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Aristophanes
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Undated non-surviving (lost) plays
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Undated non-surviving (lost) plays
Aiolosicon (first version)
Anagyrus (Ἀνάγυρος)
Frying-Pan Men (Ταγηνισταί Tagenistai)
Daedalus (Δαίδαλος)
Danaids (Δαναΐδες Danaides)
Centaur (Κένταυρος Kentauros)
Heroes (Ἥρωες)
Lemnian Women (Λήμνιαι Lemniai)
Old Age (Γῆρας Geras)
Peace (second version)
Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι Phoinissai)
Polyidus (Πολύιδος)
Seasons (Ὧραι Horai)
Storks (Πελαργοί Pelargoi)
Telmessians (Τελμησσεῖς Telmesseis)
Triphales (Τριφάλης)
Thesmophoriazusae (Women at the Thesmophoria Festival, second version)
Women in Tents (Σκηνὰς Καταλαμβάνουσαι Skenas Katalambanousai)
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Aristophanes
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Attributed (doubtful, possibly by Archippus)
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Attributed (doubtful, possibly by Archippus)
Dionysus Shipwrecked (Διόνυσος Ναυαγός Dionysos Nauagos)
Islands (Νῆσοι Nesoi) Niobos (Νίοβος)
Poetry (Ποίησις Poiesis)
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Aristophanes
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See also
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See also
Agathon
Ancient Greek comedy
Asteroid 2934 Aristophanes, named after the dramatist
Greek literature
Onomasti komodein, the witty personal attack made with total freedom against the most notable individuals
Hubert Parry wrote music for The Birds
Theatre of ancient Greece
Codex Ravennas 429
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Aristophanes
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Notes
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Notes
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Aristophanes
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References
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References
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Aristophanes
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Sources
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Sources
*
reviewed by W. J. Slater, Phoenix, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Autumn, 1976), pp. 291–293
Lee, Jae Num. "Scatology in Continental Satirical Writings from Aristophanes to Rabelais" and "English Scatological Writings from Skelton to Pope." Swift and Scatological Satire. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1971. 7–22; 23–53.
Aristophanes and the Comic Hero by Cedric H. Whitman Author(s) of Review: H. Lloyd Stow The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 87, No. 1 (Jan. 1966), pp. 111–113
G. M. Sifakis The Structure of Aristophanic Comedy The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 112, 1992 (1992), pp. 123–142
Van Steen, Gonda. 2000 Venom in Verse: Aristophanes in Modern Greece. Princeton University Press.
Jstor.org, The American Journal of Philology, 1996.
Life, death and Aristophanes' concept of Eros in Saul Bellow's "Ravelstein".
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Aristophanes
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Further reading
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Further reading
The Eleven Comedies (in translation) at the University of Adelaide Library
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Aristophanes
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External links
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External links
Category:440s BC births
Category:Year of birth unknown
Category:380s BC deaths
Category:Year of death unknown
Category:4th-century BC Athenians
Category:4th-century BC Greek poets
Category:5th-century BC Athenians
Category:5th-century BC Greek poets
Category:Ancient Athenian dramatists and playwrights
Category:Ancient Greek satirists
Category:Old Comic poets
Category:Writers of lost works
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Aristophanes
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Table of Content
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Short description, Biography, Plato's ''Symposion'', Use of language, Aristophanes and Old Comedy, Dramatic structure of Aristophanes' plots, Parabasis, Influence and legacy, Literature, Radio shows, Music, Translation of Aristophanes, Works, Surviving plays, Datable non-surviving (lost) plays, Undated non-surviving (lost) plays, Attributed (doubtful, possibly by Archippus), See also, Notes, References, Sources, Further reading, External links
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Albert Schweitzer
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Short description
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Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a German and French polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of the historical Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view. His contributions to the interpretation of Pauline Christianity concern the role of Paul's mysticism of "being in Christ" as primary and the doctrine of justification by faith as secondary.
He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of "Reverence for Life",. becoming the eighth Frenchman to be awarded that prize. His philosophy was expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, French Equatorial Africa (now Gabon). As a music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ Reform Movement (Orgelbewegung).
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Albert Schweitzer
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Early years
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Early years
thumb|Statue of Albert Schweitzer in Strasbourg|left|180px
thumb|upright|Albert Schweitzer's birthplace in Kaysersberg, now in Alsace in France
thumb|upright|Schweitzer in 1912. Oil on canvas painting by Émile Schneider (Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art)
Schweitzer was born on 14 January 1875 in Kaysersberg in Alsace, in what had less than four years previously become the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Empire; he later became a citizen of France after World War I, when Alsace became French territory again. He was the son of Adèle (née Schillinger) and Louis Théophile Schweitzer. He spent his childhood in Gunsbach, also in Alsace, where his father, the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor of the EPCAAL, taught him how to play music.. The tiny village would become home to the Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer (AIAS).. The medieval parish church of Gunsbach was shared by the Protestant and Catholic congregations, which held their prayers in different areas at different times on Sundays. This compromise arose after the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. Schweitzer, the pastor's son, grew up in this exceptional environment of religious tolerance, and developed the belief that true Christianity should always work towards a unity of faith and purpose.
Schweitzer's first language was the Alsatian dialect of German. At the Mulhouse gymnasium he received his "Abitur" (the certificate at the end of secondary education) in 1893. He studied organ in Mulhouse from 1885 to 1893 with Eugène Munch, organist at the Protestant cathedral, who inspired Schweitzer with his enthusiasm for the music of German composer Richard Wagner.A. Schweitzer, Eugene Munch (J. Brinkmann, Mulhouse 1898). In 1893, he played for the French organist Charles-Marie Widor (at Saint-Sulpice, Paris), for whom Johann Sebastian Bach's organ music contained a mystic sense of the eternal. Widor, deeply impressed, agreed to teach Schweitzer without fee, and a great and influential friendship thus began.
From 1893 Schweitzer studied Protestant theology at the Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strasbourg. There he also received instruction in piano and counterpoint from professor Gustav Jacobsthal, and associated closely with Ernest Munch, the brother of his former teacher, organist of St William church, who was also a passionate admirer of J. S. Bach's music. Schweitzer served his one-year compulsory military service in 1894. Schweitzer saw many operas of Richard Wagner in Strasbourg (under Otto Lohse) and in 1896 he managed to afford a visit to the Bayreuth Festival to see Wagner's and Parsifal, both of which impressed him. In 1898, he returned to Paris to write a PhD dissertation on The Religious Philosophy of Kant at the Sorbonne, and to study in earnest with Widor. Here he often met with the elderly Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. He also studied piano at that time with Marie Jaëll.George N. Marshall, David Poling, Schweitzer, JHU Press, 2000, In 1899, Schweitzer spent the summer semester at the University of Berlin and eventually obtained his theology degree at the University of Strasbourg. He published his PhD thesis at the University of Tübingen in 1899.
In 1905, Schweitzer began his study of medicine at the University of Strasbourg, culminating in the degree of M.D. in 1913.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Music
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Music
Schweitzer rapidly gained prominence as a musical scholar and organist, dedicated also to the rescue, restoration and study of historic pipe organs. With theological insight, he interpreted the use of pictorial and symbolical representation in J. S. Bach's religious music. In 1899, he astonished Widor by explaining figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from the words of the hymns on which they were based. They were works of devotional contemplation in which the musical design corresponded to literary ideas, conceived visually. Widor had not grown up with knowledge of the old Lutheran hymns.
The exposition of these ideas, encouraged by Widor and Munch, became Schweitzer's last task, and appeared in the masterly study J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète, written in French and published in 1905. There was great demand for a German edition, but, instead of translating it, he decided to rewrite it.Schweitzer, My Life and Thought, pp. 80–81; cf. The result was two volumes (J. S. Bach), which were published in 1908 and translated into English by Ernest Newman in 1911. Ernst Cassirer, a contemporaneous German philosopher, called it "one of the best interpretations" of Bach. During its preparation Schweitzer became a friend of Cosima Wagner, then resident in Strasbourg, with whom he had many theological and musical conversations, exploring his view of Bach's descriptive music, and playing the major Chorale Preludes for her at the Temple Neuf.Schweitzer, in Schweitzer's interpretative approach greatly influenced the modern understanding of Bach's music. He became a welcome guest at the Wagners' home, Wahnfried., quoting from and translating A. Schweitzer, 'Mes Souvenirs sur Cosima Wagner', in L'Alsace Française, XXXV no. 7 (12 February 1933), p. 124ff. He also corresponded with composer Clara Faisst, who became a good friend.
thumb|left|The Choir Organ at St Thomas' Church, Strasbourg, designed in 1905 on principles defined by Schweitzer
His pamphlet "The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France" (1906,Reproduced in : cf. also republished with an appendix on the state of the organ-building industry in 1927) effectively launched the 20th-century Orgelbewegung, which turned away from romantic extremes and rediscovered baroque principles—although this sweeping reform movement in organ building eventually went further than Schweitzer had intended. In 1909, he addressed the Third Congress of the International Society of Music at Vienna on the subject. Having circulated a questionnaire among players and organ-builders in several European countries, he produced a very considered report.: Text of 1909 Questionnaire and Report, pp. 235–269. This provided the basis for the International Regulations for Organ Building. He envisaged instruments in which the French late-romantic full-organ sound should work integrally with the English and German romantic reed pipes, and with the classical Alsace Silbermann organ resources and baroque flue pipes, all in registers regulated (by stops) to access distinct voices in fugue or counterpoint capable of combination without loss of distinctness: different voices singing the same music together.
Schweitzer also studied piano under Isidor Philipp, head of the piano department at the Paris Conservatory.
In 1905, Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians who founded the Paris Bach Society, a choir dedicated to performing J. S. Bach's music, for whose concerts Schweitzer took the organ part regularly until 1913. He was also appointed organist for the Bach Concerts of the Orféo Català at Barcelona, Spain, and often travelled there for that purpose. He and Widor collaborated on a new edition of Bach's organ works, with detailed analysis of each work in three languages (English, French, German). Schweitzer, who insisted that the score should show Bach's notation with no additional markings, wrote the commentaries for the Preludes and Fugues, and Widor those for the Sonatas and Concertos: six volumes were published in 1912–14. Three more, to contain the Chorale Preludes with Schweitzer's analyses, were to be worked on in Africa, but these were never completed, perhaps because for him they were inseparable from his evolving theological thought.
