Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

The idea that you can “catch” shingles is one of the more common misconceptions I hear from patients who arrive worried they’ve got it. Often, they’ve recently been near a child with chickenpox or someone else with shingles, and are understandably anxious they’ve picked it up.

As a GP, I encounter this misunderstanding all the time. In fact, a study from my own University of Bristol found that while most patients had heard of shingles, few actually understood what it is.

Shingles isn’t something you catch from someone else. It’s the reactivation of a virus already inside your body: the varicella zoster virus, the same one that causes chickenpox. After you recover from chickenpox, the virus doesn’t leave; it hides in the nerve cells that supply sensation to your skin, lying dormant for years, sometimes decades. Shingles is what happens when that virus “wakes up”.

Read more:
Chickenpox vaccine recommended for NHS – here’s why a jab is better than getting the disease

When it reactivates, it causes clusters of small, fluid-filled blisters known as vesicles. Before the rash appears, people can feel tingling, burning or pain in one area of the body – sometimes two or three days beforehand. The skin can become unusually sensitive, and you might feel generally tired, feverish or unwell.

Shingles is common, affecting about one in 25 people. It tends to follow a characteristic pattern. The rash usually appears in a strip or band on one side of the body, corresponding to a dermatome (an area of skin served by one spinal nerve). It’s rare for shingles to appear on both sides of the body.

The blisters eventually burst, scab over and heal within three to four weeks, sometimes leaving small scars. Until each blister has crusted, a person with shingles is considered infectious, meaning they can transmit the virus to others – but not in the way most people think.

1. You can catch chickenpox from someone with shingles

To develop shingles, you must already have had chickenpox. For some patients though, chickenpox can be mild or have happened so long ago that they may struggle to recall having it.

When the shingles blisters burst, the fluid inside them contains the same, live varicella zoster virus. If someone who has never had chickenpox (or hasn’t been vaccinated against it) comes into direct contact with that fluid, they can become infected and develop chickenpox – but not shingles. Shingles only occurs when the dormant virus reawakens inside someone who has already had chickenpox.

For that reason, people with shingles should keep their rash covered (with clothing or a non-adherent dressing) until all the blisters have crusted over and healed.

It’s important to avoid contact with anyone for whom chickenpox could be particularly dangerous. That includes pregnant women – as varicella can sometimes cause complications for the mother and may harm the unborn baby. Newborn infants, whose immune systems are not yet strong enough to fight the infection are also at risk. Other patients with weakened immune systems (such as the elderly, those undergoing chemotherapy or living with conditions like HIV) may also struggle to fight the virus. Chickenpox can become a severe illness in these people, leading to complications like pneumonia.

2. Shingles can occur at any age

Although shingles becomes more likely as we age, it can occur at any time after you’ve had chickenpox – even in young adults or children. It’s more common when the immune system is weakened, which can happen with age, and in people receiving chemotherapy or other immunosuppressive treatments.

3. It can affect more than just your torso

Most cases appear on the chest or back, but shingles can occur anywhere on the body, including the face, limbs and even the genitals. When it affects the face, it can involve the eyes through nerve branches that extend there. This form, known as ophthalmic herpes, can threaten vision and cause blindness if not treated promptly. It can also affect the facial nerve which controls your facial muscles – otherwise known as Ramsay Hunt syndrome.

Some people develop pain, tingling, or sensitivity without a visible rash. The appearance of shingles can also vary by skin tone, making it harder to spot in darker skin.

4. Early treatment helps

If you suspect shingles, see a clinician promptly. Antiviral medications can help shorten recovery time and reduce complications, but they work best when started within 48-72 hours of the rash appearing.

Certain groups, including young, pregnant and breastfeeding patients, people with weakened immune systems and anyone with shingles affecting the face, nose, eyes (including the eye’s surface) or any visual changes, should definitely seek medical attention urgently.

