An Electronic Medical Record

An Electronic Medical Record An Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is a digital record of a patients medical history and test results. A record which is kept digitally allows for ease of transfer between physicians and readability, not relying on the old system of papers which need to be physically transferred, or at best, faxed between offices. EMR systems have existed for a number of years already, yet many hospitals and physicians still rely on paper records. However, a complete EMR system is complex, facilitating transfer of information between connected systems whether or not they are part of the same organization rather than being simply a flat file on a desktop with data entered. Many employees and physicians resist change and privacy issues are often at the forefront of concerns dealing with electronic media. This paper discusses the impacts of implementing and operating an EMR and some of the difficulties which may arise that health care providers cite as reasons not to go digital. Introduction The world of medical technology today abounds with news of breakthroughs and innovation using the latest science and techniques. Technology allows us to perform operations and treat patients in ways not thought possible just 20 years ago. The field of medical information systems however is lagging far behind the rest, with many medical records and communications between physicians still accomplished via paper. Why is there such a disparity between the procedures of performing medicine on patients and the way the records of the procedures on those same patients are kept? In this world of international travel where one can travel halfway around the globe in less than a day, should the medical records of the traveler not be able to arrive digitally if he or she needs it while out of the country? Implementation of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) across the country and interconnecting them with the rest of the world, unfortunately, is a long and intensive process. Converting over to an EMR may adversely affect daily operations and increase risk if the proper steps are not taken. The cost may be prohibitive, costing up to $7 million for a 200 bed hospital. However, long term benefits outweigh the investment. Estimates show that implementation of an EMR system could save hospitals from $142 to $371 billion a year, increase the efficiency and reduce errors (Venkatraman, Bala, Venkatesh Bates, 2008, p.141). The planning and execution of the plan requires the support of both the management and the doctors and nurses who will be using the system on a daily basis. Accessibility For a system to be considered useful, the various components and interfaces must be accessible. In a study by Ilie, Slyke, Parikh and Courtney (2009), individuals often select the method of information entry and retrieval which is most accessible. The basis for these actions can be described using the least-effort model (p.218). Essentially whichever method is easier or more familiar is the method preferred. Hospitals and doctors offices have, for years, used a paper records system. The advantages of paper charts are that the charts are placed near each patient and allow for free form notation. Converting over to an EMR system requires training and convenient placement of terminals for physician and nurses. The most convenient may be placing a terminal in each office and station, in or just outside each patient location, or allowing portable units for information entry and retrieval; but implementation of this may not be within the budget or timetable. In instances where accessibilit y of terminals were not convenient, it was found that physicians and nurses fell back to documenting on paper charts and then later on reentering the data online (Spetz Keane, 2009, p.342). To reduce the tendency of users falling back on paper, strategic planning is required in choosing a system which is user-friendly and in placement of units for retrieval and entry of data. Accessibility also means the ability to retrieve needed information about a patient from locations where he or she does not have a previous record. In a world where EMR systems (which can interface with each other) are the norm, travelers would not have to worry that something may be overlooked simply because previous medical records were not available. In addition, cases where medical records were wiped out due to disasters and backups were not available, treatment of patients can become very difficult. After Hurricane Katrina, many physicians did not have medical records for patients needing emergency treatment; often the patients were themselves in no condition to answer questions or simply did not know enough to give meaningful answers (Brooks Grotz, 2010, p.73). Even when a hospital or doctors office installs an EMR system, thought should be given to how portable the data is. Due to the many different vendors available, EMR systems may or may not be able to transfer data effect ively. If a patient moves and requires treatment in another location, an incompatible EMR interface may require that the records be printed out and manually transferred to the new location, effectively negating one of the primary benefits of storing the information electronically. Benefits There are