomsday Book, a 1992 time-travel novel by Connie Willis
The Last Town on Earth, a 2006 novel by Thomas Mullen
World War Z, a 2006 novel by Max Brooks
Company of Liars (2008), by Karen Maitland
The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin with The Passage (2010), The Twelve (2012), and The City of Mirrors (2016)
Station Eleven, a 2014 novel by Emily St. John Mandel
Film
The Seventh Seal (1957), set during the Black Death
The Last Man on Earth (1964), a horror/science fiction film based on the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend
Andromeda Strain (1971), a U.S. science fiction film based on the 1969 science fiction novel by Michael Crichton.
The Omega Man (1971), an English science fiction film, based on the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend
And the Band Played On (film) (1993), a HBO movie about the emergence of the HIV / AIDS pandemic; based on the 1987 non-fiction book by journalistRandy Shilts
The Stand (1994), based on the eponymous novel by Stephen King about a worldwide pandemic of biblical proportions
The Horseman on the Roof (Le Hussard sur le Toit) (1995), a French film dealing with an 1832 cholera outbreak
Twelve Monkeys (1995), set in a future world devastated by a man-made virus
Outbreak (1995), fiction film focusing on an outbreak of an Ebola-like virus in Zaire and later in a small town in California.
Smallpox 2002 (2002), a fictional BBC docudrama
28 Days Later (2002), a fictional horror film following the outbreak of an infectious 'Rage' virus that destroys all of mainland Britain
Yesterday (2004), a movie about the social aspects of the AIDS crisis in Africa.
End Day (2005), a fictional BBC docudrama
I Am Legend (2007), a post-apocalyptic action thriller film film starring Will Smith based on the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend
28 Weeks Later (2007), the sequel film to 28 Days Later, ending with the evident spread of infection to mainland Europe
The Happening (2008), a fictional suspense film about an epidemic caused by an unknown neurotoxin that induces human suicides to reduce population and restore ecological balance
Doomsday (2008), in which Scotland is quarantined following an epidemic
Black Death (2010) action horror film set during the time of the first outbreak of bubonic plague in England
After Armageddon (2010), fictional History Channel docudrama
Contagion (2011), American thriller centering on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the CDC to deal with the outbreak
How to Survive a Plague (2012), a documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic
World War Z (2013) American apocalyptic action horror film based on the novel by Max Brooks
The Normal Heart (2014), film depicts the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984
Television
Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen (2009), a television drama
Helix (2014–2015), a television series that depicts a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who are tasked to prevent pandemics from occurring.
The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018), a television series about a group of survivors after a pandemic has wiped out most life (humans and animals) on Earth
12 Monkeys (2015–2018), a television series that depicts James Cole, a time traveler, who travels from the year 2043 to the present day to stop the release of a deadly virus.
Survivors (1975–1977), classic BBC series created by Terry Nation. The series follows a group of people as they come to terms with the aftermath of a world pandemic.
Survivors (2008), BBC series, loosely based on the Terry Nation book which came after the series, instead of a retelling of the original TV series.
The Last Train 1999 written by Matthew Graham
World Without End (2012), chronicles the experiences of the medieval English town of Kingsbridge during the outbreak of the Black Death, based on Ken Follett's 2007 novel of the same name.
The Hot Zone (2019), a television series based on the 1994 non-fiction book of the same name by Richard Preston.
Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak (2020), Netflix's docuseries
The Walking Dead (2010–), a virus appears that kills people and then revives them by turning them into zombies. An Atlanta group will try to survive in this new, post-apocalyptic world
Games
Resident Evil series (1996-2020), video game series focusing on T-virus pandemic and eventual zombie apocalypse as part of a bioterrorism act. The video games later evolved to be focusing on parasites and bioweapons.
Deus Ex, A World Wide Plague known as grey death infects the world created by Majestic 12 to bring about population reduction and New World order.
Pandemic (2008), a cooperative board game in which the players have to discover the cures for four diseases that break out at the same time.
Plague Inc. (2012), a smartphone game from Ndemic Creations, where the goal is to kill off the human race with a plague.
The Last of Us (2013), a post-apocalyptic survival game centred around an outbreak of a Cordyceps-like fungal infection.
Tom Clancy's The Division (2015) A video game about a bioterrorist attack that has devastated the United States and thrown New York into anarchy.
See also[edit]
Pandemic portal
iconViruses portal
List of epidemics
Biological hazard
Bushmeat
Compartmental models in epidemiology
Crowdmapping
Disease X
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
Mathematical modelling of infectious disease
Medieval demography
Mortality from infectious diseases
Pandemic severity index
Public health emergency of international concern
Super-spreader
Syndemic
Tropical disease
Timeline of global health
WHO pandemic phases
Notes[edit]
^ For clarification, WHO does not use the old system of six phases—ranging from phase 1 (no reports of animal influenza causing human infections) to phase 6 (a pandemic)—that some people may be familiar with from H1N1 in 2009.
References[edit]
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January 12th, 2015 - Pantropical Spotted Dolphins - Captive and Slaughter
Yet another devastating Red Cove day. It was Pantropical Spotted dolphins that were the victims of the heinous crimes at the hands of the Taiji killers today. This was the second pod of spotted dophins stolen from the sea this killing season.
At approximately 7:00am this morning, shortly after leaving the harbour the killing vessels went out towards the south side of the main look out point used by the Cove Guardians and then spread out combing the waters for prey. It was about one hour later that the beginnings of a drive formation was spotted on the horizon to the North including six vessels while simultaneously another drive appeared to be beginning several kilometres away to the South. Shortly after it appeared that the fleet of six had a strong hold on the pod and drove them hard towards the shore. The remaining portion of the fleet decided to withdraw from their pursuit of the second pod to join the hunt.