5. The story doesn’t always end when the rash heals

For some, shingles can cause problems even after the visible rash clears. Open blisters can become infected with bacteria, sometimes requiring antibiotics. The virus can also damage nearby nerves, leading to post-herpetic neuralgia – persistent nerve pain that can last for months or even years after the skin has healed. It can feel like burning, stabbing or throbbing pain in the same area where the rash appeared.

Unfortunately, shingles can return again, sometimes in a different part of the body. The shingles vaccine significantly reduces both the risk of developing shingles and the chance of long-term nerve pain like post-herpetic neuralgia, though it doesn’t remove the risk entirely.

Think of shingles not as something you “catch”, but as something that can wake up again within your own body. It’s a reminder that viruses don’t always leave when we think they do. And that protecting yourself and others means recognising the signs early, covering the rash, and getting prompt medical advice.

Dan Baumgardt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Can you catch shingles? A GP explains what people get wrong about this common virus – https://theconversation.com/can-you-catch-shingles-a-gp-explains-what-people-get-wrong-about-this-common-virus-266653

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy E. Hyde, Lecturer, Anatomy, University of Bristol

They were pregnant. Some were prisoners. Others were the poorest of the poor, forgotten in death as in life. Yet dissection and depiction of their bodies have become the foundation of anatomical teaching.

Cradled in the pages of anatomy textbooks are figures stripped bare, not only of skin but of identity. Eduard Pernkopf’s infamous Nazi-era atlas contains exquisite, hyper-realistic drawings created from the bodies of political prisoners executed under Hitler’s regime.

William Hunter’s celebrated The Gravid Uterus (1774) shows dissected pregnant women with clinical detachment, their swollen wombs exposed. But who were these women? How did they end up on the dissection table? And, crucially, did they ever consent? It’s something rarely considered by educators, students and the public alike.

Today, body donation is governed by clear laws and ethics. In the UK, the 2004 Human Tissue Act (2006 in Scotland) requires informed, personal consent for anatomical investigation, and further consent to be given for production of images.

Annual memorial and thanksgiving services also honour donors, and those studying anatomy are taught to treat cadavers with the same dignity they would offer the living – the medic’s first patient, albeit silent.

But historical anatomical illustrations, still in use across education and medicine, were produced at times long before such safeguards existed. Most texts and imagery feature people who never gave permission to be dissected, let alone depicted for eternity. Should we keep using these images? Or does that make us complicit in a long history of medical exploitation?

Anatomical illustration and, therefore, the history of the peoples depicted, mirrors the legal and cultural attitudes toward dissection at the time. The first recorded human dissections occurred around 300BC in Alexandria, Egypt. In the second century, Galen, a Greek physician, dissected animals and treated gladiators, and laid the foundations for anatomical understanding in Europe for over a thousand years.

In medieval Europe, dissection was rare and heavily ritualised, often serving theological rather than scientific purposes. By the Renaissance, anatomy began to take its modern form. Leonardo da Vinci conducted detailed dissections, producing hundreds of drawings that combined anatomical accuracy with artistic brilliance. Yet he, too, was not above questionable methods, reportedly obtaining bodies through informal deals with hospitals and executioners. The identities of his subjects remain unknown.

In 1543, Andreas Vesalius published De Humani Corporis Fabrica, challenging centuries of Galenic error with visual evidence from dissection. His cadavers, however, were idealised, muscular, often white and probably male.

In one image, a body holds back its own skin to reveal its musculature, just like Saint Bartholomew the Apostle in his martyrdom. Never before had an anatomical text been so highly illustrated. The images were groundbreaking, but they romanticised death and dehumanised the dead.

Over time, anatomical realism became the goal. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Dutch and British anatomists like Govard Bidloo and William Hunter embraced unflinching detail – depicting the morbidity of the cadaver, showing decomposition, often violent incisions, and the tools of dissection.

Hunter’s The Gravid Uterus aimed to transform obstetrics through realism. But it relied on 14 pregnant bodies whose origins remain ethically troubling.

