Atonement is a critical component of the cultic system described in Leviticus 1–7 and 16. Purification of sin and thanksgiving offerings shape the worship of Israel. This chapter describes the theology of sacrifice and atonement in Leviticus, the specific offerings, and how atonement has been interpreted by later commentators.

The purity of the Israelite tent had a direct relationship to the purity of God’s tent, or the tabernacle. Understanding purity is critical to understanding Leviticus’ theology of holiness and holy space. This chapter discusses the difference between moral and ethical purity as well as the dietary laws and other commands for Israel around maintaining their holiness.

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 prohibited marriage between people “of German blood” and Jews (including, in practice, “half-Jews”). So-called mixed marriages already in existence were subjected to persecutory measures. This chapter examines the fates of couples in mixed marriages and their “mixed-blood” children, both inside Germany and in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Good knowledge of immunophenotypic features of normal cells in various compartments is important when potentially pathological specimen are sent for examination in the flow cytometry platform. This chapter proposes a comprehensive description of these features, together with some functional and/or maturation characteristics of some cell types. Blood and bone marrow are considered, but also body fluids and, briefly, some tissues.

The bridal chamber has a rich history in ancient and medieval marriage practices. For some Byzantine communities, rites for inaugurating a couple’s sexual life in the bridal chamber were the most important ceremonies of the wedding process. This chapter traces the history of bridal chamber rituals and the church’s involvement in them through liturgical blessings performed by priests at the bed of consummation.

This chapter reviews vascular dementia and vascular cognitive impairment. This form of dementia does not involve accumulation of an abnormal protein, but often co-occurs with such a disorder. Incidence and prevalence figures are reviewed, along with diagnostic criteria. The cognitive profile associated with vascular dementia is considered, as well as how this might differ from that associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Mixed dementia is also considered, as more recent evidence suggests this is a more common finding in older adults than either pure Alzheimer’s disease or pure vascular dementia.

This chapter deals with how infection control procedures can be used to minimise the spread of viral infections transmitted via the respiratory, gastrointestinal, blood-borne, sexual, vertical and vector-borne routes. It also details infection control strategies in hospitals and in the community via universal precautions, respiratory precautions, enteric precautions and those for highly dangerous pathogens. Post-exposure prophylaxis and management of outbreaks is also discussed along with a list of notifiable infections.

Chapter 6 explores the interconnection between natural philosophy and liberation from rebirth, arguing first that knowledge of the world is necessary to change one’s being from mortal to divine nature and, second, that purifications play a central role in knowledge acquisition. After a consideration of epistemic reflections at Empedocles’ time and the role of initiation in attaining true knowledge, it is shown that Empedocles explains the change of being into divine nature at the level of the elements. Indeed, in processes of perception and knowledge acquisition, elements coming from external effluvia interact with elements in the body and thereby modify the mind’s mixture. It follows that the revelation of Empedocles’ philosophy can change our mind to the point that it will become a divine mind. The possibility of becoming divine through knowledge of the world goes along with the training one must undergo to be adequately prepared to receive it. This training coincides with processes of purification, and Empedocles explains from a physiological standpoint how these enable the structure of the elements of our mind to be enhanced to the point where it becomes attuned to the divine.

The Insatiate Countess sounds an alarm against the allure of the lusty widow exploited by early modern English comedy. On the stage, the nubile widow provided the audience’s younger sons and poor unmarried men with the opportunity to fantasize about the windfall of socioeconomic privilege normally reserved for those blessed with primogeniture. Marston’s tragedy strips bare this fantasy of securing a legacy that will leave an impression on social memory. It does so by dramatizing the detrimental effects the widow’s extraordinary concupiscence has on two primary memory arts for perpetuating male identity: commemoration (the remembrance of the dead husband) and nosce te ipsum (the remembrance of the male self). For all its dire warnings, the plot’s finale, however, cannot resolve the troubling contradiction of the countess’s lustful body: the “insatiate” widow induces men to forget themselves and simultaneously and inescapably constitutes the vehicle through which patriarchal memorialization depends for its continuity.