many benefits to implementing an EMR system, both tangible and intangible. One benefit, as mentioned above, could be the ability to share the information between different locations easily. Another benefit which is important to management but often takes time to realize is monetary, in the form of savings from increased efficiency and reduced errors. Increased efficiency also may translate to increased patient satisfaction, leading to increased business and reputation. Most people think of reducing the amount of paper used when a system migrates to going digital, but paper is a comparatively cheap medium though it takes up a large amount of space. On the other hand, take the case of the radiology department. The film used has to be specially prepared prior to use and it requires special equipment both to take the image and to process for viewing. Moving from hardcopy radiological images to one produced and stored digitally reduces both costs and facilitates transfer of images (Ayal Seidmann, 2009, p.45, 47). In the case study of the rural hospital, a number of systems were implemented to try and improve efficiency. The vision was to create an integrated IT system with an electronic medical record (EMR) and computerized physician order entry (CPOE). (Spetz Keane, 2009, p.338). Combining these two would make it possible for the patient to receive tests and treatments by the hospital, then the prescription would be relayed to the pharmacy electronically. The nurse would be able to scan the wristband of the patient and the labels on the prescriptions to verify the correct medicine goes to the correct person. A part of the system which had been implemented in the first month was a bar-coding system for supplies resulting in a decrease of patient care units running out of supplies due to improved inventory control (Spetz Keane, 2009, pp.338-340). The reduction of errors is also a key concern and the use of electronic records and a central database reduces the chances of duplication and mid-identification. As cited by Venkatraman, Bala, Venkatesh and Bates (2008) in their introduction to their paper, The Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1999 shocked the nation by reporting that as much as 98000 people die in hospitals every year due to medical errors. These errors are also said to cost hospitals as much as $29 billion every year. Many costly mistakes might have been prevented if physicians had better information available or were not mislead by incorrect information, for example getting the wrong charts for the wrong person. In the process of proposing an EMR solution, the most common way is show benefits using monetary values and time/productivity savings. However, there are intangible benefits which are not so easily identified or measured. A desirable factor sometimes overlooked is increase in satisfaction, both for the customers and for the physicians (Ayal Seidmann, 2009, p.49). The ability to process results quickly affects the views the public has of the hospital or office and faster processing allows physicians to accomplish more. One of the most frustrating parts of health care is the wait necessary: patients waiting to be seen or waiting for doctors to diagnose the tests, doctors and nurses waiting for tests to be run or film to be developed. A byproduct of increasing the efficiency of processes is reduced frustration and improved satisfaction. After all, a patient at a hospital with an unknown problem should not have to wonder what is taking so long in addition to whats wrong with me? Implementation Once the decision has been made to acquire an EMR system, the next step is to decide which to use. Many medical technology and software companies are offering EMRs with many different specifications. Would a complete integrated system be better than a modular system? Are there partners requiring the ability to interface with the system? What is the degree of technological sophistication of the users? These questions and many other need to be addressed in deciding what type of EMR system would be the best fit. One key note in the implementation of a EMR system is that there is always a learning curve involved. Expect productivity to fall upon initial deployment with an increase in productivity once users are familiar with the system. A temporary decline of as much as 50% could be expected initially with productivity ramping back up to pre-implementation levels by six weeks, although some organizations required at least a year (Brooks Grotz, 2010, p.81). Often this period of decreased efficiency is what many users complain about: they cannot document as fast as they used to, they have to stop often to respond to system alerts, equipment is not working (possibly due to incorrect settings or improper use). Training for users of the system is thus an important part of the implementation plan. Enough time must be set aside for learning the system and support must be available if needed. Privacy Where terminals were placed is often important to the privacy of patients. In a case where an EMR system was implemented in a rural hospital, nurses and their managers had given input on locations for installation of computers and scanning cabinets. Once the nurses started using the system, however, issues of privacy came up. Some of the rooms were multi-bed