How did he obtain them? Even though the 1752 Murder Act allowed the anatomisation of executed murderers, only a few bodies were legally available in this way, insufficient for demand. Between 1752 and 1776, just four cadavers were sourced under the Act in London.

At the time, the proportion of women dying in childbirth was also low, around 1.4%. The likelihood that Hunter’s subjects were legally obtained is slim. More likely, they were acquired through body snatching, a common but illegal practice. Their identities were never recorded. Their images endure.

Grave robbers or “resurrection men” helped meet the growing demand for cadavers – driven by the expansion of medical education and legal restrictions on supply – by targeting the poor: those buried in shallow, recent or unmarked graves at the edges of cemeteries. Wealthier people could protect their dead in gated cemeteries patrolled by paid guards, coffins protected by iron cages or in stone vaults.

The rich could buy safety even in death. The poor were left exposed, not because they lacked value, but because they lacked power.

The 1832 Anatomy Act curbed grave robbing but entrenched injustice. Unclaimed institutionalised bodies became the new legal supply, those from workhouses, poorhouses, asylums, prisons and hospitals.

Until the 1984 Anatomy Act, and more definitively the 2004 Human Tissue Act, informed consent was not required. Let’s be clear: the bodies in most anatomical images were not volunteers. They were poor, criminalised and marginalised – those who in life already suffered the most.

The most extreme more modern example is Pernkopf’s Atlas of Topographical and Applied Human Anatomy. Widely regarded as one of the most detailed and visually stunning anatomical texts, particularly in its depiction of the peripheral nerves, it is the most ethically troubling.

The atlas was created during the Nazi regime, with at least 1,300 bodies of Jewish prisoners, Roma, queer individuals and political dissidents, many of whom were executed in Vienna’s Gestapo prison.

Despite its origins in medical atrocities, the atlas remained in print until the 1990s. Even decades later, its influence persists. A 2019 study found that 13% of neurosurgeons still use the atlas.

Some defend its continued use, citing its anatomical precision, especially in complex neurological surgeries, so long as its dark history is acknowledged. Others argue that any clinical benefit is outweighed by the ethical cost, and that continued use implies endorsement of its origins.

Efforts underway

But Pernkopf is only the most dangerous example. Across many historical images, the same fundamental question arises: can medical knowledge built on exploitation ever be fully separated from it?

There’s no single solution, but there are efforts underway. Some educators are adding context in lectures, footnotes and course materials, taking time to teach the history, acknowledging who was probably depicted and under what circumstances.

Medical illustrators are creating new images based on informed consent and modern day guidelines, partly also to create diverse representation across population history, gender, body type and ability. Institutions are digitising and cataloguing old collections with proper historical notes, so they aren’t used uncritically.

But these efforts are piecemeal. There are no universal standards or regulations governing historical anatomical imagery, falling out of the remit of even the most strict governing body. Meanwhile, these illustrations circulate freely online, in textbooks, even on social media, stripped of context, divorced from their origins.

And so, the same injustices risk being quietly perpetuated. We must start by asking better questions: who is represented in anatomical imagery today? Whose bodies are missing? And whose stories are never told?

Short term, we need clear provenance research, labelling and transparency around historical illustrations. Teachers, editors and publishers must acknowledge the sources of these images, even if unknown.

Long term, we must invest in creating new, inclusive anatomical libraries that reflect the full diversity of human bodies, across gender identities, racial backgrounds, disabilities and life stages. With ethical sourcing and clear consent, we can build materials that respect the living and the dead alike.

The people in these illustrations, silent, anonymous and dissected, were never asked to teach us. But they have and now, it’s our responsibility to ask: what kind of legacy are we creating in return?

If we want medicine to be ethical, inclusive and just, it starts with the very images we learn from. It’s time to look again at the bodies behind the drawings. And this time, to really see them.

Lucy E. Hyde does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The dark history of medical illustrations and the question of consent – https://theconversation.com/the-dark-history-of-medical-illustrations-and-the-question-of-consent-265738

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Esther Kettel, Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Conservation, Nottingham Trent University

The slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris) has been officially declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

This is the first-ever recorded global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. An accolade that no species wants. Yet, sadly, here we are. So how did we get here and what does this tragic extinction mean?