On departure for Lambaréné in 1913, he was presented with a pedal piano, a piano with pedal attachments to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard.Given by the Paris Bach Society, ; but , says it was given by the Paris Missionary Society. Built especially for the tropics, it was delivered by river in a huge dug-out canoe to Lambaréné, packed in a zinc-lined case. At first, he regarded his new life as a renunciation of his art, and fell out of practice, but after some time he resolved to study and learn by heart the works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Widor, César Franck, and Max Reger systematically. It became his custom to play during the lunch hour and on Sunday afternoons. Schweitzer's pedal piano was still in use at Lambaréné in 1946. plate facing p. 177. According to a visitor, Dr. Gaine Cannon, of Balsam Grove, N.C., the old, dilapidated piano-organ was still being played by Dr. Schweitzer in 1962, and stories told that "his fingers were still lively" on the old instrument at 88 years of age.
Sir Donald Tovey dedicated his conjectural completion of Bach's The Art of Fugue to Schweitzer.
Schweitzer's recordings of organ music, and his innovative recording technique, are described below.
One of his pupils was conductor and composer Hans Münch.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Theology
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Theology
thumb|right|Saint-Nicolas, Strasbourg
In 1899, Schweitzer became a deacon at the church of Saint Nicholas in Strasbourg. In 1900, with the completion of his licentiate in theology, he was ordained as curate, and that year he witnessed the Oberammergau Passion Play. In the following year, he became provisional Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas, from which he had just graduated, and in 1903 his appointment was made permanent.
In 1906, he published Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung [History of Life-of-Jesus research]. This book, which established his reputation, was first published in English in 1910 as The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Under this title the book became famous in the English-speaking world. A second German edition was published in 1913, containing theologically significant revisions and expansions: this revised edition did not appear in English until 2001. In 1931, he published Mystik des Apostels Paulus (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle); a second edition was published in 1953.
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Albert Schweitzer
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''The Quest of the Historical Jesus'' (1906)
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The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906)
In The Quest, Schweitzer criticised the liberal view put forward by liberal and romantic scholars during the first quest for the historical Jesus. Schweitzer maintained that the life of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which reflected late Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism. Schweitzer writes:
Instead of these liberal and romantic views, Schweitzer wrote that Jesus and his followers expected the imminent end of the world.
Schweitzer cross-referenced the many New Testament verses declaring imminent fulfilment of the promise of the World's ending within the lifetime of Jesus's original followers. He wrote that in his view, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus speaks of a "tribulation", with his "coming in the clouds with great power and glory." In Mark 13:30
Jesus says "This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place." In Matthew 16:28 Jesus says “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” Obviously, Jesus and his followers truly believed that he would return within the disciples lifetime and specifically states the timeframe that it will happen, but it has not! "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" (Matthew, 24:34) or, "have taken place" (Luke 21:32). Similarly, in 1st Peter 1:20, "Christ, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you", as well as "But the end of all things is at hand" (1 Peter 4:7) and "Surely, I come quickly." (Revelation 22:20). Either Jesus, his disciples and/or the noted chapter authors were and remain seriously mistaken; the promised second return timeframe has long ago passed.
thumb|upright|The cover of Albert Schweitzer's The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle
Schweitzer concluded his treatment of Jesus with what has been called the most famous words of twentieth-century theology:
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Albert Schweitzer
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''The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle'' (1931)
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The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1931)
In The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, Schweitzer first distinguishes between two categories of mysticism: primitive and developed. Primitive mysticism "has not yet risen to a conception of the universal, and is still confined to naive views of earthly and super-earthly, temporal and eternal". Additionally, he argues that this view of a "union with the divinity, brought about by efficacious ceremonies, is found even in quite primitive religions".
On the other hand, a more developed form of mysticism can be found in the Greek mystery-cults that were popular in first-century A.D. society. These included the cults of Attis, Osiris, and Mithras. A developed form of mysticism is attained when the "conception of the universal is reached and a man reflects upon his relation to the totality of being and to Being in itself". Schweitzer claims that this form of mysticism is more intellectual and can be found "among the Brahmans and in the Buddha, in Platonism, in Stoicism, in Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Hegel".
Next, Schweitzer poses the question: "Of what precise kind then is the mysticism of Paul?" He locates Paul between the two extremes of primitive mysticism and developed mysticism. Paul stands high above primitive mysticism, due to his intellectual writings, but never speaks of being one with God or being in God. Instead, he conceives of sonship to God as "mediated and effected by means of the mystical union with Christ". He summarizes Pauline mysticism as "being in Christ" rather than "being in God".
Paul's imminent eschatology (from his background in Jewish eschatology) causes him to believe that the kingdom of God has not yet come and that Christians are now living in the time of Christ. Christ-mysticism holds the field until God-mysticism becomes possible, which is in the near future. Therefore, Schweitzer argues that Paul is the only theologian who does not claim that Christians can have an experience of "being-in-God". Rather, Paul uses the phrase "being-in-Christ" to illustrate how Jesus is a mediator between the Christian community and God. Additionally, Schweitzer explains how the experience of "being-in-Christ" is not a "static partaking in the spiritual being of Christ, but as the real co-experiencing of His dying and rising again". The "realistic" partaking in the mystery of Jesus is only possible within the solidarity of the Christian community.
One of Schweitzer's major arguments in The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle is that Paul's mysticism, marked by his phrase "being in Christ", gives the clue to the whole of Pauline theology. Rather than reading justification by faith as the main topic of Pauline thought, which has been the most popular argument set forward by Martin Luther, Schweitzer argues that Paul's emphasis was on the mystical union with God by "being in Christ". Jaroslav Pelikan, in his foreword to The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, points out that:
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Albert Schweitzer
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Paul's "realism" versus Hellenistic "symbolism"
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Paul's "realism" versus Hellenistic "symbolism"
Schweitzer contrasts Paul's "realistic" dying and rising with Christ to the "symbolism" of Hellenism. Although Paul is widely influenced by Hellenistic thought, he is not controlled by it. Schweitzer explains that Paul focused on the idea of fellowship with the divine being through the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ rather than the "symbolic" Hellenistic act of becoming like Christ through deification. After baptism, Christians are continually renewed throughout their lifetimes due to participation in the dying and rising with Christ (most notably through the Sacraments). On the other hand, the Hellenist "lives on the store of experience which he acquired in the initiation" and is not continually affected by a shared communal experience.
Another major difference between Paul's "realism" and Hellenistic "symbolism" is the exclusive nature of the former and the inclusive nature of the latter. Schweitzer unabashedly emphasizes the fact that "Paul's thought follows predestinarian lines". He explains, "only the man who is elected thereto can enter into relation with God". Although every human being is invited to become a Christian, only those who have undergone the initiation into the Christian community through baptism can share in the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Medicine
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Medicine
At the age of 30, in 1905, Schweitzer answered the call of The Society of the Evangelist Missions of Paris, which was looking for a physician. The committee of this missionary society was not ready to accept his offer, considering his Lutheran theology to be "incorrect". He could easily have obtained a place in a German evangelical mission, but wished to follow the original call despite the doctrinal difficulties. Amid a hail of protests from his friends, family and colleagues, he resigned from his post and re-entered the university as a student in a three-year course towards the degree of Doctorate in Medicine, a subject in which he had little knowledge or previous aptitude. He planned to spread the Gospel by the example of his Christian labour of healing, rather than through the verbal process of preaching, and believed that this service should be acceptable within any branch of Christian teaching.
Even in his study of medicine, and through his clinical course, Schweitzer pursued the ideal of the philosopher-scientist. By extreme application and hard work, he completed his studies successfully at the end of 1911. His medical degree dissertation was another work on the historical Jesus, Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu. Darstellung und Kritik [The psychiatric evaluation of Jesus. Description and criticism] (published in English in 1948 as The Psychiatric Study of Jesus. Exposition and Criticism). He defended Jesus' mental health in it. In June 1912, he married Helene Bresslau, municipal inspector for orphans and daughter of the Jewish pan-Germanist historian Harry Bresslau.Marxsen, Patti M. Helene Schweitzer: A Life of Her Own. First edition. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2015.
In 1912, now armed with a medical degree, Schweitzer made a definite proposal to go as a physician to work at his own expense in the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué river, in what is now Gabon, in Africa (then a French colony). He refused to attend a committee to inquire into his doctrine, but met each committee member personally and was at last accepted. Through concerts and other fund-raising, he was ready to equip a small hospital.From the Primeval Forest, Chapter 1. In early 1913, he and his wife set off to establish a hospital (the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer) near an existing mission post. The site was nearly 200 miles (14 days by raftFrom the Primeval Forest, Chapter 6.) upstream from the mouth of the Ogooué at Port Gentil (Cape Lopez) (and so accessible to external communications), but downstream of most tributaries, so that internal communications within Gabon converged towards Lambaréné.
thumb|right|The catchment area of the Ogooué River occupies most of Gabon. Lambaréné is marked centre left.
In the first nine months, he and his wife had about 2,000 patients to examine, some travelling many days and hundreds of kilometres to reach him. In addition to injuries, he was often treating severe sandflea and crawcraw infections, yaws, tropical eating sores, heart disease, tropical dysentery, tropical malaria, sleeping sickness, leprosy, fevers, strangulated hernias, necrosis, abdominal tumours and chronic constipation and nicotine poisoning, while also attempting to deal with deliberate poisonings, fetishism and fear of cannibalism among the Mbahouin.
Schweitzer's wife, Helene Schweitzer, served as an anaesthetist for surgical operations. After briefly occupying a shed formerly used as a chicken hut, in late 1913 they built their first hospital of corrugated iron, with a consulting room and operating theatre and with a dispensary and sterilising room. The waiting room and dormitory were built, like native huts, of unhewn logs along a path leading to the boat landing. The Schweitzers had their own bungalow and employed as their assistant Joseph, a French-speaking Mpongwe, who first came to Lambaréné as a patient.From the Primeval Forest, Chapters 3–5.
After World War I broke out in July 1914, Schweitzer and his wife, German citizens in a French colony when the countries were at war, were put under supervision by the French military at Lambaréné, where Schweitzer continued his work.Albert Schweitzer 1875–1965 . schweitzer.org (in German) In 1917, exhausted by over four years' work and by tropical anaemia, they were taken to Bordeaux and interned first in Garaison and then from March 1918 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In July 1918, after being transferred to his home in Alsace, he was a free man again. At this time Schweitzer, born a German citizen, had his parents' former (pre-1871) French citizenship reinstated and became a French citizen. Then, working as a medical assistant and assistant-pastor in Strasbourg, he advanced his project on the philosophy of civilization, which had occupied his mind since 1900. By 1920, his health recovering, he was giving organ recitals and doing other fund-raising work to repay borrowings and raise funds for returning to Gabon. In 1922, he delivered the Dale Memorial Lectures in the University of Oxford, and from these in the following year appeared Volumes I and II of his great work, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics. The two remaining volumes, on The World-View of Reverence for Life and a fourth on the Civilized State, were never completed.