and with only one computer, the nurse sometimes had to talk across one patient to get information from another (Spetz Keane, 2009, p.341). Obviously another method needed to be implemented to prevent violation of patient confidentiality; however such changes are not easily accomplished, especially if the system is already in place. Developing a policy for accessing the system is also paramount to protection of patient privacy in addition to business and financial records. There are several types of access levels available to a system as potentially complex as an EMR. The most obvious are access to medical and financial information. Also included are access to configure the hardware and software, especially the granting of permissions for other users to access various parts of the system. Imagine for example, the nurse who may need to collect financial or insurance information and enter it such that the billing department can access it. What if this same privilege inadvertently gave access to hospital financial records also? Also if an extranet is setup to interface with insurance companies for billing, how much access should they have? If policies are not set up correctly, insurance companies may be able to access records on patients under other insurance companys policies (Wilcox Brown, 2005, p.47). Past employees also need to have access to the system terminated and a policy should be in effect as to what a reasonable timeframe for access termination. Wilcox and Brown (2005) suggested that normal terminations, such as retirement, resignation and employee transfer, should be within one day and urgent terminations, such as a status change of an employee under hostile circumstances such as a firing, suspension, or other disciplinary action or any time there is reasonable cause to suspect that a user may try to harm or misuse data or system resources, should happen within an hour. Medical identity theft is now becoming more of a concern due to the abilities of hackers to access electronic systems. Just as someone could park outside a store and wirelessly tap into the credit card authorization process, someone could attempt to intercept communications between hospitals or even between departments within a hospital. Kieke cites a study by the Federal Trade Commission that states that medical identity theft accounts for 3 percent of identity theft crimes (Kieke, 2009). The theft may be used to fraudulently obtain health care services, file false claims, or attempt to secure drugs (Kieke, 2009, pp51-52). Once the identity has been compromised, it may be sold and resold multiple times, costing the patient time and money to clear the claims and establish their own identity again. Conclusion In many ways, implementation of an EMR system will be beneficial to hospitals and doctors offices. The degree of implementation is dependent on the requirements of the particular establishment. Specialized hospitals and many doctors offices do not require the whole gamut of software to run, often a subset or certain key modules would suffice. However, the ability to organize and display medical data in a meaningful way which follows some type of standardization and the ability to transfer records to other locations in times of need should be a requirement of any EMR implementation. Along with the technology needed comes a need to look at the human requirements behind using the system. The users, doctors and nurses in particular, are important to the overall success of any implantation. Not addressing issues which arise from this set of users may render the whole implementation moot.

Victimization of Women in Society with Regard to Anita Nair, S Ladiescoupe

The undeserved dilemma of modern woman is a recurrent theme of the novels of Bharati, a widely acclaimed author and winner of the National Book critics’ award. She considered her works, a celebration of her emotion that she brings out of her heart. She has depicted very minutely the condition of Asian immigrants in North America, with particular attention to the changes taking place in South Asian women in a new world. She presents all her characters a survivors against the brutalities and violence that surrounded them.A threat that runs through all the novels of Mukherjee is of religious, racial, sexual and economic class difference. Bharati expresses the â€Å"the inner expropriation of cultural identity†. Pre-natal reminiscence is the fountain head of the Indian tradition. Encounter between India, England and USA ends in an inter cultural accommodation. The two integral parts of reality are fixity and change. The blending of being and becoming attracts the attention of novelists. Nativity and nationality meet face to face challenging immigrant sensibility and expatriate predicament.Monolithic cultural identity is dissolved in the process of cultural mutation. Thus this is evident in the novel against the background of Tara Lata’s recollection of childhood memory of previous birth and cross cultural pollination. A British becoming an Indian is a matter of attention while at the same time an Indian turning a snobbish British is equally an important subject matter for our concern. The philosophical import of the title, â€Å"From Being to Becoming,† is actually gleaned from the ritual incidents and personages.Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher stated that nothing remains static and so everything is in a state of change or constant transition. This phenomenon is nothing but a movement across cultures. The troublesome question is about the possibility of the life of the mind which transcends space and time. What is native becomes alien and what is alien becomes native. The issue is not so much connected with external space-time framework. But it has lot to do with our inner life. For example, Mishtigunj and Mist Mahal are the creations of John Mist.These places had become the home of ecumenical accommodation. It has turned in to a place which supports Christian unity. The Shoonder Bon village worshipped John Mist as an avatar. Helping the poor, feeding the hungry ones, elevating the life of the depressed, creating schools, building houses, hospitals, supplying the money, the necessary wherewithal, and shaping the body and soul of Shoonder Bon Home are the admirable heroic activities. All his heroic activities had endowed John Mist with the status of divine incarnation.By temperament he was Vedantic and by outlook he was Vedic. Experiences are always universal and they tend to move on in a parallel line. A man born in England getting fully rooted and absorbed in the life of Shoonder Bon village in East can be descr ibed as a phenomenon continent. Though the inhabitation is in a specific culture modern like cross-cultural pollination and acculturation are not sufficient to psychoanalyze the life of a soul. The Tree Bride is a powerful depiction of pre-independence India bringing two continents into contact with each other.East and West are traditionally conceived as terms of contrast, but this novel differs from this time-honored way of treating East and West. Shattering and solidifying of cultural boundaries are the two sub-conscious streams pervading the novel. John Mist serves as an example for the first category while Virgil Treadwell is shown as an instance for second category as he happens to be an East India Company official and a commissioner with an Anglophile and Edwardian bent of mind looking to formal, external decorum and spectability as norms of good behavior.But the novelist is preoccupied with mysticism and transformation of consciousness. Therefore anectodes, precedents and suc ceedents are only matter of chronology, history and geography. Human beings are irrespective of time, place and age. Anti-British and pro-British elements are attitudes which are incidental and largely history. The novelist does not spare her satirical pen where the British rule in India is concerned. Brahmo Samaj, a revival Indian Renaissance Movement, comes under severe scrutiny in the novelist’s hands.It can be clearly seen that the artist shows her inward respect over Jaikrishna Gangooly, the great grandfather of Tara, and his daughter, the Tree Bride. They also respected the Gangooly family for it is more attached to Arya Samaj which came as a corrective to Brahmo Samaj. The first movement endorses the philosophy of liberal, scientific Westernization while the second accepts the same phenomenon with a great deal of reservation. The business of Bharati Mukherjee is to be true to the facts of life. She acknowledges the fact that the British lifted India from the deep slumb er of decadence.At the same time the novelist mounts a frontal attack on the British strategy of perpetrating the foreign rule through religious divisions. â€Å"It is easy for an English-educated, middle-class Indian (or Pakistani or Bangladesh) to fall in line with colonial prejudice. Thirty thousand British bureaucrats and â€Å"factors† were able to rule ten thousand times more Indians by dividing Muslims from Hindus, Persian Zoroastrians from Muslims, Sikhs from Hindus, and nearly everyone, including Hindus, from castes like lazy Brahmins and money-grubbing banias†. 44) It shows that the need of the British empire could be better fulfilled by the Indians than by the English men. Macaulay’s limited psychoanalysis of the situation was right as far as his administrative framework was involved. But he failed to see the spontaneous mystical influence of each culture over the other. The novel contains two layers of unfolding its theme. One layer is obviously conc erned with the consequences resulting from the setting up of the East India Company. To a historian, the other layer remains obscure and somewhat non-logical.But the novelist takes immense care to distribute the emphasis in an equable manner for the purpose of achieving cultural comprehensiveness in the historical-cum-artist portrayal of personages. Macaulay saw culture and civilization in the mass as a consolidated unified framework. That is after all a nineteenth-century Benthamite utilitarian rationale. It is the justification or rationalization of relating to the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. A mass tendency validates an individual wishing after some cultural fallback. Man in the mass is metaphorically dead.Only the individual who does not align himself with the mass tendency is alive. Every culture is in a state of being and becoming and what is far more important is that one emerges into the other. There is always an interplay between the two. The reason is that ev ery society is subject to mutation and change. No culture