Numerous warning signs indicated the decline of the slender-billed curlew, with the first documented in 1912. Declines of the species continued over the subsequent decades but it was not until 1988 that it was classified in the high conservation concern category.

Extensive searches for any remaining slender-billed curlews were conducted but there have been no sightings since the mid-1990s. Extinction was declared as highly probable in 2024, and made official by the IUCN in October 2025.

The curlew was once thought to be fairly widespread. It was a migratory species that bred in central Asia and wintered in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. As such, like many migratory species, the curlew relied on various habitats and safe passage routes.

The pressures leading to the extinction are largely unknown. However, due to its migratory nature, the extinction of this species is likely due to a combination of factors across its historic range.

Read more:
Europe’s wild bird species are on the brink – but there are ways to bring them back

Hunting of the species was carried out in many countries along its migratory route and is considered to be one of the major causes of initial declines. In conjunction, drainage of wetlands and overgrazing of grasslands led to the rapid loss of breeding sites for this ground-nesting bird. Conservation efforts were complicated by the fact that its distribution and ecology were largely unknown. So, death rates were high, birth rates were low, and very little could be done.

The last call?

Slender-billed curlews were striking birds. They stood proud with their long legs and slim, pointed, black bill. Their calls were sweet and whistling, but somewhat haunting. It is a sad fact that this bird will never be seen or heard again.

More widely, the loss of this species shines light on the global extinction crisis. Each species plays a vital role within its ecosystem. These curlews fed on small insects, crustaceans and molluscs by probing mud with their thin bills. The role these birds played as a predator in aquatic ecosystems (such as peat bogs) is now no longer filled. This gap will undoubtedly have consequences for other species.

Slender-billed curlews were indicators of the health of the boggy habitats in which they inhabited. Their decline to eventual extinction signifies that these habitats are under severe stress. Waterbirds like the curlew can also be valuable indicators of water contamination, lack of food availability and changes in nutrient levels.

Wading birds like the slender-billed curlew are declining globally and are considered to be the most pressing bird conservation priority in the UK. Populations of species such as lapwing (Vanellus vanellus), redshank (Tringa tetanus), snipe (Gallinago gallinago) and oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) are declining in size and range across much of the UK due to habitat loss and reduced reproductive success.

The Eurasian curlew (Numenius arquata), a relative of the slender-bill, is of particular conservation concern and is thought to be the UK’s most rapidly declining species. Much effort is being made to save the Eurasian curlew so that it doesn’t follow the same fate as the slender-bill.

The UK Action Plan for Curlew (a coalition of farmers, scientists and charities) is calling for urgent and coordinated action that includes monitoring and research, habitat protection, predator management and guidance for land managers. While populations fell by 51% between 1995 and 2023 across the UK, there are signs that intensive conservation efforts are working, even if only locally.

The loss of the slender-billed curlew is truly saddening. But perhaps, just maybe, we can use this as a wake-up call to do more, and more quickly, for other wading birds that are on a similar trajectory.

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Esther Kettel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Slender-billed curlews are officially extinct – here’s why the loss of these migratory birds really matters – https://theconversation.com/slender-billed-curlews-are-officially-extinct-heres-why-the-loss-of-these-migratory-birds-really-matters-267282

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Clodagh Harrington, Lecturer in American Politics, University College Cork

Twenty five per cent of US voters think that the Republican party has a better plan for women’s rights than the Democrats, according to new polling.

While many liberal female voters are critical about Donald Trump’s remarks about women as well as his policies related to women’s rights, it’s worth noting that between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, Trump increased his support among women voters, from 42% to 45%.

Making assumptions about female voters as a single voting block is tempting, but there are multiple layers and contradictions within this hugely diverse group. Polling shows that there are a few broad conclusions about their voting patterns.