In 1924, Schweitzer returned to Africa without his wife, but with an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as his assistant. Everything was heavily decayed, and building and doctoring progressed together for months. He now had salvarsan for treating syphilitic ulcers and framboesia. Additional medical staff, nurse (Miss) Kottmann and Dr. Victor Nessmann,Nessmann worked with the French Resistance during the Second World War, was captured and executed by the Gestapo in Limoges in 1944. cf Guy Penaud, Dictionnaire Biographique de Périgord, p. 713. joined him in 1924, and Dr. Mark Lauterberg in 1925; the growing hospital was staffed by native orderlies. Later Dr. Trensz replaced Nessmann, and Martha Lauterberg and Hans Muggenstorm joined them. Joseph also returned. In 1925–6, new hospital buildings were constructed, and also a ward for white patients, so that the site became like a village. The onset of famine and a dysentery epidemic created fresh problems. Much of the building work was carried out with the help of local people and patients. Drug advances for sleeping sickness included Germanin and . Trensz conducted experiments showing that the non-amoebic strain of dysentery was caused by a paracholera vibrion (facultative anaerobic bacteria). With the new hospital built and the medical team established, Schweitzer returned to Europe in 1927, this time leaving a functioning hospital at work.
He was there again from 1929 to 1932. Gradually his opinions and concepts became acknowledged, not only in Europe, but worldwide. There was a further period of work in 1935. In January 1937, he returned again to Lambaréné and continued working there throughout World War II.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Hospital conditions
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Hospital conditions
The journalist James Cameron visited Lambaréné in 1953 (when Schweitzer was 78) and found significant flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. The hospital suffered from squalor and was without modern amenities, and Schweitzer had little contact with the local people. Cameron did not make public what he had seen at the time: according to a BBC dramatisation, he made the unusual journalistic decision to withhold the story, and resisted the expressed wish of his employers to publish an exposé.On Monday 7 April 2008 ("The Walrus and the Terrier" – programme outline) BBC Radio 4 broadcast an Afternoon Play "The Walrus and the Terrier" by Christopher Ralling concerning Cameron's visit.
The poor conditions of the hospital in Lambaréné were also famously criticized by Nigerian professor and novelist Chinua Achebe in his essay on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness: "In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: 'The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother.' And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in the days before the germ theory of disease came into being."
Schweitzer's biographer Edgar Berman, who was a volunteer surgeon at Lambarene for several months and had extended conversations with Schweitzer, has a different perspective. Schweitzer felt that patients were better off, and the hospital functioned better given the severe lack of funding, if patients' families lived on the hospital grounds during treatment. Surgical survival rates were, Berman asserts, as high as in many fully-equipped western hospitals. The volume of patients needing care, the difficulty of obtaining materials and supplies, and the scarcity of trained medical staff willing to work long hours in the remote setting for almost no pay all argued for a spartan setting with an emphasis on high medical standards nevertheless.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Schweitzer's views
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Schweitzer's views
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Albert Schweitzer
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Colonialism
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Colonialism
Schweitzer considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become "fishers of men".
Schweitzer was one of colonialism's harshest critics. In a sermon that he preached on 6 January 1905, before he had told anyone of his plans to dedicate the rest of his life to work as a physician in Africa, he said:
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Albert Schweitzer
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Paternalism
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Paternalism
Schweitzer was nonetheless still sometimes accused of being paternalistic in his attitude towards Africans. For instance, he thought that Gabonese independence came too early, without adequate education or accommodation to local circumstances. Edgar Berman quotes Schweitzer as having said in 1960, "No society can go from the primeval directly to an industrial state without losing the leavening that time and an agricultural period allow.". Schweitzer believed dignity and respect must be extended to blacks, while also sometimes characterizing them as children. He summarized his views on European-African relations by saying "With regard to the negroes, then, I have coined the formula: 'I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother.'" Chinua Achebe has criticized him for this characterization, though Achebe acknowledges that Schweitzer's use of the word "brother" at all was, for a European of the early 20th century, an unusual expression of human solidarity between Europeans and Africans.Chinua Achebe. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" – the Massachusetts Review. 1977. (c/o North Carolina State University) Schweitzer eventually emended and complicated this notion with his later statement that "The time for speaking of older and younger brothers has passed".Quoted by
American journalist John Gunther visited Lambaréné in the 1950s and reported Schweitzer's patronizing attitude towards Africans. He also noted the lack of Africans trained to be skilled workers. By comparison, his English contemporary Albert Ruskin Cook in Uganda had been training nurses and midwives since the 1910s, and had published a manual of midwifery in the local language of Luganda. After three decades in Africa, Schweitzer still depended on Europe for nurses.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Reverence for life
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Reverence for life
thumb|upright|Schweitzer in 1955
The keynote of Schweitzer's personal philosophy (which he considered to be his greatest contribution to mankind) was the idea of Reverence for Life (). He thought that Western civilization was decaying because it had abandoned affirmation of life as its ethical foundation.
In the Preface to Civilization and Ethics (1923) he argued that Western philosophy from Descartes to Kant had set out to explain the objective world expecting that humanity would be found to have a special meaning within it. But no such meaning was found, and the rational, life-affirming optimism of the Age of Enlightenment began to evaporate. A rift opened between this world-view, as material knowledge, and the life-view, understood as Will, expressed in the pessimist philosophies from Schopenhauer onward. Scientific materialism (advanced by Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin) portrayed an objective world process devoid of ethics, entirely an expression of the will-to-live.
Schweitzer wrote, "True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness, and this may be formulated as follows: 'I am life which wills to live, and I exist in the midst of life which wills to live.Civilization and Ethics, Chapter 21, p. 253: reprinted as A. Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization (Prometheus Books, Buffalo 1987), Chapter 26. In nature one form of life must always prey upon another. However, human consciousness holds an awareness of, and sympathy for, the will of other beings to live. An ethical human strives to escape from this contradiction so far as possible.
Though we cannot perfect the endeavour we should strive for it: the will-to-live constantly renews itself, for it is both an evolutionary necessity and a spiritual phenomenon. Life and love are rooted in this same principle, in a personal spiritual relationship to the universe. Ethics themselves proceed from the need to respect the wish of other beings to exist as one does towards oneself. Even so, Schweitzer found many instances in world religions and philosophies in which the principle was denied, not least in the European Middle Ages, and in the Indian Brahminic philosophy.
For Schweitzer, mankind had to accept that objective reality is ethically neutral. It could then affirm a new Enlightenment through spiritual rationalism, by giving priority to volition or ethical will as the primary meaning of life. Mankind had to choose to create the moral structures of civilization: the worldview must derive from the life-view, not vice versa. Respect for life, overcoming coarser impulses and hollow doctrines, leads the individual to live in the service of other people and of every living creature. In contemplation of the will-to-life, respect for the life of others becomes the highest principle and the defining purpose of humanity.Civilization and Ethics, Preface and Chapter II, "The Problem of the Optimistic World-View".
Such was the theory which Schweitzer sought to put into practice in his own life. According to some authors, Schweitzer's thought, and specifically his development of reverence for life, was influenced by Indian religious thought and in particular the Jain principle of ahimsa, or non-violence.Ara Paul Barsam (2002) "Albert Schweitzer, Jainism and reverence for life", in: Reverence for life: the ethics of Albert Schweitzer for the twenty-first century, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, pp. 207–208 Albert Schweitzer noted the contribution of Indian influence in his book Indian Thought and Its Development:Albert Schweitzer and Charles Rhind Joy (1947) Albert Schweitzer: an anthology Beacon Press
Further on ahimsa and the reverence for life in the same book, he elaborates on the ancient Indian didactic work of the Tirukkural, which he observed that, like the Buddha and the Bhagavad Gita, "stands for the commandment not to kill and not to damage". Translating several couplets from the work, he remarked that the Kural insists on the idea that "good must be done for its own sake" and said, "There hardly exists in the literature of the world a collection of maxims in which we find so much lofty wisdom."
Dr. Schweitzer had a great love of cats. "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats" he stated.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Later life
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Later life
thumb|right|The Schweitzer house and Museum at Königsfeld in the Black Forest
After the birth of their daughter (Rhena Schweitzer Miller), Albert's wife, Helene Schweitzer was no longer able to live in Lambaréné due to her health. In 1923, the family moved to Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, where he was building a house for the family. This house is now maintained as a Schweitzer museum.Schweitzer museum
thumb|left|Albert Schweitzer's house at Gunsbach, now a museum and archive
thumb|left|Albert Schweitzer Memorial and Museum in Weimar (1984)
From 1939 to 1948, he stayed in Lambaréné, unable to return to Europe because of the war. Three years after the end of World War II, in 1948, he returned for the first time to Europe and kept travelling back and forth (and once to the US) as long as he was able. During his return visits to his home village of Gunsbach, Schweitzer continued to use the family house, which after his death became an archive and museum of his life and work. His life was portrayed in the 1952 movie Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer, starring Pierre Fresnay as Albert Schweitzer and Jeanne Moreau as his nurse Marie. Schweitzer inspired actor Hugh O'Brian when O'Brian visited in Africa. O'Brian returned to the United States and founded the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation (HOBY).
thumb|upright|Albert Schweitzer Monument in Wagga Wagga, Australia
Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 1952, accepting the prize with the speech, "The Problem of Peace". With the $33,000 prize money, he started the leprosarium at Lambaréné. From 1952 until his death he worked against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons with Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Bertrand Russell. In 1957 and 1958, he broadcast four speeches over Radio Oslo, which were published in Peace or Atomic War. In 1957, Schweitzer was one of the founders of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. On 23 April 1957, Schweitzer made his "Declaration of Conscience" speech; it was broadcast to the world over Radio Oslo, pleading for the abolition of nuclear weapons. His speech ended, "The end of further experiments with atom bombs would be like the early sunrays of hope which suffering humanity is longing for."Declaration of Conscience speech – at Tennessee Players
Weeks prior to his death, an American film crew was allowed to visit Schweitzer and Drs. Muntz and Friedman, both Holocaust survivors, to record his work and daily life at the hospital. The film The Legacy of Albert Schweitzer, narrated by Henry Fonda, was produced by Warner Brothers and aired once. It resides in their vault today in deteriorating condition. Although several attempts have been made to restore and re-air the film, all access has been denied.