has come to stay like a consolidated stone. History events and the march of time leave no society and culture untouched. The richness of any antiquity is never lost in the exposure of any historical, social and cultural metamorphosis.The novel brings out this idea of absorption and assimilation: In my mind, the history of the British in India is a story of adventure gone bad, where the thrill of new encounters, the lure of transformation†¦started drying up†¦Maybe there is a limit to the human capacity for wonder or the ability to absorb the truly alien without trying to reduce its dimensions and tame its excess. (48) It is clear that the stand of outside time is true and enduring . Simultaneously some other mysterious element enters time to put life through a process of transmutation. Frequently at such moments cultural upheavals occur.One such movement is the encounter between England and India in the wake of the s etting up of the East India Company as the nucleus and the wing of the British Empire. The powerful depiction of the scenes and a comprehensive portrayal of significant characters enables us to come to terms with the psycho-social implications of what they stand for and where the repercussions lead to. A head-on collision between the sociology of the society and the psychology of the individuals is perceptible. Demonstrably Eliot’s theory of past influencing the present and the present equally modifying the past is at work in the novel.A discussion taking place in San Francisco among Tara and Bish,Yash Khanna and Victoria Khanna is related to a memorable historical event in Shoonder Bon village (in East Bengal). The information so secured about this past is more by coincidence. The restlessnes of Tara’s spirit and the probability involved in her rumbling upon some material link the present with the past. It is the matter of sheer chance. Nevertheless it has value. Vict oria Khanna’s grandfather was Virgil Treadwell. As he was in Indian Civil Service, he was posted as a district commissioner in Bengal in 1930.The Six containing old ledgers of grandfather is a historical record about him. Victoria Khanna informs Tara about these materials. An impetus from the research into the past history Tara Lat Gangooly is the outcome of Tara’s inner prompting of her reminiscent prevision of a remote historical record of Mishtigunj which presents a parallel equivalent to an idealist view of a world of unalloyed joy and bliss. The random availability of record by sheer coincidence or accident from the hand of Victoria Khanna leads to the fulfillment of such a goal of study and investigation.Mist Nama is a powerful poetic depiction of a rich rewriting of the ancient Indian Vedic history by a British-turned Hindoo, John Mist. The question, â€Å"Who contributes† is as much important as the question â€Å"What is contributed. † John Mist is the creator of an ideal social order. Mist-Nama is a practical rendering of a life-vision. A British Hindu stood for the Hindu-Moslem unity. His governing philosophy in the language of the novelist was the harmonious combination of the ‘two’ of everything and it meant occupation and employment for both Hindus and Moslems in an equitable proportion.He conducted hectic commerce and business enterprises and whatever he earned, he shared with all. A profit-making East India Company British ship dropped a legacy making sailor-turned savior, John Mist. There were many Indians who became pseudo-British by their outward forms of Westernization like Virgil Treadwell. At the same time there were many British like John Mist, David Llewellyn and Coughlin Nigel who became true Indian Hindoos by their inner transformation of being. Imitation must contain an element of creative transformation; otherwise it can turn into mere form and decorum ending in an emptiness of being.The cont ext for the discussion of the relationship between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ is demonstrably evident here. The truth to be established is that’ being’ and’ becoming’ are not the usual dichotomies but they are two indivisible sides of the same coin. Tara and John Mist appear as immigrants. Immigrancy is equated with loss of something and a search for true â€Å"something. † Tradition and convention describe nativity as something which is independent upon space, time, history and geography. This is a monolithic vision of culture and nativity. Nativity is therefore defined as a belonging to a culture and sharing oneness with it.But Bharati Mukherjee establishes another view that nativity is independent of all factors and it is more connected with inner being and less with spontaneous factors. A search for realization of inner being is conserved by the novelist as nativity. The idea of birthplace being conserved as nativity is di fferent from the idea of describing nativity as sharing oneness with the inner being which is independent of spacing the framework. The drama is that being turns into becoming and being from becoming turns into being. The novelist holds two views which are not contradictory as each other.John Mist says: â€Å"having come nowhere, he had everywhere to go. Having had nothing, he has had everything and anything at his disposal. † (27) Elsewhere the novelist says that where one inherits nothing, he is entitled to everything. Freedom