Search Results: Fatal familial insomnia

Christopher Iannini’s Fatal Revolutions: Natural History, West Indian Slavery, and the Routes of American Literature successfully ties seemingly disparate themes of slavery, American literature, and natural history together. By focusing on...

To the ancient Romans, everything was imbued with a divine spirit (numen, plural: numina) which gave it life. Even supposedly inanimate objects like rocks and trees possessed a numen, a belief which no doubt grew out of the early religious...

Daniel Morgan (l. c. 1735-1802) was an American frontiersman and soldier, most famous for leading a corps of riflemen during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). He rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Continental Army and...

In the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 BCE, an outbreak of plague erupted in Athens. The illness would persist throughout scattered parts of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean until finally dying out in 426 BCE. The origin of...

The Kingdom of Commagene (163 BCE - 72 CE) was a Hellenistic political entity, heavily influenced by Armenian and ancient Persian culture and traditions, established in southwestern Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) by Ptolemaeus of Commagene...

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French scientist, mathematician, and philosopher whose work influenced both the Scientific Revolution and later European thought. Pascal is known for his practical achievements in science, such as a calculating...

Throughout history, epidemics and pandemics of plague and other diseases have caused widespread panic and social disorder even, in some instances, when the people of one region were aware of a pervasive infection elsewhere. In the case of...

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was an English mathematician and physicist widely regarded as the single most important figure in the Scientific Revolution for his three laws of motion and universal law of gravity. Newton's laws became a fundamental...

St. Anthony's Fire (SAF) is an illness brought on by the ingestion of fungus-contaminated rye grain causing ergot poisoning (ergotism). The disease's common name derives from the medieval Benedictine monks dedicated to that saint who offered...

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German organist and composer whose work is today regarded as amongst the finest of mature baroque music (c. 1600-1750). More famous as an organist than as a composer in his own lifetime, Bach's rich...