The family of approximately 23 striped dolphins stayed heartbreaking close to each other during the entire horrific process. Young juveniles were seen also swimming within the pod. 4 of the spotted dolphins were taken captive and are now being held in the harbour pens where they face a lifetime of depressing captivity after witnessing the remainder of their famil slaughtered before their eyes. Approximately 21-23 lives were destroyed today. Cove Guardians will vigilantly monitor the survivors today to document their condition – at Taiji, Japan.
Sites for more information :
Sea Shepherd Cove Guardians Page (official)
www.facebook.com/SeaShepherdCoveGuardiansOfficialPage
Cove Guardians
www.seashepherd.org/cove-guardians
Photo: Sea Shepherd
Ladli — which in Indian languages (Hindi and Urdu) means ‘beloved daughter.’
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LADLI - The loved one! campaign by SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIC
Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
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"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. The 2001 Census conducted by Government of India, showed a sharp decline in the child sex ratio in 80% districts of India. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000.
It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
Over the years, laws have been made stricter and the punishment too is more stringent now. But since many people manage to evade punishment, others too feel inclined to take the risk. Just look at the way sex-determination tests go on despite a stiff ban on them. Only if the message goes out loud and clear that nobody who dares to snuff out the life of a female foetus would escape effective legal system would the practice end. It is only by a combination of monitoring, education, socio-cultural campaigns, and effective legal implementation that the deep-seated attitudes and practices against women and girls can be eroded.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?
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Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
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The Barry County Courthouse is a government building located at 220 West State Street in Hastings, Michigan. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1969 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
History
Hastings was originally platted in 1836 by the Hastings Company. The company reserved a location for a courthouse; Barry County was organized in 1839, and in 1842 the first courthouse was constructed on this spot by the county government. This courthouse burned in 1846, and in 1847 a new courthouse and jail, a two-story white frame structure, was constructed. Hastings was chartered as a village in 1855, and both the village and the surrounding county grew. In 1886, a devastating fire swept through Hastings, and, although the courthouse was spared, suggestions began to replace it with a brick structure. By early 1892, money was appropriated, and the county hired Detroit architect Albert E. French to design a new courthouse. Construction began on the current courthouse in 1892, and finished in 1894
Wildfires can lead to the creation of unique and interesting art, they can also lead to devastating loss to individuals.
For those that don't my good friend and fellow Photo Cascadia team member, Erin Babnik, found out yesterday the house she just started renting was destroyed in the Paradise, California wildfire. Although she feels fortunate to have made it out alive, as some unfortunately did not, she had to leave behind pretty much everything she owned.
She literally only moved in a week before the fire started, getting new furnishings for this move. Being that she just moved she had not gotten insurance. The day the fire happened is when she was starting to take inventory for insurance. I remember the day before the fire Erin's excitement for starting to get settled in her new place that she shared with her fellow PC team members. She planned to take a short video to show us the new space in the coming days. Unfortunately, her new place never made it that point before the fire took it.
This is obviously a challenging time for Erin and everyone else from the Paradise area coming to the realization that they are starting over. If you know Erin like I know her, you know she is a caring and generous person that helps others. Anyone who would like to help her please donate what you can in this great time of need. Any support you can offer she will truly appreciate.
www.gofundme.com/erin-babnik039s-paradise-fire-fund?share...
As a response to the devastating assault launched by the infected Blacktron forces in 2020, the IDC were prompted to develop a new class of Mecha weaponry.
The R&D department was given only one instruction: *** ALL THE GUNS! ***
And thus, the T-REX was born.
T-REX: Tactical Response to Extreme Xenophobia
Technical Specs:
2 main laser cannons, 2 detachable rocket pods, 2 rotary guns, 2 heavy artillery, 2 mixed-use launchers, anti-infantry undercarriage system, and detachable anti-air defenses. Seating two pilots to share the responsibility of driving and destruction, this beast is a FORCE to be reckoned with!
More photos available on Instagram @LEGO_Stud :)
I am honored to have already earned a Committee's Choice Award at our local Bricks Cascade BrickNic for this MOC, and look forward to sharing it in full-action-glory at the next in-person convention in 2022!
Napier is a city full of art deco buildings and this one is a favourite. Many of the city's buildings were rebuilt in the art deco style after the devastating earthquake of 1931.
My Beautiful P A K I S T A N.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir (Urdu: آزاد جموں و کشمیر; AJK) or Azad Kashmir for short (literally, "Free Kashmir"), is the southernmost political entity within the Pakistani-controlled part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. It borders the present-day Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir to the east (separated from it by the Line of Control), the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan to the west, the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA) to the north, and the Punjab Province of Pakistan to the south. With its capital at Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir covers an area of 13,297 square kilometres (5,134 sq mi) and has an estimated population of about four million.In 1972, the then-current border between Pakistani and Indian, which held areas of Kashmir, was designated as the "Line of Control". The Line of Control has remained unchanged since the 1972 Simla Agreement, which bound the two countries "to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations." Some political experts claim that, in view of that pact, the only solution to the issue is mutual negotiation between the two countries without involving a third party, such as the United Nations.A devastating earthquake hit Azad Kashmir called the Kashmir earthquake in 2005.Urdu is the official language of Azad Kashmir but is spoken by only a minority of people. The dominant language spoken in the state is Pahari, which is very similar to Pothwari and Hindko.
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