of immigrancy and liberty of any form of absorption put the being and the becoming in a process of creative interplay. Mukherjee acknowledges the fact that life is an unpredictable mystery:â€Å"We have been trained to think of Mishtigunj as home in ways that our adopted homes, Calcutta and California, must never be.Ancestors come and to, but one’s native village, one’s desh, is immutable. (29)† Tara realizes her native home as Mi shtigunj in a state of immigrancy. But the home of John Mist is the same Indian village. Tara and John Mist realized their nativity in different ways where ‘being’ and’ becoming’ move and merge into each other. John Mist is the creator of Indian Mishtigunj and he is a British who discovers his sweet home in this village. Tara, an Indian immigrant in San Francisco, discovers home in the British created legendary village, Who is an immigrant? Who is a native?These questions get simultaneously juxtaposed. Home if therefore or it needs to be defined where one’s being is. In comparison with Tara and John Mist, Virgil Treadwell is less a better human being in spite of his being absorbed in the new phenomenon called Eurasianism. He could plot along with the British and spy on Tara Lata Gangooly’s house. These facts have deprived him of his inner being. His Eurasianism corrupted his nobility, introducing falsity. He sold his soul and made his profit whereas John Mist gave away his profit to people and he discovered his soul in his sacrifice.Bharati Mukherjee says that when the British like Virgil Treadwell spoke of profit John Mist thought in terms of leaving legacy. Therefore the concept of total objectivity of culture dies-down in the birth of polyvalent cultural subjectivity. Tara, Virgil Treadwell and John Mist are varying examples of the new proposition. With John Mist loss of objectivity (British culture) ends in discovery of subjectivity. Here the words’ loss’ and ‘gain’ and ‘objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ and’ being’ and ‘becoming’ are more connected with subconscious realization of one’s inner being.In the case of Virgil Treadwell, British gain meant Indian loss whereas conversely in the case of John Mist’s British loss meant Indian gain. The novelist uses very sensational generalizations to illustrate this truth:â€Å"All t he could-have-beens and should-have-beens of history, the best of the East meeting the best of the West, etc. , etc. , shrink from grandeur to petty profit-taking. (48) The question ‘Who conquered whom’ melts into insignificance: â€Å"history is written by victors, but in the case of India, it’s not always clear who won, is it? 90) It is that both the victor (West) and the vanquished (East) mutually enriched the sensibility of the two cultures. It is a strange divine coincidence that John Mist’s creation of the â€Å"Mist-Nama† and â€Å"Mishtigunj† is along a line which the ancient tradition of India endorses. The discovery of such a wonderful treasure is made possible by the research work of an Indian immigrant in America, Tara. Both John Mist and Tara are in a way immigrants. The philosophical axiom is that cultures are not fixed entities like â€Å"quantity. Naturally ‘being’ and’ becoming’ are not static. Th e mutations have repercussions. Though the word ‘being’ created a misleading picture of fixity and permanence, it has the character of fabric. The British conquest of India forms the context of the new in which these issues are raised indirectly. The history of Mishtigunj created by British Hindu John Mist puts obstacles in the way of glibly accepting the two categories ‘being’ and ‘becoming’. What determines history is not its concern with outward form but the ‘inner implications’ is which it unconsciously creates.It is this history which has created a martyr, John Mist. Tara Lata Gangooly represents the best of the East and her predecessor John Mist represents both the best of the East and the best of the West. Characters like Virgil Treadwell are more concerned with the British form and decorum than with the essence of life. Both John Mist and Tara Lata Gangooly live at a deeper level while men like Virgil Treadwell move on a su perficial plane. There are many places where Virgil Treadwell is compared to Churchill and Nixon and he is satirized subtly.Both John Mist and Tara Lata died a martyr’s death. The former was hanged in 1880 on a charge of disobedience of the British Colonial venture and the latter died in a prison in 1943 on the same charges of treason, sedition and disobedience. These events and situations by themselves are utterly insignificant. But the effect and impact they leave have a lasting value. It is this fact which enable the readers arrives at a philosophical link between being and becoming both is that the reality of life permits a movement between being and becoming.Liking John Mist, Tara Lata, Virgil and their life styles lead the leader draw an intelligent interference events and circumstances keeps them in a state of transition and transformation. It is a great achievement on the part of the novelist to aim at an imaginative-historical reconstruction of Mishtigunj. Bharathi M ukherjee is not a thoughless immigrant. Her loyalty to the essence of life gives her a new responsibility to rephrase the issue of the contact and correlation between being and becoming.