In 1955, he was made an honorary member of the Order of Merit (OM) by Queen Elizabeth II. He was also a chevalier of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem.
thumb|left|Schweitzer's grave in Lambaréné, marked by a cross he made himself
Schweitzer died on 4 September 1965 at his beloved hospital in Lambaréné, now in independent Gabon. His grave, on the banks of the Ogooué River, is marked by a cross he made himself.
His cousin Anne-Marie Schweitzer Sartre was the mother of Jean-Paul Sartre. Her father, Charles Schweitzer, was the older brother of Albert Schweitzer's father, Louis Théophile.
Schweitzer is often cited in vegetarian literature as being an advocate of vegetarianism in his later years.Barkas, Janet L. (1975). The Vegetable Passion. Scribner. p. 131. Gregerson, Jon. (1994). Vegetarianism: A History. Jain Publishing Company. p. 104. Schweitzer was not a vegetarian in his earlier life. For example, in 1950, biographer Magnus C. Ratter commented that Schweitzer never "commit[ted] himself to the anti-vivisection, vegetarian, or pacifist positions, though his thought leads in this direction".Ratter, Magnus C. (1950). Albert Schweitzer: Life and Message. Beacon Press. p. 179 Biographer James Bentley has written that Schweitzer became a vegetarian after his wife's death in 1957 and he was "living almost entirely on lentil soup".Brentley, James. (1992). Albert Schweitzer: The Enigma. HarperCollins. p. 200. In contrast to this, historian David N. Stamos has written that Schweitzer was not a vegetarian in his personal life nor imposed it on his missionary hospital but he did help animals and was opposed to hunting.Stamos, David N. (2008). Evolution and the Big Questions: Sex, Race, Religion, and Other Matters. Wiley. p. 175. Stamos noted that Schweitzer held the view that evolution ingrained humans with an instinct for meat so it was useless in trying to deny it.
The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship was founded in 1940 by Schweitzer to unite US supporters in filling the gap in support for his Hospital when his European supply lines were cut off by war, and continues to support the Lambaréné Hospital today. Schweitzer considered his ethic of Reverence for Life, not his hospital, his most important legacy, saying that his Lambaréné Hospital was just "my own improvisation on the theme of Reverence for Life. Everyone can have their own Lambaréné". Today ASF helps large numbers of young Americans in health-related professional fields find or create "their own Lambaréné" in the US or internationally. ASF selects and supports nearly 250 new US and Africa Schweitzer Fellows each year from over 100 of the leading US schools of medicine, nursing, public health, and every other field with some relation to health (including music, law, and divinity). The peer-supporting lifelong network of "Schweitzer Fellows for Life" numbered over 2,000 members in 2008, and is growing by nearly 1,000 every four years. Nearly 150 of these Schweitzer Fellows have served at the Hospital in Lambaréné, for three-month periods during their last year of medical school.
Schweitzer eponyms
Schweitzer's writings and life are often quoted,See quotations.
Byers, J.Q., 1996. Brothers in Spirit: the Correspondence of Albert Schweitzer and William Larimer Mellon, Jr. (New York, Syracuse University Press). resulting in a number of eponyms, such as the 'Schweitzer technique' (discussed below), and the 'Schweitzer effect'. The 'Schweitzer effect' refers to his statement that 'Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing'. This eponym is used in medical education to highlight the relationship between lived experience/example and medical students' opinions on professional behaviours.
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Albert Schweitzer
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International Albert Schweitzer Prize
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International Albert Schweitzer Prize
The prize was first awarded on 29 May 2011 to Eugen Drewermann and the physician couple Rolf and Raphaela Maibach in Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, where Schweitzer's former residence now houses the Albert Schweitzer Museum.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Sound recordings
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Sound recordings
Recordings of Schweitzer playing the music of Bach are available on CD. During 1934 and 1935 he resided in Britain, delivering the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh University, and those on Religion in Modern Civilization at Oxford and London. He had originally conducted trials for recordings for His Master's Voice on the organ of the old Queen's Hall in London. These records did not satisfy him, the instrument being too harsh. In mid-December 1935 he began to record for Columbia Records on the organ of All Hallows, Barking-by-the-Tower, London.This 1909 Harrison and Harrison organ was destroyed in the war (cf W. Kent, The Lost Treasures of London (Phoenix House 1947), 94–95) and rebuilt in 1957, see . Then at his suggestion the sessions were transferred to the church of Ste Aurélie in Strasbourg, on a mid-18th-century organ by Johann Andreas Silbermann (brother of Gottfried), an organ-builder greatly revered by Bach, which had been restored by the Lorraine organ-builder Frédéric Härpfer shortly before the First World War. These recordings were made in the course of a fortnight in October 1936.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Schweitzer Technique
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Schweitzer Technique
Schweitzer developed a technique for recording the performances of Bach's music. Known as the "Schweitzer Technique", it is a slight improvement on what is commonly known as mid-side. The mid-side sees a figure-8 microphone pointed off-axis, perpendicular to the sound source. Then a single cardioid microphone is placed on axis, bisecting the figure-8 pattern. The signal from the figure-8 is muted, panned hard left and right, one of the signals being flipped out of polarity. In the Schweitzer method, the figure-8 is replaced by two small diaphragm condenser microphones pointed directly away from each other. The information that each capsule collects is unique, unlike the identical out-of-polarity information generated from the figure-8 in a regular mid-side. The on-axis microphone is often a large diaphragm condenser. The technique has since been used to record many modern instruments.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Columbia recordings
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Columbia recordings
Altogether his early Columbia discs included 25 records of Bach and eight of César Franck. The Bach titles were mainly distributed as follows:
Queen's Hall: Organ Prelude and Fugue in E minor (Edition Peters Vol 3, 10); (BWV 727); (Vol 7, 58 (Leipzig 18)).(78 rpm HMV C 1532 and C 1543), cf. R.D. Darrell, The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music (New York 1936).
All Hallows: Prelude and Fugue in C major; Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (the Great); Prelude and Fugue in G major; Prelude and Fugue in F minor; Little Fugue in G minor; Toccata and Fugue in D minor.(78 rpm Columbia ROX 146–152), cf. Darrell 1936.
Ste Aurélie: Prelude and Fugue in C minor; Prelude and Fugue in E minor; Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Chorale Preludes: (Peters Vol 7, 49 (Leipzig 4)); (Vol 5, 45); (Vol 7, 48 (Leipzig 6)); (Vol 5, 8); (Vol 5, 9); (Vol 6, 12b); (Vol 5, 6); (Vol 5, app 5); (Vol 5, 4); (Var 11, Vol 5, app. 3); (Vol 6, 31 (Leipzig 15)); Christ lag in Todesbanden (Vol 5, 5); Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag (Vol 5, 15).. The 78s were issued in albums, with a specially designed record label (Columbia ROX 8020–8023, 8032–8035, etc.). Ste Aurélie recordings appeared also on LP as Columbia 33CX1249E.M.I., A Complete List of EMI, Columbia, Parlophone and MGM Long Playing Records issued up to and including June 1955 (London 1955) for this and discographical details following.
thumb|upright|Gunsbach parish church, where the later recordings were made
Later recordings were made at Parish church, Günsbach: These recordings were made by C. Robert Fine during the time Dr. Schweitzer was being filmed in Günsbach for the documentary "Albert Schweitzer". Fine originally self-released the recordings but later licensed the masters to Columbia.
Fugue in A minor (Peters, Vol 2, 8); Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (Great) (Vol 2, 4); Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major (Vol 3, 8).Columbia LP 33CX1074
Prelude in C major (Vol 4, 1); Prelude in D major (Vol 4, 3); Canzona in D minor (Vol 4, 10) (with Mendelssohn, Sonata in D minor op 65.6).Columbia LP 33CX1084
Chorale-Preludes: (1st and 2nd versions, Peters Vol 5, 45); (vol 7, 58 (Leipzig 18)); (Vol 5, 30); (Vol 5, 17); (Vol 5, 27); (vol 7, 45 (BWV 659a)).Columbia LP 33CX1081
The above were released in the United States as Columbia Masterworks boxed set SL-175.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Philips recordings
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Philips recordings
J. S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in A major, BWV 536; Prelude and Fugue in F minor, BWV 534; Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544; Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538.E.M.G., The Art of Record Buying (London 1960), pp. 12–13. Philips ABL 3092, issued March 1956.
J. S. Bach: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582; Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 533; Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543; Prelude and Fugue in G major, BWV 541; Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.E.M.G., op. cit., Philips ABL 3134, issued September 1956. Other selections are on Philips GBL 5509.
César Franck: Organ Chorales, no. 1 in E major; no. 2 in B minor; no. 3 in A minor.Philips ABL 3221.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Portrayals and dedication
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Portrayals and dedication
Dramatisations of Schweitzer's life include:
The 1952 biographical film Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer, with Pierre Fresnay as Schweitzer.
The 1957 biographical film Albert Schweitzer in which Schweitzer appears as himself and Phillip Eckert portrays him.
The 1962 TV remake of Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer, with Jean-Pierre Marielle as Schweitzer.
The 1990 biographical film The Light in the Jungle, with Malcolm McDowell as Schweitzer.
Two 1992 episodes of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ("German East Africa, December 1916" and "Congo, January 1917"), with Friedrich von Thun as Schweitzer. The episodes were later combined to create Oganga, Giver and Taker of Life.
The 1995 biographical film Le Grand blanc de Lambaréné, with André Wilms as Schweitzer.
The 2006 TV biographical film Albert Schweitzer: Called to Africa, with Jeff McCarthy as Schweitzer.
The 2009 biographical film , with Jeroen Krabbé as Schweitzer.
The Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis dedicated his novel The Poor Man of Assisi to him.
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Albert Schweitzer
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Bibliography
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Bibliography
. English translation by Ernest Newman, with author's alterations and additions, London 1911. Fulltext scans (English): Vol. 1, Vol. 2.
(first printed in Musik, vols 13 and 14 (5th year)).
(translation of Zwischen Wasser und Urwald, 1921)
The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics (The Philosophy of Civilization, Vols I & II of the projected but not completed four-volume work), A. & C. Black, London 1923. Material from these volumes is rearranged in a modern compilation, The Philosophy of Civilization (Prometheus Books, 1987),
translated as ;
Afrikanische Geschichten (Felix Meiner, Leipzig and Hamburg 1938): tr. Mrs C. E. B. Russell as From My African Notebook (George Allen and Unwin, London 1938/Henry Holt, New York 1939). Modern edition with foreword by L. Forrow (Syracuse University Press, 2002).