For example, in the modern era, women have higher turnout rates at US elections than men and have consistently been more likely to vote Democrat.

So, who are those women voters that Trump appeals to? The short answer is white women, or at least, some of them. With a couple of election exceptions (1964, 1996) white women tend to prefer Republican candidates over Democrats. They maintained this trend with Donald Trump.

Trumpism and the Maga movement doesn’t tend to appeal to many college-educated white women. However, religion is a factor.

Born-again or Evangelical believers who tend to be committed to the idea of the traditional family where the man goes to work and the woman stays at home and looks after the children have proved essential to Trump’s support in 2024. Eight in ten (80%) of voters who identified as Christian cast their ballots for the Trump/Vance ticket, up from 71% in 2020.

Women in this group may be more likely to appreciate the Trump administration’s attempts to encourage and support women to have more children. Trump’s proposed “National Medal of Motherhood” would create financial incentives for women to have large families. Women with six or more children may be eligible.

The government has already launched what are known as money accounts for growth and advancement. These saving plans will put a US$1000 (£742) deposit from the government into an account for babies born between 2024 and 2028, with families able to add up to US$5,000 annually before the children can access the money at age 18.

Around 64% of all American women support a legal right to abortion. However, national access to abortion is only supported by 39% of Republican women over 50, according to one poll, and this is another group that may be supportive on the Trump administration agenda on families, which has included moves to restrict abortion.

Factory jobs and the future

The Maga-influenced GOP is not the conservative party of yesteryear, but some aspects of its appeal are not new. Voter priority has long been “the economy, stupid”. And around 24% of women (compared to 17% of men) rank inflation and prices as their most important policy issue.

Trump made slashing the price of eggs a major talking point in his recent election campaign, and this will have resonated with women voters worried about the cost of living. Indeed, Trump claimed he won the election on immigration and groceries.

Read more:
Why Americans care so much about egg prices – and how this issue got so political

Trump also plans to “fix” the economy and “tariff the hell” out of countries that have “taken advantage” of the US. These policies aim to rebuild US domestic manufacturing. For women in manufacturing communities who have seen the negative impact of globalisation – factory closures, job losses and an undermining of the social fabric – this holds appeal.

Those reliant on the local economy for their livelihoods are aware that the survival of this community ecosystem is crucial, not only for those working in industry but for those whose lives are intertwined. Such views are not necessarily Maga-centric, but the movement’s cultural concerns align with these challenges.

Trump’s promises to reject globalism and “embrace patriotism” may offer comfort to those whose socio-economic security has been undermined by the trade decisions of his predecessors.

Trump’s political opponents would be well advised to listen to the concerns of conventionally conservative America. Dismissing their anxieties will not dissipate them. Instead, it may encourage more socially traditional women to embrace the some of Trump’s policies.

But Trump will also need to worry about the state of the economy, and delivering on his price promises. If he doesn’t deliver, those women who put the cost of living at the top of the list may take their votes elsewhere.

Clodagh Harrington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Who are the women supporting Trump? – https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-women-supporting-trump-265027

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mari Ellis Dunning, PhD Candidate, Languages and Literature, Aberystwyth University

Whether they’re knocking at your door trick or treating, or hung as decorations in shop windows, witches are rife at this time of year. They’re easy to recognise, wearing tall, pointed hats, carrying broomsticks, or peering into a cauldron – but where did these stereotypes associated with witches come from?

1. Broomsticks

Much like brooms today, in the 1500s the broomstick was a household tool used to sweep hearths and floors. In rural villages, broomsticks were also often used as a form of signage by alewives, who would place them outside their cottages to show that ale was for sale within. Somehow, this innocuous object found its way into stories of witchcraft.

The first image of women flying on broomsticks is believed to be in the manuscript of French poet Martin Le Franc’s Le Champion des Dames (The Defender of Ladies), published in 1485. Women sat astride broomsticks are drawn alongside the text, in the margins of the pages, much as accused witches were often maligned women on the margins of society.