Creon and Aristotle Essay

This paper will primarily concern itself with the comparison of the two approaches to politics from Creon in Sophocles’ play Antigone and Aristotle in his Politics. The basic argument here is that Creon and Aristotle have very little in common in terms of basic political ideas, especially in terms of the role and power of the state in the moral lives of the population. In terms of political ideas, the Antigone concerns itself primarily with the distinction between the state and the unwritten law of custom. The argument of the play itself is that Antigone has every right to bury her slain brother in that it is an ancient custom to please the gods by burying the dead and showing them respect. The central concept here is the rule of tradition and religion, represented by Antigone herself. On the other hand, Creon, who has just emerged victorious in a civil war where Polynices, the true heir, and Eteocles killed each other, leaving Creon as sole ruler of Thebes. Hence, without a real claim to power, Creon stresses the power and interests of the state over all. The written law is central. For Aristotle, the nature of politics is far more complex than the simple state-centered ideas of Creon. For Aristotle, property, classes and the relations between the sexes all have a law and custom of their own, which, when followed, lead to virtue and the good life. Ultimately for Aristotle, to flourish in the intellectual arts is the key to happiness, while for Creon, obedience to a well-ordered state, based solely on written codes, is the key to order and hence, to social peace. In Antigone, there are two ways of looking at the dead Polynices. The first is Creon’s view, that of a dead traitor that deserves nothing but humiliation in order to justify Creon’s own claim to power as well as prevent any further warfare (Sophocles, 585). Second, which is Antigone’s view, that Polynices is a dead Thebian, regardless of the politics involved. Ultimately, the chorus at (Sophocles, 673) holds that Creon is making a major mistake since he is basing his policy on a passing political struggle, while Zeus is immortal and hence, transcends all this politics. Creon, in other words, is letting the specifics of political power interfere with his duty as monarch of Thebes. The smaller picture of the civil war has blurred the more general vision of the nature of political power, that is, the reverence of custom as the ultimate in democracy: Thebians have â€Å"voted† for generations to maintain the old traditions, not to worship the state (Sophocles, 745-750). On the other hand Aristotle writes: â€Å"When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life† (Aristotle, bk I, pt 1) Several things are important here. First, that the smaller villages predate the state, and as a consequence, have a certain precedence over the state itself. Putting this differently, the state is the product of already existing villages and other communal organizations, and hence, is dependent upon them. Therefore, Aristotle, early on in the Politics, is arguing for a decentralized political regime where the building blocks of the polity, the villages (or a group of â€Å"households†), maintain their autonomy under the general guidance of the state. Second, Aristotle is clear that the state exists not for itself, but for a further end, that of the good life, the life devoted to the intellectual virtues. The state, in other words, exists in order to maintain the customs of the villages–the traditions of the people–so long as they lead to virtue, the good life itself, the end of all political activity, the end that exists in and for itself. The state is merely an instrument, contra Creon, that sees it as an end in itself, ore more accurately, that his own power exists as an end in and for itself. The very act of deliberation in Greek thought is itself an end, in that it assists in the mental development and contemplative abilities of the individuals involved. The good life, it can be argued, is manifest in political life in that it is essentially an intellectual form of work, the highest that a man can consider. Hence, deliberation is central to the good life and therefore, is beyond the purview of the state. If Aristotle is going to argue that the state is â€Å"according to nature,† then he must also hold that the villages, the ancient customs of the people that go into creating the state, also exist by nature. While Aristotle holds in Part II that the state is â€Å"prior to† the family and individual on the logical basis of self-sufficiency, this is hardly holding to a monolithic state in the sense that Creon holds. The state has no control over such customs, represented by Antigone and the blind prophet in the play. The basic argument then, is that the state comes into existence in order to create a certain level of self-sufficiency, not to destroy the customs of the more ancient forms of village life. Aristotle, in short, would have sided with Antigone. Even more, the question of precedence of the villages vis-a-vis the state shows that the state, though logically prior, must take into consideration the ideas and history of its component parts. Hence, Aristotle has deliberation at the center of his state’s idea. It should be noted that the main source of friction here is the concept of political deliberation. The Antigone sees a number of intelligent and well meaning people, such as Creon’s son, Haemon and his wife, all seeking to reason with Creon over the question of the fate of Antigone and the nature of the civil war in general. But since Creon holds that the monarch is the state, and the state is the monarch, deliberation would be a sign of weakness. Aristotle holds clearly that the citizens of the Greek state, regardless of its location, must be engaged in deliberation and discussion. This is the more practical sense of his state, in that it is an aggregate of pre-existing parts. These pre-existing parts, such as families or individuals, do not disappear when the state is formed, but take their rightful place as parts of the state, and