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Albert Schweitzer
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See also
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See also
List of peace activists
Cultural depictions of Albert Schweitzer
Helene Bresslau Schweitzer
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Albert Schweitzer
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Notes
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Notes
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Albert Schweitzer
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References
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References
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Albert Schweitzer
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Citations
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Citations
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Albert Schweitzer
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Sources
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Sources
(translation of Zwischen Wasser und Urwald, 1921)
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Albert Schweitzer
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Further reading
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Further reading
Bartolf, Christian; Gericke, Marion; Miething, Dominique (2020): Dr. Albert Schweitzer: "My Address to the People" – Commitment against Nuclear War. Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, Gandhi-Informations-Zentrum. .
Online version is titled "The legacy of Albert Schweitzer : can we still admire him?".
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Notes
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Albert Schweitzer
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External links
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External links
Award-winning documentary about him
Albert Schweitzer info at Internet Archive
Albert Schweitzer Papers at Syracuse University
John D. Regester Collection on Albert Schweitzer
The Helfferich Collection, collected by Reginald H. Helfferich on Albert Schweitzer, is at the Harvard Divinity School Library at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
What Jesus was thinking An interpretation and restatement of Schweitzer's last book, The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity
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Albert Schweitzer
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Table of Content
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Short description, Early years, Music, Theology, ''The Quest of the Historical Jesus'' (1906), ''The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle'' (1931), Paul's "realism" versus Hellenistic "symbolism", Medicine, Hospital conditions, Schweitzer's views, Colonialism, Paternalism, Reverence for life, Later life, International Albert Schweitzer Prize, Sound recordings, Schweitzer Technique, Columbia recordings, Philips recordings, Portrayals and dedication, Bibliography, See also, Notes, References, Citations, Sources, Further reading, External links
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Austrian school of economics
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short description
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The Austrian school is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result primarily from the motivations and actions of individuals along with their self interest. Austrian-school theorists hold that economic theory should be exclusively derived from basic principles of human action.Ludwig von Mises. Human Action, p. 11, "Purposeful Action and Animal Reaction". Referenced 2011-11-23.
The Austrian school originated in 1871 in Vienna with the work of Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, and others.Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of economic analysis, Oxford University Press 1996, . It was methodologically opposed to the Historical school, in a dispute known as Methodenstreit, or methodology quarrel. Current-day economists working in this tradition are located in many countries, but their work is still referred to as Austrian economics. Among the theoretical contributions of the early years of the Austrian school are the subjective theory of value, marginalism in price theory and the formulation of the economic calculation problem.
In the 1970s, the Austrian school attracted some renewed interest after Friedrich August von Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal.
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Austrian school of economics
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History
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History
thumb|left|upright=0.7|Jean-Baptiste Say. The French liberal school of political economy is an intellectual ancestor of Austrian school of economics.
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Austrian school of economics
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Etymology
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Etymology
The Austrian school owes its name to members of the German historical school of economics, who argued against the Austrians during the late 19th-century Methodenstreit ("methodology struggle"), in which the Austrians defended the role of theory in economics as distinct from the study or compilation of historical circumstance. In 1883, Menger published Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences with Special Reference to Economics, which attacked the methods of the historical school. Gustav von Schmoller, a leader of the historical school, responded with an unfavorable review, coining the term "Austrian school" in an attempt to characterize the school as outcast and provincial."Menger's approach – haughtily dismissed by the leader of the German Historical School, Gustav Schmoller, as merely 'Austrian', the origin of that label – led to a renaissance of theoretical economics in Europe and, later, in the United States." Peter G. Klein, in "Forward" to The label endured and was adopted by the adherents themselves.
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Austrian school of economics
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School of Salamanca
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School of Salamanca
The Salamanca School of economic thought, emerging in 16th-century Spain, is often regarded as an early precursor to the Austrian School of Economics due to its development of the subjective theory of value and its advocacy for free-market principles. Scholars from the University of Salamanca, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Luis de Molina, argued that the value of goods was determined by individual preferences rather than intrinsic factors, foreshadowing later Austrian ideas. They also emphasized the importance of supply and demand in setting prices and maintaining sound money, laying the groundwork for modern economic concepts that the Austrian School would later refine and expand upon.
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Austrian school of economics
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First wave
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First wave
thumb|left|upright=0.7|Carl Menger
The school originated in Vienna in Austria-Hungary. Carl Menger's 1871 book Principles of Economics is generally considered the founding of the Austrian school. The book was one of the first modern treatises to advance the theory of marginal utility. The Austrian school was one of three founding currents of the marginalist revolution of the 1870s, with its major contribution being the introduction of the subjectivist approach in economics.
Despite such claim, John Stuart Mill had used value in use in this sense in 1848 in Principles of Political Economy,Ahiakpor, J. C. W. (2003): Classical Macroeconomics. Some Modern Variations and Distortions, Routledge, p. 21. where he wrote: "Value in use, or as Mr. De Quincey calls it, teleologic value, is the extreme limit of value in exchange. The exchange value of a thing may fall short, to any amount, of its value in use; but that it can ever exceed the value in use, implies a contradiction; it supposes that persons will give, to possess a thing, more than the utmost value which they themselves put upon it as a means of gratifying their inclinations."Mill, J. S. (1848). Principles of Political Economy.
While marginalism was generally influential, there was also a more specific school that began to coalesce around Menger's work, which came to be known as the "psychological school", "Vienna school", or "Austrian school". Menger's contributions to economic theory were closely followed by those of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich von Wieser. These three economists became what is known as the "first wave" of the Austrian school. Böhm-Bawerk wrote extensive critiques of Karl Marx in the 1880s and 1890s and was part of the Austrians' participation in the late 19th-century , during which they attacked the Hegelian doctrines of the historical school.
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Austrian school of economics
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Early 20th century
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Early 20th century
Frank Albert Fetter (1863–1949) was a leader in the United States of Austrian thought. He obtained his PhD in 1894 from the University of Halle and then was made Professor of Political Economy and Finance at Cornell University in 1901. Several important Austrian economists trained at the University of Vienna in the 1920s and later participated in private seminars held by Ludwig von Mises. These included Gottfried Haberler, Friedrich Hayek, Fritz Machlup, Karl Menger (son of Carl Menger), Oskar Morgenstern, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, Abraham Wald, and Michael A. Heilperin, among others, as well as the sociologist Alfred Schütz.
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Austrian school of economics
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Later 20th century
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Later 20th century
thumb|left|upright=1.5|Campus of Mises Institute, in Auburn, Alabama
By the mid-1930s, most economists had embraced what they considered the important contributions of the early Austrians. Fritz Machlup quoted Hayek's statement that "the greatest success of a school is that it stops existing because its fundamental teachings have become parts of the general body of commonly accepted thought". Homage to Mises by Fritz Machlup 1981. Sometime during the middle of the 20th century, Austrian economics became disregarded or derided by mainstream economists because it rejected model building and mathematical and statistical methods in the study of economics. Mises' student Israel Kirzner recalled that in 1954, when Kirzner was pursuing his PhD, there was no separate Austrian school as such. When Kirzner was deciding which graduate school to attend, Mises had advised him to accept an offer of admission at Johns Hopkins because it was a prestigious university and Fritz Machlup taught there.
After the 1940s, Austrian economics can be divided into two schools of economic thought and the school split to some degree in the late 20th century. One camp of Austrians, exemplified by Mises, regards neoclassical methodology to be irredeemably flawed; the other camp, exemplified by Friedrich Hayek, accepts a large part of neoclassical methodology and is more accepting of government intervention in the economy. Henry Hazlitt wrote economics columns and editorials for a number of publications and wrote many books on the topic of Austrian economics from the 1930s to the 1980s. Hazlitt's thinking was influenced by Mises. His book Economics in One Lesson (1946) sold over a million copies and he is also known for The Failure of the "New Economics" (1959), a line-by-line critique of John Maynard Keynes's General Theory.
The reputation of the Austrian school rose in the late 20th century due in part to the work of Israel Kirzner and Ludwig Lachmann at New York University and to renewed public awareness of the work of Hayek after he won the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Hayek's work was influential in the revival of laissez-faire thought in the 20th century.
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Austrian school of economics
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Split among contemporary Austrians
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Split among contemporary Austrians
Economist Leland Yeager discussed the late 20th-century rift and referred to a discussion written by Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Joseph Salerno and others in which they attack and disparage Hayek. Yeager stated: "To try to drive a wedge between Mises and Hayek on [the role of knowledge in economic calculation], especially to the disparagement of Hayek, is unfair to these two great men, unfaithful to the history of economic thought". He went on to call the rift subversive to economic analysis and the historical understanding of the fall of Eastern European communism.
In a 1999 book published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Hoppe asserted that Rothbard was the leader of the "mainstream within Austrian Economics" and contrasted Rothbard with Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek, whom he identified as a British empiricist and an opponent of the thought of Mises and Rothbard. Hoppe acknowledged that Hayek was the most prominent Austrian economist within academia, but stated that Hayek was an opponent of the Austrian tradition which led from Carl Menger and Böhm-Bawerk through Mises to Rothbard. Austrian economist Walter Block says that the Austrian school can be distinguished from other schools of economic thought through two categories—economic theory and political theory. According to Block, while Hayek can be considered an Austrian economist, his views on political theory clash with the libertarian political theory which Block sees as an integral part of the Austrian school.
Both criticism from Hoppe and Block to Hayek apply to Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian school. Hoppe emphasizes that Hayek, which for him is from the English empirical tradition, is an opponent of the supposed rationalist tradition of the Austrian school; Menger made strong critiques to rationalism in his works in similar vein as Hayek's. He emphasized the idea that there are several institutions which were not deliberately created, have a kind of "superior wisdom" and serve important functions to society. He also talked about Edmund Burke and the English tradition to sustain these positions.
When saying that the libertarian political theory is an integral part of the Austrian school and supposing Hayek is not a libertarian, Block excludes Menger from the Austrian school, too, since Menger seems to defend broader state activity than Hayek—for example, progressive taxation and extensive labour legislation.
Economists of the Hayekian view are affiliated with the Cato Institute, George Mason University (GMU) and New York University, among other institutions. They include Peter Boettke, Roger Garrison, Steven Horwitz, Peter Leeson and George Reisman. Economists of the Mises–Rothbard view include Walter Block, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jesús Huerta de Soto and Robert P. Murphy, each of whom is associated with the Mises Institute and some of them also with academic institutions. According to Murphy, a "truce between (for lack of better terms) the GMU Austro-libertarians and the Auburn Austro-libertarians" was signed around 2011.
