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QUEENS OF JERUSALEM The women who dared to rule KATHERINE PANGONIS 272pp. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 20 [pounds sterling]. In 1099, the First Crusaders captured Jerusalem, and the streets of the [...]

The Occitan War: A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209-1218, by Laurence W. Marvin. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008. xxvi, 328 pp. $122.00 US (cloth), $50.00 [...]

Background: Measurement of serum ionized calcium is not always available in practice. Total calcium (tCa) might not be reliable for determination of calcium status in cats. Objectives: To predict serum ionized calcium concentration from signalment, biochemistry profile and T4, and compare predicted ionized calcium (piCa) to tCa. Animals: A total of 1701 cats from two hospitals. Methods: Cross‐sectional study. Cats with serum ionized calcium, biochemistry profile and T4 available were screened over 6 years and included in the training set (569 cats) to create a multivariate adaptive regression splines model to calculate piCa. Diagnostic performances of tCa and piCa and its prediction interval (PI) were compared in 652 cats from the same institution (test set) and 480 cats from a different hospital (external set). Results: The final model included tCa, chloride, albumin, cholesterol, creatinine, BUN, body condition score, GGT, age, and potassium. For hypercalcemia, piCa was highly specific (test set: 99.8%; confidence interval [CI]: 99.5‐100; external set: 97%; CI: 95.3‐98.7) but poorly sensitive (test set: 30.4%; CI: 18.3‐42.4; external set: 42.5%; CI: 31.7‐53.3). For hypocalcemia, piCa was also highly specific (test set: 81.6%; CI: 78‐85; external set: 99.6%; CI: 99‐100) but poorly sensitive (test set: 57.6%; CI: 50.6‐64.6; external set: 0%). These diagnostic performances were comparable to those of tCa. The upper and lower limits of piCa PI had high sensitivity for detecting ionized hypercalcemia and hypocalcemia, respectively. Conclusions and clinical importance: Predicted ionized calcium is useful to confirm suspected hypercalcemia in cats and screen for hypercalcemia and hypocalcemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systemic inflammation is known to cause WBC abnormalities, specifically neutrophilia and lymphopenia. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a simple and affordable biomarker that has been used in human clinical settings of sepsis but has not been investigated in veterinary species. We evaluated NLR in dogs with septic and nonseptic systemic inflammatory diseases and compared with a healthy dog population. An NLR ≤6 had an 84.39% sensitivity and 86.95% specificity to identify dogs with systemic inflammatory states; however, no ratio distinguished septic and nonseptic causes. The NLR was not associated with length of hospitalization, morbidity based on the acute patient physiologic laboratory evaluation scoring system, or mortality. The disassociation may be due to the retrospective nature of the study, including a restricted population size and acquisition of only a one-time blood sample. NLR is currently of limited use for diagnosis and prognosis in systemic inflammatory states in dogs, and larger, prospective studies are necessary to further evaluate NLR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article evaluates how far chivalric notions of honour and shame had become associated with crusading by the early thirteenth century. It stems from a wider investigation into how crusading helped to forge standards for knightly behaviour and influenced the development of chivalric ideals. The Fourth Crusade serves as a focused case study, and this article examines the significance of its controversial course and conclusion as well as how two lay authors, Geoffrey of Villehardouin and Robert of Clari, used ideas about honour and shame in their narratives. It takes a close look at terminology, exploring a variety of expressions for concepts of honour and shame, and highlights the contexts in which they were used: whether to describe military encounters, the pressure on social bonds, or leadership roles. It argues that by the turn of the thirteenth century, crusading played a significant rather than extraneous role in developing ideas about chivalric conduct and proper social behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Animals were an essential component of medieval life and pervaded contemporary art and literature, but specific reasons for their presence in historical narratives are not often investigated. Livestock and beasts of burden had an important logistical role in the crusades, but animals also appeared in a symbolic context, especially those deemed to be "wild." Preachers of the crusade and authors of historical narratives used these creatures to communicate with their audiences, to enshrine crusading as part of God's divine plan and to differentiate crusaders from their enemies. Encounters with wild animals also featured as part of the penitential aspects of crusading. Case studies involving Wicher the Swabian and Godfrey of Bouillon demonstrate how crusade authors blended fact and fiction, and adjusted elements of certain micro-narratives in order to elevate the reputations of individual crusaders. Animals and the natural world provided a symbolic code which enabled authors to demonstrate their learning and to communicate crusading ideas and events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical narratives of the crusades and Latin settlement in the Levant, like other medieval literature, provide slim details about women. In medieval society Latin literary education was dominated by a predominantly male and ecclesiastical hierarchy, which reflected the views of a patriarchal social system and marginalised the public role of women. Crusade narratives in particular have been criticised for their negative attitude towards women, mirroring a lack of ecclesiastical enthusiasm at their involvement in the crusade movement. Histories about crusading and events in the Latin East were often written for, and in some cases by, the lay nobility who took part in crusades and settled in the holy land. These texts were sometimes used as propaganda to encourage nobles to take the cross, and much of the imagery within them had didactic elements. In the case of women, they provided models for behaviour according to social and marital status. A consistently negative portrayal of women was doubtless impossible due to the number of important noblewomen who took the cross, and their value in cementing political alliances between western Europe and the Latin East through marriage. This article contends that it is the complex links between crusade narratives and the nobility, in terms of participation and patronage, audience, subject matter and values - crusade as a "noble" pursuit - which helps to explain the discrepancy between established ecclesiastical views and the portrayal of women in historical narratives about crusading and settlement in the East. In order to establish this idea effectively, several main themes must be addressed, including the role of crusade texts within the context of contemporary noble culture, and crusade narratives as source material for noble values concerning women. To begin, however, it is necessary to provide some background on attitudes towards women and crusade, as well as the concept of nobility and the noblewoman's place in medieval society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 5-month-old spayed female mixed breed dog was attacked by another dog causing multiple fractures of the left calvarium with a fragment penetrating through the gray matter of the parietal lobe. Surgery was performed to remove the bone fragment. A 6-month follow-up showed dramatic improvement in neurologic status.