One of the most influential pieces of writing on witchcraft was the Malleus Maleficarum published in 1486 by German clergyman Heinrich Kramer. Kramer’s anti-witchcraft tract alluded to witches flying on anointed broomsticks with the aid of the devil. Given that the work is firmly rooted in misogyny, and depicts witches as a direct threat to the domestic sphere, it’s fitting that such a mundane household item became an object of malice.

2. Cauldrons

Another domestic item, the cauldron, has also become synonymous with witchcraft.

Instead of stews and broths, witches are often shown using cauldrons to stir up potions and spells. Again, it’s likely that this is rooted in ideas of women subverting their usual household duties, as well as a connection to healing practices.

In the 16th and 17th century, people relied on lay healers, people who learned their craft through experience and knowledge passed down through the generations. These healers were usually women who had knowledge of herbal remedies and salves that would claim to cure ailments and heal people and sick animals.

As the reformation drew in and the church became more powerful, lay healing practices and unlicensed healing was pushed aside in favour of trained physicians. With this shift, lay healers boiling herbs in their cauldrons were looked on with increasing suspicion.

3. Tall black hats

Depictions of witches vary across Europe, but there’s no doubt that a tall, black hat has become associated with witches, especially in the UK and the US.

There’s no definitive source for this strange stereotype, but speculation about where it came from is rife, ranging from ideas about Quaker hats to general medieval dress.

Women in early modern (1500 to 1780) Wales typically dressed in long, heavy woollen skirts, aprons, blouses and a large woollen shawl, and a traditional tall, black hat, so there is speculation among some researchers that this served as inspiration for the wide-brimmed hat of the fairy tale witch.

This is fitting given that Wales, along with Cornwall, was seen by Protestant reformers of the early modern period as a land rife with magic and sorcery.

Outside of Europe, tall black hats have also been found on mummies from 200BC unearthed in Subeshi, China, leading scientists to name them the “the witches of Subeshi”.

4. Long, scraggly hair

Depictions of witches usually involve women with long, scraggly hair, often trailing behind them as they ride their broomsticks.

It’s likely that this conception of witches comes from the dichotomy between “good” Christian women and their “bad” witch counterparts that was established during the reformation.

In the post-medieval period, married women ordinarily covered their hair beneath a cap, and loose hair was generally regarded as an improper attribute of temptresses and the dissolute.

Agnes Griffiths, a Welsh woman accused of witchcraft in 1618, was reportedly seen through the window of her home using something sharp to prick a wax figure, and was described as doing this “with her heare aboute her eares”. The accusation suggests disdain for women who refused to conform to expectations of their gender. In an extension of this, witches were also suspected of hiding wax, which they would use for their sorcery, in their hair, contributing to the stereotype of witches as having greasy locks.

5. Black cats

Women accused of witchcraft between the 14th and 17th centuries were often accused of keeping a familiar – an animal that was actually the devil or a demon in disguise.

Familiar spirits were said to come in any number of guises, from frogs and rats to dogs, small horses and even badgers. In a perverse parody of breastfeeding an infant, witches were believed to feed the familiars from their own bodies, and were often consequently stripped and searched for a “witch’s teat”.

The cleric Robert Holland’s witchcraft treatise, which presents some colourful ideas about witchcraft, recounts a story about a witch who would always have a docile rat feeding in her lap.

It goes on to claim that demons would appear in the form that was easiest to keep as a pet, such as cats, mice and frogs, and tells of an old woman and her daughter who were known to have kept the devil for a long time in various animal guises. Supposedly, the older woman fed the animals with blood from her own breasts.

In one particularly famous case of witchcraft, that of Elizabeth Clarke of Manningtree, Clarke admitted to keeping several familiar spirits, and the most well remembered of these was her cat, Vinegar Tom.

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Mari Ellis Dunning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Black hats, cauldrons and broomsticks: the historic origins of witch iconography – https://theconversation.com/black-hats-cauldrons-and-broomsticks-the-historic-origins-of-witch-iconography-266417