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Austrian school of economics
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Influence
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Influence
Many theories developed by "first wave" Austrian economists have long been absorbed into mainstream economics.It has also influenced related disciplines such as Law and Economics, see. K. Grechenig, M. Litschka, "Law by Human Intent or Evolution? Some Remarks on the Austrian School of Economics' Role in the Development of Law and Economics", European Journal of Law and Economics 2010, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 57–79. These include Carl Menger's theories on marginal utility, Friedrich von Wieser's theories on opportunity cost and Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk's theories on time preference, as well as Menger and Böhm-Bawerk's criticisms of Marxian economics.
Former American Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the founders of the Austrian school "reached far into the future from when most of them practiced and have had a profound and, in my judgment, probably an irreversible effect on how most mainstream economists think in this country".Greenspan, Alan. "Hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Financial Services". U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Financial Services. Washington, D.C.. 25 July 2000. In 1987, Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan told an interviewer: "I have no objections to being called an Austrian. Hayek and Mises might consider me an Austrian but, surely some of the others would not".
Currently, universities with a significant Austrian presence are George Mason University, New York University, Grove City College, Loyola University New Orleans, Monmouth College, and Auburn University in the United States; King Juan Carlos University in Spain; and Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. Austrian economic ideas are also promoted by privately funded organizations such as the Mises Institute and the Cato Institute.
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Austrian school of economics
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Theory
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Theory
The Austrian school theorizes that the subjective choices of individuals including individual knowledge, time, expectation and other subjective factors cause all economic phenomena. Austrians seek to understand the economy by examining the social ramifications of individual choice, an approach called methodological individualism. It differs from other schools of economic thought, which have focused on aggregate variables, equilibrium analysis, and societal groups rather than individuals.
thumb|left|upright=0.7|Ludwig von Mises
In the 20th and 21st centuries, economists with a methodological lineage to the early Austrian school developed many diverse approaches and theoretical orientations. Ludwig von Mises organized his version of the subjectivist approach, which he called "praxeology", in a book published in English as Human Action in 1949.Ludwig von Mises, Nationalökonomie (Geneva, Switzerland: Union, 1940); Human Action (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, [1949] 1998). In it, Mises stated that praxeology could be used to deduce a priori theoretical economic truths and that deductive economic thought experiments could yield conclusions which follow irrefutably from the underlying assumptions. He wrote that conclusions could not be inferred from empirical observation or statistical analysis and argued against the use of probabilities in economic models.
Since Mises' time, some Austrian thinkers have accepted his praxeological approach while others have adopted alternative methodologies. For example, Fritz Machlup, Friedrich Hayek and others did not take Mises' strong a priori approach to economics. Ludwig Lachmann, a radical subjectivist, also largely rejected Mises' formulation of Praxeology in favor of the verstehende Methode ("interpretive method") articulated by Max Weber.
In the 20th century, various Austrians incorporated models and mathematics into their analysis. Austrian economist Steven Horwitz argued in 2000 that Austrian methodology is consistent with macroeconomics and that Austrian macroeconomics can be expressed in terms of microeconomic foundations.Horwitz, Steven: Microfoundations and Macroeconomics: An Austrian Perspective (2000). Routledge. Austrian economist Roger Garrison writes that Austrian macroeconomic theory can be correctly expressed in terms of diagrammatic models. In 1944, Austrian economist Oskar Morgenstern presented a rigorous schematization of an ordinal utility function (the Von Neumann–Morgenstern utility theorem) in Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.Von Neumann, John and Morgenstern, Oskar (1944). Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
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Austrian school of economics
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Fundamental tenets
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Fundamental tenets
In 1981, Fritz Machlup listed the typical views of Austrian economic thinking as such:
Methodological individualism: in the explanation of economic phenomena, we have to go back to the actions (or inaction) of individuals; groups or "collectives" cannot act except through the actions of individual members. Groups do not think; people think.
Methodological subjectivism: the judgments and choices made by individuals on the basis of whatever knowledge they have or believe to have, and whatever expectations they have regarding external developments and the consequences of their actions.
Tastes and preferences: subjective valuations of goods and services determine the demand for them so that their prices are influenced by consumers.
Opportunity costs: the costs of the alternative opportunities that must be foregone; as productive services are employed for one purpose, all alternative uses have to be sacrificed.
Marginalism: in all economic designs, the values, costs, revenues, productivity and so on are determined by the significance of the last unit added to or subtracted from the total.
Time structure of production and consumption: decisions to save reflect "time preferences" regarding consumption in the immediate, distant, or indefinite future and investments are made in view of larger outputs expected to be obtained if more time-taking production processes are undertaken.
He included two additional tenets held by the Mises branch of Austrian economics:
Consumer sovereignty: the influence consumers have on the effective demand for goods and services and through the prices which result in free competitive markets, on the production plans of producers and investors, is not merely a hard fact but also an important objective, attainable only by complete avoidance of governmental interference with the markets and of restrictions on the freedom of sellers and buyers to follow their own judgment regarding quantities, qualities and prices of products and services.
Political individualism: only when individuals are given full economic freedom will it be possible to secure political and moral freedom. Restrictions on economic freedom lead, sooner or later, to an extension of the coercive activities of the state into the political domain, undermining and eventually destroying the essential individual liberties which the capitalistic societies were able to attain in the 19th century.
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Austrian school of economics
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Contributions to economic thought
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Contributions to economic thought
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Austrian school of economics
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Opportunity cost
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Opportunity cost
thumb|upright=0.7|Friedrich von Wieser
The opportunity cost doctrine was first explicitly formulated by the Austrian economist Friedrich von Wieser in the late 19th century. Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the next best alternative foregone (that is not chosen). It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices. Although a more ephemeral scarcity, expectations of the future must also be considered. Quantified as time preference, opportunity cost must also be valued with respect to one's preference for present versus future investments.
Opportunity cost is a key concept in mainstream economics and has been described as expressing "the basic relationship between scarcity and choice". The notion of opportunity cost plays a crucial part in ensuring that resources are used efficiently.
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Austrian school of economics
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Capital and interest
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Capital and interest
thumb|upright=0.7|Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
The Austrian theory of capital and interest was first developed by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. He stated that interest rates and profits are determined by two factors, namely supply and demand in the market for final goods and time preference.Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen Ritter von; Kapital Und Kapitalizns. Zweite Abteilung: Positive Theorie des Kapitales (1889). Translated as Capital and Interest. II: Positive Theory of Capital with appendices rendered as Further Essays on Capital and Interest.
Böhm-Bawerk's theory equates capital intensity with the degree of roundaboutness of production processes. Böhm-Bawerk also argued that the law of marginal utility necessarily implies the classical law of costs. However, many Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises,Mises (1949) Israel Kirzner,Kirzner (1996) Ludwig Lachmann,Lachmann (1976) and Jesús Huerta de SotoHuerta De Soto (2006) entirely reject a productivity explanation for interest rates, viewing the average period of production as an unfortunate remnant of damaged classical economic thought on Böhm-Bawerk.
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Austrian school of economics
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Inflation
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Inflation
In Mises's definition, inflation is an increase in the supply of money:
Hayek claimed that inflationary stimulation exploits the lag between an increase in money supply and the consequent increase in the prices of goods and services:
Even prominent Austrian economists have been confused since Austrians define inflation as 'increase in money supply' while most people including most economists define inflation as 'rising prices'.Krugman Isn’t (Quite) Right About Austrian Economics
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Austrian school of economics
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Economic calculation problem
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Economic calculation problem
thumb|upright=0.7|Friedrich Hayek
right|thumb|upright=0.7|Israel Kirzner
The economic calculation problem refers to a criticism of planned economies which was first stated by Max Weber in 1920. Mises subsequently discussed Weber's idea with his student Friedrich Hayek, who developed it in various works including The Road to Serfdom.F. A. Hayek (1935), "The Nature and History of the Problem" and "The Present State of the Debate," om in F. A. Hayek, ed. Collectivist Economic Planning, pp. 1–40, 201–243. What the calculation problem essentially states is that without price signals, the factors of production cannot be allocated in the most efficient way possible, rendering planned economies inefficacious.
Austrian theory emphasizes the organizing power of markets. Hayek stated that market prices reflect information, the totality of which is not known to any single individual, which determines the allocation of resources in an economy. Because socialist systems lack the individual incentives and price discovery processes by which individuals act on their personal information, Hayek argued that socialist economic planners lack all of the knowledge required to make optimal decisions. Those who agree with this criticism view it as a refutation of socialism, showing that socialism is not a viable or sustainable form of economic organization. The debate rose to prominence in the 1920s and 1930s and that specific period of the debate has come to be known by historians of economic thought as the socialist calculation debate.
Mises argued in a 1920 essay "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" that the pricing systems in socialist economies were necessarily deficient because if the government owned the means of production, then no prices could be obtained for capital goods as they were merely internal transfers of goods in a socialist system and not "objects of exchange", unlike final goods. Therefore, they were unpriced and hence the system would be necessarily inefficient since the central planners would not know how to allocate the available resources efficiently. This led him to write "that rational economic activity is impossible in a socialist commonwealth".
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Austrian school of economics
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Business cycles
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Business cycles
The Austrian theory of the business cycle (ABCT) focuses on banks' issuance of credit as the cause of economic fluctuations.Murray Rothbard, America's Great Depression. Although later elaborated by Hayek and others, the theory was first set forth by Mises, who posited that fractional reserve banks extend credit at artificially low interest rates, causing businesses to invest in relatively roundabout production processes which leads to an artificial "boom". Mises stated that this artificial "boom" then led to a misallocation of resources which he called "malinvestment" – which eventually must end in a "bust".
Mises surmised that government manipulation of money and credit in the banking system throws savings and investment out of balance, resulting in misdirected investment projects that are eventually found to be unsustainable, at which point the economy has to rebalance itself through a period of corrective recession. Austrian economist Fritz Machlup summarized the Austrian view by stating, "monetary factors cause the cycle but real phenomena constitute it." This may be unrealistic since successful entrepreneurs will realise that interest rates are artificially low and will adjust their investment decisions based on projected long term interest rates.Why I Am Not an Austrian Economist
For Austrians, the only prudent strategy for government is to leave money and the financial system to the free market's competitive forces to eradicate the business cycle's inflationary booms and recessionary busts, allowing markets to keep people's saving and investment decisions in place for well-coordinated economic stability and growth.
