Dear was the Conquest of a New Found World - Digital Humanities and the Language of Syphilis

Presented at the Syphilis Symposium 2015

Transcript

1. “Dear was the Conquest of a new found World”: Digital humanities and the language of syphilis S Y P H I L I S C O L L E C T I O N S Y M P O S I U M M A R C A L E X A N D E R , U N I V E R S I T Y O F G L A S G O W
2. Data Deluge, Brett Ryder, The Economist, Feb. 2010
3. “a magnificent achievement of quite extraordinary value. It is perhaps the single most significant tool ever devised for investigating semantic, social, and intellectual history” Randolph Quirk
4. Level 1 I The External World II The Mental World III The Social World
   Level 2 37 major categories
   Level 3 377 categories 225,131 categories and subcategories in all
5. I: The External World 01 The world 01.01 The earth 01.02 Life 01.03 Health and Disease
   01.04 People
   01.05 Animals
   01.06 Plants
   01.07 Food and drink
   01.08 Textiles and clothing
   01.09 Physical sensation
   01.10 Matter 01.11 Existence and causation 01.12 Space
   01.13 Time
   01.14 Movement
   01.15 Action
   01.16 Relative properties 01.17 The supernatural
6. I: The External World 01 The world 01.03 Health and Disease
   01.03.01 Ill-health 01.03.02 Mental health/sanity 01.03.03 Healing/cure
7. I: The External World 01 The world 01.03 Health and Disease 01.03.01 Ill-health 01.03.01.01 Insalubrity 01.03.01.02 Sick person 01.03.01.03 Study of disease 01.03.01.04 A disease 01.03.01.05 Animal disease/disorder 01.03.01.06 Deformity 01.03.01.07 Blemish 01.03.01.08 Injury 01.03.01.09 Pain
8. I: The External World 01 The world 01.03 Health and Disease 01.03.01 Ill-health 01.03.01.04 A disease 01.03.01.04.01 Production of disease 01.03.01.04.02 Characteristics 01.03.01.04.03 Types 01.03.01.04.04 Symptom 01.03.01.04.05 Swelling 01.03.01.04.06 Growth/excrescence 01.03.01.04.07 Eruption 01.03.01.04.08 Suppuration 01.03.01.04.09 Inflammation 01.03.01.04.10 Discharge/flux 01.03.01.04.11 Disorders of visible parts 01.03.01.04.12 Disorders of eye 01.03.01.04.13 Disorders of ear 01.03.01.04.14 Disordered taste/smell/touch 01.03.01.04.15 Vertigo 01.03.01.04.16 Vocal disorders 01.03.01.04.17 Diseases of tissue 01.03.01.04.18 Disorders of internal organs 01.03.01.04.19 High/low temperature 01.03.01.04.20 Fever 01.03.01.04.21 Plague/pestilence 01.03.01.04.22 Disorders caused by poisons 01.03.01.04.23 Parasitic disorders 01.03.01.04.24 Bacterial/viral disorders 01.03.01.04.25 Environmental disorders 01.03.01.04.26 Disorders associated with age 01.03.01.04.27 Congenital/hereditary syndromes 01.03.01.04.28 Other human disorders
9. I: The External World 01 The world 01.03 Health and Disease 01.03.01 Ill-health 01.03.01.04 A disease 01.03.01.04.18 Disorders of internal organs 01.03.01.04.18.01 Disorders of abdomen/ diaphragm 01.03.01.04.18.02 Disordered nutrition 01.03.01.04.18.03 Digestive disorders 01.03.01.04.18.04 Disorders of mouth 01.03.01.04.18.05 Disorders of throat 01.03.01.04.18.06 Disorders of stomach 01.03.01.04.18.07 Disorders of bowels/ intestines 01.03.01.04.18.08 Excretory disorders 01.03.01.04.18.09 Urinary disorders 01.03.01.04.18.10 Disordered secretion 01.03.01.04.18.11 Glandular disorders 01.03.01.04.18.12 Metabolic disorders 01.03.01.04.18.13 Disordered breathing 01.03.01.04.18.14 Respiratory spasms 01.03.01.04.18.15 Disorder of respiratory organs 01.03.01.04.18.16 Reproductive organ disorders 01.03.01.04.18.17 Disorders of pregnancy/birth 01.03.01.04.18.18 Venereal disease 01.03.01.04.18.19 Vascular disorders 01.03.01.04.18.20 Disorders of heart 01.03.01.04.18.21 Disordered pulse/circulation 01.03.01.04.18.22 Disorders of blood 01.03.01.04.18.23 Disorders of nervous system 01.03.01.04.18.24 Convulsive/paralytic disorders 01.03.01.04.18.25 Disordered sensation 01.03.01.04.18.26 Stupor/coma