This chapter explores Galen’s ideas concerning the digestive-nutritive process. It focuses on his explanation of the motion of nutritive matter from its ingestion as food through its alteration into blood until its complete assimilation to the different body parts. The discussion follows its path inside the body from the mouth to the individual parts and describes the changes it undergoes in its different anatomical ‘stations’ and by what means it moves through these ‘stations’. In so doing it brings to light a fundamental but generally overlooked part of the digestive-nutritive process in Galen, namely physical motions of the parts such as the oesophagus, stomach and intestines. The chapter shows how these motions of contraction and extension actively and ‘mechanically’ move the nutritive matter into and through the body by pulling, pushing and compressing the parts of the body and the matter they hold inside them.

An excess or deficit of specific neurotransmitters or receptors has been the dominant theme for explaining the pathology of major mental illness for many decades. The best known example is that hyperdopaminergia is the cause of psychosis. Similar proposals have been made for glutamate and the endocannabinoids, based on the ability of drugs acting on these systems to elicit psychotic mental states. In addition, cannabis is also a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia. On this background, researchers have measured several endocannabinoid components in people with psychotic illness compared to controls. These components include synthesizing and degrading enzymes for anandamide and 2-arochodonylglycerol, the amount of endocannabinoid transmitter in the bloodstream or CSF and the availability of cannabinoid receptors. There is inconsistency in the field as a whole, but a number of intriguing findings have emerged, particularly reports of increased anandamide level in psychosis. In this chapter, the major studies are reviewed and collated.

Intravenous fluids are solutions containing various quantities of water, electrolytes, salts, and sugar. They are used to maintain haemostasis when the enteral route is insufficient to meet physiological demand. Fluid therapy maintains hydration, oxygen delivery, and thus organ function. Poor perioperative fluid control is associated with impaired physiological function, resulting in patient harm and increasing healthcare costs. Perioperative fluid management is based upon three distinct but related factors: patient (age and comorbidities), surgical (urgency, indication and duration) and anaesthetic. This chapter is an introduction to intravenous fluids, highlighting the physiological control mechanisms, the composition of intravenous fluids, and important clinical assessment principles.

Critical ill patients are often haemodynamically unstable and accurate continuous monitoring is vital. Haemodynamic monitoring describes the measurement of the cardiovascular stability of the patient. Invasive blood pressure monitoring and central venous pressure monitoring provide a ‘real time’ measurement of the patients haemodynamic status and better allows clinicians to pre-emptively treat a patient before a more serious problem arises. Although invasive blood pressure monitoring has several advantages compared to non-invasive blood pressure monitoring, it is not without risk. Central venous pressure monitoring is similarly beneficial in that it supports the clinical decision making regarding a patient’s fluid status but also comes with additional risks. This chapter explores invasive blood pressure and central venous pressure monitoring in detail.

This chapter argues that American horror is defined both by its “paraliterary” status and by its representations of the bloodied body in pain. Unlike the more culturally prestigious category of the Gothic, which typically dwells on the crisis of the rational mind, horror has tended to appear in culturally maligned or ephemeral forms and focus on corporeal pain, violence, and distress. Horror's focus on the body, it is further suggested, stems from the modern American state's withholding of freedoms according to embodied characteristics: race, gender, sexuality, ability, and so on. The historical appearance of horror narratives often correlates to crisis and tensions surrounding the expansion of the civil and political rights that centrist liberalism promised, so that when previously excluded or marginalized groups begin to demand inclusion and recognition of their past disempowerment, horror becomes a medium especially electric with these concerns.

William Harvey’s demonstration of the circulation of the blood is one of the Scientific Revolution’s most influential and lasting achievements. But in spite of Harvey’s innovation, and paradoxically given the extent to which he came to be represented as a founder of modern science, he tied himself to ancient authorities and sought to insulate natural philosophy and the art of medicine from the new mechanical-corpuscular and chemical philosophies of the period. The reception of Harvey’s work, both in physiology and later in embryology, shows that Harvey’s research program won numerous early converts, who used his program for their own ends, including support for the new philosophies, in the cases of René Descartes and Robert Boyle. Untethered from his preferred Scholastic framework, Harvey’s conceptual foundations, techniques, and conclusions led to new discoveries, and unresolved questions in Harvey’s account about the movement of the heart, nature of the blood, and respiration would motivate intense inquiry. The circulation of the blood and later physiology therefore provide an essential perspective for the examination of early modern disputes about experimentation and its limits, the rhetoric of novelty, the unity of nature, and the very notion of life.