A Keynesian would suggest government intervention during a recession to inject spending into the economy when people will not. However, the heart of Austrian macroeconomic theory assumes the government "fine tuning" through expansions and contractions in the money supply orchestrated by the government are actually the cause of business cycles because of the differing impact of the resulting interest rate changes on different stages in the structure of production. Austrian economist Thomas Woods further supports this view by arguing it is not consumption, but rather production that should be emphasized. A country cannot become rich by consuming, and therefore, by using up all their resources. Instead, production is what enables consumption as a possibility in the first place, since a producer would be working for nothing, if not for the desire to consume.
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Austrian school of economics
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Central banks
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Central banks
According to Ludwig von Mises, central banks enable the commercial banks to fund loans at artificially low interest rates, thereby inducing an unsustainable expansion of bank credit and impeding any subsequent contraction and argued for a gold standard to constrain growth in fiduciary media. Friedrich Hayek took a different perspective not focusing on gold but focusing on regulation of the banking sector via strong central banking.
Some economists argue money is endogenous, and argue that this refutes the Austrian Business Cycle Theory. However, this would simply shift the brunt of the blame from central banks to private banks when it comes to credit expansion; the fundamental underlying issue would be the same, and a free-market full-reserve system would still be the fix.
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Austrian school of economics
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See also
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See also
Carl Menger
Chicago school of economics
Criticism of the Federal Reserve
Hard money (policy)
Kraków School of Economics
List of Austrian intellectual traditions
List of Austrian-school economists
New institutional economics
Perspectives on capitalism by school of thought
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Austrian school of economics
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Notes and references
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Notes and references
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Austrian school of economics
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Further reading
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Further reading
Boettke, Peter J.; Coyne, Christopher J. (2023). "New Thinking in Austrian Economics". Annual Review of Economics 15 (1).
PDF .
(Excerpt via Amazon).
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Austrian school of economics
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External links
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External links
Understanding Austrian Economics by Henry Hazlitt
Category:Schools of economic thought
Category:Libertarian theory
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Austrian school of economics
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Table of Content
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short description, History, Etymology, School of Salamanca, First wave, Early 20th century, Later 20th century, Split among contemporary Austrians, Influence, Theory, Fundamental tenets, Contributions to economic thought, Opportunity cost, Capital and interest, Inflation, Economic calculation problem, Business cycles, Central banks, See also, Notes and references, Further reading, External links
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Abscess
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short description
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An abscess is a collection of pus that has built up within the tissue of the body, usually caused by bacterial infection. Signs and symptoms of abscesses include redness, pain, warmth, and swelling. The swelling may feel fluid-filled when pressed. The area of redness often extends beyond the swelling. Carbuncles and boils are types of abscess that often involve hair follicles, with carbuncles being larger. A cyst is related to an abscess, but it contains a material other than pus, and a cyst has a clearly defined wall. Abscesses can also form internally on internal organs and after surgery.
They are usually caused by a bacterial infection. Often many different types of bacteria are involved in a single infection. In many areas of the world, the most common bacteria present is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Rarely, parasites can cause abscesses; this is more common in the developing world. Diagnosis of a skin abscess is usually made based on what it looks like and is confirmed by cutting it open. Ultrasound imaging may be useful in cases in which the diagnosis is not clear. In abscesses around the anus, computer tomography (CT) may be important to look for deeper infection.
Standard treatment for most skin or soft tissue abscesses is cutting it open and drainage. There appears to be some benefit from also using antibiotics. A small amount of evidence supports not packing the cavity that remains with gauze after drainage. Closing this cavity right after draining it rather than leaving it open may speed healing without increasing the risk of the abscess returning. Sucking out the pus with a needle is often not sufficient.
Skin abscesses are common and have become more common in recent years. Risk factors include intravenous drug use, with rates reported as high as 65% among users. In 2005, 3.2 million people went to American emergency departments for abscesses. In Australia, around 13,000 people were hospitalized in 2008 with the condition.
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Abscess
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Signs and symptoms
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Signs and symptoms
thumb|An abscess
Abscesses may occur in any kind of tissue but most frequently within the skin surface (where they may be superficial pustules known as boils or deep skin abscesses), in the lungs, brain, teeth, kidneys, and tonsils. Major complications may include spreading of the abscess material to adjacent or remote tissues, and extensive regional tissue death (gangrene).
thumb|A naturally drained abscess
The main symptoms and signs of a skin abscess are redness, heat, swelling, pain, and loss of function. There may also be high temperature (fever) and chills. If superficial, abscesses may be fluctuant when palpated; this wave-like motion is caused by movement of the pus inside the abscess.
An internal abscess is more difficult to identify and depend on the location of the abscess and the type of infection. General signs include pain in the affected area, a high temperature, and generally feeling unwell.
Internal abscesses rarely heal themselves, so prompt medical attention is indicated if such an abscess is suspected. An abscess can potentially be fatal depending on where it is located.
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Abscess
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Causes
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Causes
Risk factors for abscess formation include intravenous drug use. Another possible risk factor is a prior history of disc herniation or other spinal abnormality, though this has not been proven.
Abscesses are caused by bacterial infection, parasites, or foreign substances.
Bacterial infection is the most common cause, particularly Staphylococcus aureus. The more invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) may also be a source of infection, though is much rarer. Among spinal subdural abscesses, methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus is the most common organism involved.
Rarely parasites can cause abscesses and this is more common in the developing world. Specific parasites known to do this include dracunculiasis and myiasis.
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Abscess
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Anorectal abscess
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Anorectal abscess
Anorectal abscesses can be caused by non-specific obstruction and ensuing infection of the glandular crypts inside of the anus or rectum. Other causes include cancer, trauma, or inflammatory bowel diseases.
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Abscess
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Incisional abscess
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Incisional abscess
An incisional abscess is one that develops as a complication secondary to a surgical incision. It presents as redness and warmth at the margins of the incision with purulent drainage from it. If the diagnosis is uncertain, the wound should be aspirated with a needle, with aspiration of pus confirming the diagnosis and availing for Gram stain and bacterial culture.
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Abscess
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Internal abscess
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Internal abscess
Abscesses can form inside the body. The cause can be from trauma, surgery, an infection, or a pre-existing condition.
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Abscess
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Pathophysiology
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Pathophysiology
An abscess is a defensive reaction of the tissue to prevent the spread of infectious materials to other parts of the body.
Organisms or foreign materials destroy the local cells, which results in the release of cytokines. The cytokines trigger an inflammatory response, which draws large numbers of white blood cells to the area and increases the regional blood flow.
The final structure of the abscess is an abscess wall, or capsule, that is formed by the adjacent healthy cells in an attempt to keep the pus from infecting neighboring structures. However, such encapsulation tends to prevent immune cells from attacking bacteria in the pus, or from reaching the causative organism or foreign object.
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Abscess
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Diagnosis
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Diagnosis
thumb|Ultrasound showing dark (hypoechoic) area involving skin and subcutaneous tissue with moving internal debris in keeping with abscess
Ultrasound image showing an abscess, appearing as a mushroom-shaped dark (hypoechoic) area within the fibroglandular tissue of the breast|thumb
An abscess is a localized collection of pus (purulent inflammatory tissue) caused by suppuration buried in a tissue, an organ, or a confined space, lined by the pyogenic membrane.Robins/8th/68 Ultrasound imaging can help in a diagnosis.
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Abscess
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Classification
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Classification
Abscesses may be classified as either skin abscesses or internal abscesses. Skin abscesses are common; internal abscesses tend to be harder to diagnose, and more serious. Skin abscesses are also called cutaneous or subcutaneous abscesses.
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Abscess
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IV drug use
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IV drug use
For those with a history of intravenous drug use, an X-ray is recommended before treatment to verify that no needle fragments are present. If there is also a fever present in this population, infectious endocarditis should be considered.
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Abscess
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Differential
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Differential
Abscesses should be differentiated from empyemas, which are accumulations of pus in a preexisting, rather than a newly formed, anatomical cavity.
Other conditions that can cause similar symptoms include: cellulitis, a sebaceous cyst, and necrotising fasciitis. Cellulitis typically also has an erythematous reaction, but does not confer any purulent drainage.
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Abscess
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Treatment
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Treatment
The standard treatment for an uncomplicated skin or soft tissue abscess is the act of opening and draining. There does not appear to be any benefit from also using antibiotics in most cases. A small amount of evidence did not find a benefit from packing the abscess with gauze.
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Abscess
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Incision and drainage
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Incision and drainage
thumb|right|Abscess five days after incision and drainage
thumb|Abscess following curettage
The abscess should be inspected to identify if foreign objects are a cause, which may require their removal. If foreign objects are not the cause, incising and draining the abscess is standard treatment.
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Abscess
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Antibiotics
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Antibiotics
Most people who have an uncomplicated skin abscess should not use antibiotics. Antibiotics in addition to standard incision and drainage is recommended in persons with severe abscesses, many sites of infection, rapid disease progression, the presence of cellulitis, symptoms indicating bacterial illness throughout the body, or a health condition causing immunosuppression. People who are very young or very old may also need antibiotics. If the abscess does not heal only with incision and drainage, or if the abscess is in a place that is difficult to drain such as the face, hands, or genitals, then antibiotics may be indicated.
In those cases of abscess which do require antibiotic treatment, Staphylococcus aureus bacteria is a common cause and an anti-staphylococcus antibiotic such as flucloxacillin or dicloxacillin is used. The Infectious Diseases Society of America advises that the draining of an abscess is not enough to address community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and in those cases, traditional antibiotics may be ineffective. Alternative antibiotics effective against community-acquired MRSA often include clindamycin, doxycycline, minocycline, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. The American College of Emergency Physicians advises that typical cases of abscess from MRSA get no benefit from having antibiotic treatment in addition to the standard treatment.
Culturing the wound is not needed if standard follow-up care can be provided after the incision and drainage. Performing a wound culture is unnecessary because it rarely gives information which can be used to guide treatment.
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Abscess
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Packing
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Packing
In North America, after drainage, an abscess cavity is usually packed, often with special iodoform-treated cloth. This is done to absorb and neutralize any remaining exudate as well as to promote draining and prevent premature closure. Prolonged draining is thought to promote healing. The hypothesis is that though the heart's pumping action can deliver immune and regenerative cells to the edge of an injury, an abscess is by definition a void in which no blood vessels are present. Packing is thought to provide a wicking action that continuously draws beneficial factors and cells from the body into the void that must be healed. Discharge is then absorbed by cutaneous bandages and further wicking promoted by changing these bandages regularly. However, evidence from emergency medicine literature reports that packing wounds after draining, especially smaller wounds, causes pain to the person and does not decrease the rate of recurrence, nor bring faster healing, or fewer physician visits.