10. I: The External World 01 The world 01.03 Health and Disease 01.03.01 Ill-health 01.03.01.04 A disease 01.03.01.04.18 Disorders of internal organs 01.03.01.04.18.18 Venereal disease .01 person .02 attack of .03 syphilis .01 condition .02 person .03 symptoms .04 gonorrhoea .05 other veneereal diseases .06 diseases caused by masturbation
11. pocks 1480–1529 grandgore 1497–1716 chiefly Scots Spanish pocks 1500/20–1681 French pox 1503 + 1740 great pox 1529–1819 pock 1530 French pocks a1548 pox 1550– gore 1552–1614 French crown 1590 French marbles a1592 Neapolitan favour 1592 verol 1596 French disease 1598 + 1760/72 verola 1600 the foul evil 1607 Spanish pox 1608 grincome 1608–1678 slang Scottish fleas 1623 Neapolitan 1631 lues 1634– scabbado 1651–1725 Neapolitan disease 1656–1777 Neapolitan scab 1671 Covent-garden gout 1694 + 1700 Spanish gout a1700 common-garden gout 1700 Neapolitan consolation a1704 syphilis 1718– syphilide 1829–1897 syphiloderm(a) 1852 + 1876 neurosyphilis 1878– vaccino-syphilis 1878– syphiloid 1890– syph/siph 1914– slang bejel 1928–
12. A nevv discourse of a stale subiect, called the metamorphosis of Aiax: vvritten by Misacmos, to his friend and cosin Philostilpnos. Harington, John, Sir, 1560-1612. At London: Imprinted by Richard Field [and Eliot's Court Press], dwelling in the Black-friers, 1596.
13. french pox in EEBO syphilis in EEBO great pox in EEBO
14. mal francese in EEBO lues in EEBO lues venerea in EEBO
15. great|french|spanish pox in EEBO morb* gall* in EEBO lues in EEBO
16. collocates of lues in EEBO
17. collocates of lues in EEBO
18. collocates of french pox in EEBO
19. collocates of french pox in EEBO
20. cancer in Hansard Commons Corpus
21. syphilis in Hansard Commons Corpus
22. syphilis in COHA anthrax in COHA dengue in COHA
23. syphilis in Google Books
24. transcript in AntConc of Little Venus unmask'd, or, A perfect discovery of the French pox comprising the opinions of most ancient and modern physicians, with the author's judgement and observations upon the rise, nature, subject, causes, kinds, signs, and prognosticks of the said disease : together, with several nice questions, and twelve different ways and methods of curing that disease, and the running of the reins by Gideon Harvey. Harvey, Gideon, 1640?-1700
27. Syphilis, or, A poetical history of the French disease Fracastoro, Girolamo (1478-1553) Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1686.
28. As in the sciences, some of this research will come to nothing; a percentage of it will change how we account for particular works of literature; some may change how we understand the sweep of literary history. But there are no monsters, or fascists, under any of these beds. None of these questions is going to endanger the ways that literature spurs all of us to think. [...] The machine-driven projects of distant reading will humbly supplement — usually by just a little, and perhaps one day by a great deal — what we know about literature, just as historical data and biographical data have done all along. Selisker, Scott. 2012. The Digital Inhumanities? Los Angeles Review of Books, 5 November 2012. https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/in-defense-of-data-responses-to- stephen-marches-literature-is-not-data
29. R E S O U R C E S U S E D • BYU Corpora: http://corpus.byu.edu • SAMUELS Tagger: http://www.glasgow.ac.uk/samuels • Sketch Engine: https://the.sketchengine.co.uk/ • Historical Thesaurus of English: http://www.glasgow.ac.uk/thesaurus • You may wish to consider… • Apache Hadoop: http://hadoop.apache.org/ • JMP (http://www.jmp.com/) or Tableau (http:// www.tableausoftware.com/) for desktop visualisation • Open Corpus Workbench: http://cwb.sourceforge.net/ • You may also be interested in Moretti’s distant reading (Moretti, Franco. 2005. Graphs, Maps, Trees. London: Verso.)