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Abscess
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Loop drainage
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Loop drainage
More recently, several North American hospitals have opted for less-invasive loop drainage over standard drainage and wound packing. In one study of 143 pediatric outcomes, a failure rate of 1.4% was reported in the loop group versus 10.5% in the packing group (P<.030), while a separate study reported a 5.5% failure rate among the loop group.
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Abscess
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Primary closure
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Primary closure
Closing an abscess immediately after draining it appears to speed healing without increasing the risk of recurrence. This may not apply to anorectal abscesses as while they may heal faster, there may be a higher rate of recurrence than those left open.
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Abscess
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Appendiceal abscess
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Appendiceal abscess
Appendiceal abscess are complications of appendicitis where there is an infected mass on the appendix. This condition is estimated to occur in 2–10% of appendicitis cases and is usually treated by surgical removal of the appendix (appendicectomy).
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Abscess
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Prognosis
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Prognosis
Even without treatment, skin abscesses rarely result in death, as they will naturally break through the skin. Other types of abscess are more dangerous. Brain abscesses may be fatal if untreated. When treated, the mortality rate reduces to 5–10%, but is higher if the abscess ruptures.
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Abscess
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Epidemiology
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Epidemiology
Skin abscesses are common and have become more common in recent years. Risk factors include intravenous drug use, with rates reported as high as 65% among users. In 2005, in the United States 3.2 million people went to the emergency department for an abscess. In Australia around 13,000 people were hospitalized in 2008 for the disease.
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Abscess
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Society and culture
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Society and culture
The Latin medical aphorism "ubi pus, ibi evacua" expresses "where there is pus, there evacuate it" and is classical advice in the culture of Western medicine.
Needle exchange programmes often administer or provide referrals for abscess treatment to injection drug users as part of a harm reduction public health strategy.
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Abscess
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Etymology
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Etymology
An abscess is so called "abscess" because there is an abscessus (a going away or departure) of portions of the animal tissue from each other to make room for the suppurated matter lodged between them.Collier's New Encyclopedia, 'Abscess'.
The word carbuncle is believed to have originated from the Latin: carbunculus, originally a small coal; diminutive of carbon-, carbo: charcoal or ember, but also a carbuncle stone, "precious stones of a red or fiery colour", usually garnets.OED, "Carbuncle": 1 stone, 3 medical
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Abscess
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Other types
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Other types
The following types of abscess are listed in the medical dictionary:
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Abscess
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References
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References
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Abscess
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External links
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External links
Category:General surgery
Category:Cutaneous lesion
Category:Wikipedia medicine articles ready to translate
Category:Wikipedia emergency medicine articles ready to translate
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Abscess
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Table of Content
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short description, Signs and symptoms, Causes, Anorectal abscess, Incisional abscess, Internal abscess, Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, Classification, IV drug use, Differential, Treatment, Incision and drainage, Antibiotics, Packing, Loop drainage, Primary closure, Appendiceal abscess, Prognosis, Epidemiology, Society and culture, Etymology, Other types, References, External links
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Aalborg Municipality
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Short description
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Ålborg Municipality () is a municipality in North Jutland Region on the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark.Bridgwater, W. & Beatrice Aldrich. (1966) The Columbia-Viking Desk Encyclopedia. Columbia University. p. 11. The municipality straddles the Limfjord, the waterway which connects the North Sea and the Kattegat east-to-west, and which separates the main body of the Jutland peninsula from the island of Vendsyssel-Thy north-to-south. It has a land area of and a population of 223,174 (1. January 2024).
It is also the name of the municipality's main city Aalborg and the site of its municipal council, as well as the name of a seaport.
The municipality and the town have chosen to retain the traditional spelling of the name as Aalborg, although the new spelling Ålborg is used in other contexts, such as Ålborg Bight (Ålborg Bugt), the body of water which lies to the east of the Jutland peninsula.
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Aalborg Municipality
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Municipal reform of 2007
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Municipal reform of 2007
As of 1 January 2007 Aalborg municipality joined with the municipalities of Hals, Nibe, and Sejlflod to form a new Aalborg municipality. The former Aalborg municipality, including the island of Egholm, covered an area of , with a total population of 192,353 (2005). Its last mayor was Henning G. Jensen, a member of the Social Democrats () political party. The former municipality was bordered by Sejlflod and Hals to the east, Dronninglund and Brønderslev to the north, Aabybro and Nibe to the west, and Støvring and Skørping to the south. It belonged to North Jutland County.
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Aalborg Municipality
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Geography
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Geography
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Aalborg Municipality
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Surroundings
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Surroundings
The waters in the Limfjord splitting the municipality are called Langerak to the east and Gjøl Bredning to the west. The island of Egholm is located in Gjøl Bredning, and is connected by ferry to the city of Aalborg at its southern shore.
The area is typical for the north of Jutland. To the west, the Limfjord broadens into an irregular lake (salt water), with low, marshy shores and many islands. Northwest is Store Vildmose ("Greater Wild bog"), a swamp where a mirage is sometimes seen in summer. Southeast lies the similar Lille Vildmose ("Lesser Wild bog"). Store Vildmose was drained and farmed in the beginning of the 20th century, and Lille Vildmose is now the largest moor in Denmark.
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Aalborg Municipality
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Urban areas in Aalborg Municipality
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Urban areas in Aalborg Municipality
Aalborg City has a total population of 123,432. The metropolitan area is a conurbation of the Aalborg urban area in Himmerland (102,312) and the urban area in (21,120).
+ The largest urban areas in Aalborg Municipality Nr Urban area Population (2011) 1 Aalborg 103,545 2 21,376 3 Svenstrup 6,751 4 Nibe 4,987 5 Vodskov 4,399 6 Klarup 4,182 7 Gistrup 3,573 8 Storvorde 3,243 9 Vestbjerg 2,677 10 Frejlev 2,579
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Aalborg Municipality
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Economy
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Economy
North Flying has its head office on the property of Aalborg Airport in , Aalborg Municipality."Contact Us ." North Flying. Retrieved 15 December 2011. "North Flying's headquarters are located in Aalborg Airport." and "North Flying A/S North Flying Terminal Aalborg Airport DK - 9400 Nørresundby Denmark"
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Aalborg Municipality
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Politics
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Politics
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Aalborg Municipality
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Municipal council
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Municipal council
Aalborg's municipal council consists of 31 members, elected every four years.
Below are the municipal councils elected since the Municipal Reform of 2007.
Election Party Totalseats Turnout Electedmayor200515232183164.6%Henning G. Jensen (A)2009121252960.3%201312211129368.4%Thomas Kastrup-Larsen (A)2017171128267.7%
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Aalborg Municipality
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Twin towns – sister cities
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Twin towns – sister cities
Aalborg is twinned with 34 cities, more than any other city in Denmark. Every four years, Aalborg gathers young people from most of its twin towns for a week of sports, known as Ungdomslegene (Youth Games).
, Netherlands
Antibes, France
Büdelsdorf, Germany
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
, Norway
Fuglafjørður, Faroe Islands
Galway, Ireland
Gdynia, Poland
Haifa, Israel
Hefei, China
, Austria
, Greenland
Karlskoga, Sweden
Lancaster, England
Lerum, Sweden
Liperi, Finland
, Iceland
Orsa, Sweden
Orust, Sweden
Ośno Lubuskie, Poland
, Russia
Racine, United States
Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland
Rendalen, Norway
Rendsburg, Germany
Riga, Latvia
Riihimäki, Finland
, Greenland
Solvang, United States
, Romania
, Bulgaria
Vilnius, Lithuania
, Germany
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Aalborg Municipality
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References
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References
Municipal statistics: NetBorger Kommunefakta, delivered from KMD a.k.a. Kommunedata (Municipal Data)
Municipal mergers and neighbors: Eniro map with named municipalities
Aalborg in figures 2008, a publication from Aalborg Municipality.
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Aalborg Municipality
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External links
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External links
About Aalborg from Nordjyske Medier
Aalborg Municipality's official website
VisitAalborg (Aalborg Tourist Office)
Municipality
Category:Municipalities of Denmark
Category:Municipalities of the North Jutland Region
Category:Populated places established in 2007
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Aalborg Municipality
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Table of Content
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Short description, Municipal reform of 2007, Geography, Surroundings, Urban areas in Aalborg Municipality, Economy, Politics, Municipal council, Twin towns – sister cities, References, External links
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Aarhus
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short description
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Aarhus (, ,"Aarhus" (US) and ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest of Copenhagen.
Dating back to the late 8th century, Aarhus was founded as a harbour settlement at the mouth of the Aarhus River and quickly became a trade hub. The first Christian church was built here around the year 900 and later in the Viking Age the town was fortified with defensive ramparts. The bishopric of Aarhus grew steadily stronger and more prosperous, building several religious institutions in the town during the early Middle Ages. Trade continued to improve, although it was not until 1441 that Aarhus was granted market town privileges, and the population of Aarhus remained relatively stable until the 19th century. The city began to grow significantly as trade prospered in the mid-18th century, but not until the mid-19th century did the Industrial Revolution bring real growth in population. The first railway line in Jutland was built here in 1862. In 1928, the first university in Jutland was founded in Aarhus and today it is a university city and the largest centre for trade, services, industry, and tourism in Jutland.
Aarhus Cathedral is the longest cathedral in Denmark with a total length of . The Church of our Lady (Vor Frue Kirke) was originally built in 1060, making it the oldest stone church in Scandinavia. The City Hall, designed by Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller, was completed in 1941 in a modern Functionalist style. Aarhus Theatre, the largest provincial theatre in Denmark, opposite the cathedral on Bispetorvet, was built by Hack Kampmann in the Art Nouveau style and completed in 1916. Musikhuset Aarhus (concert hall) and Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium (Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg) are also of note, as are its museums including the open-air museum Den Gamle By, the art museum ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, the Moesgård Museum and the women's museum Kvindemuseet. The city's major cultural institutions include Den Gamle By, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, the Moesgård Museum, Gender Museum Denmark, Musikhuset Aarhus and Aarhus Theatre. Known as (lit. City of Smiles) it is the Danish city with the youngest demographics and home to Scandinavia's largest university, Aarhus University. Commercially, the city is the principal container port in the country, and major Danish companies such as Vestas, Arla Foods, Salling Group, and Jysk have their headquarters there.
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