hence, need to be involved in political discussion. The blind prophet Tiresias is, like Antigone, the voice of the â€Å"villages,† the ancient tradition of a people upon which the authority of the state rests. Among other things, Tiresias holds that Creon is â€Å"living in a tomb. † What he means is that Creon has become so obsessed with political power that he has forgotten the purpose of this power. Even more, this power has become radically personalized, centering on Creon himself, rejecting the testimony of his own son, and now, the prophet, the voice of the gods, who has never been wrong. He holds that Creon has placed himself in grave danger in his behavior. Worst of all, none of this will assist Creon in holding on to power or convincing the population that he deserves this power. His approach to politics is contradictory and self defeating (Sophocles, 1185-1205). It is contradictory because he refuses to see the state, as Aristotle did, as a series of component parts united for the good life under the ruler. Creon sees the state in purely personal, and hence, non-deliberative, terms. By the time the blind prophet has left Creon’s presence, politics has ceased to be institutional and now has become personal and autocratic in the literal sense of the word. Creon is the state, and is the power of Thebes, Creon says â€Å"What? The city is the king’s–that’s the law† (Sophocles, 825). This is precisely what Tiresias warned him of. For Creon to listen to the prophet, a man who he clearly respects, would be a sign of weakness. In his confusion, Creon decides to set Antigone free, yet, by the time this is done, she is already dead, as well as his own son Haemon. Creon has listened to nothing but his own insecurity, and now he is paying the price. When Creon says â€Å"the city is the king’s,† he is rejecting the concept of deliberation and democratic discussion. He is placing his interests and possible illegitimacy at the center of law, revealing its weaknesses. What are the major issues, therefore, of contrast? This is a struggle precisely with the question of precedence as Aristotle has stated it: tradition and custom over the â€Å"prior nature† of the state. Aristotle leaves the exact nature of this precedence vague. The state is the first by nature, but this is not a chronological movement, but a logical one. The whole must be prior to its parts, but Aristotle is not thereby claiming that the state existed prior to the family or individual. He is just holding that the only way families can reach true happiness is in a well-ordered state aiming at self-sufficiency. Therefore, Aristotle leaves the exact power of the state rather vague. For Aristotle, the scientist, he is not going to impose a blueprint for happiness for every society, but will show the bare outlines of the nature of the good life. The key passage can be found here: For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society (Aristotle, bk 1, pt 2). The fact is that the state exists to promote virtue and hence, must give way to it. Virtue is not abstract, but can be found in the customs of the Hellenes, as Antigone herself holds. Justice comes into existence when the various parts of the society come together in harmonious relations, not when the state stamps its demands upon all. What Sophocles might be holding is that the polis only has its legitimacy insofar as it protects the customs and moral foundation of the Greek people. Without this, there can be no virtue and hence, no good life. But where Sophocles and Aristotle differ is in the nature of the state in terms of security. It seems that Sophocles holds that the traditional life of the Greek family is true and right. It brings security in the ancient customs of an elite people. It is the state that provides insecurity, especially when severed from its moral foundations. There is not a moment where Antigone doubts the correctness of her actions, yet Creon exists in a storm of confusion. State power is parasitic on the traditions of a people according to Sophocles. Aristotle might agree with this with strong reservations, but still concede that the state must have a moral foundation on the one hand, and a purpose beyond itself, on the other (Davis, 1996, 27-28, an excellent discussion on the relation between the household and the state). Creon cannot see either. Even more, Sophocles is making the more general point between the two different kinds of order, the cosmic and the human. He holds that it is the former where truth and happiness are to be found. The human order is insecure and based on chance, the outcomes of wars, political factions, etc. (this is the whole thesis of Book 5 in The Politics, cf. Davis, 1996, 102). The cosmic order is permanent, even superior to the gods, the gods themselves are subject to it. The human order is what Creon demands, namely, his order over and above the divine one. Sophocles is holding to an early version of natural law. The customs of the Greeks are not arbitrary, but they are part of a cosmic order. Creon is arbitrary in his decisions, and even the very basis of his power is based on chance. The human order can never be the basis of society, and certainly the state as the supreme (but not only) power in society. The law, to conclude, as it is promulgated by human beings at any time, is a highly limited instrument. It does not change the order of nature, or even the traditions of the Greek mind, which are based on nature, the law of the cosmos, held by all Greek peoples. The citizens must be engaged in deliberating not what the natural law is, but how it can be best manifested under present conditions. Antigone holds to the eternal, while Creon holds to the temporary. Politics is an inferior state of mind than that of the eternal law of the cosmos. Death and the order of the gods will always trump the merely human law, and hence, the human law must partake of the divine order or it is an arbitrary decree, the very essence of Creon’s world. Bibliography: Aristotle (250 BC). The Politics. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Internet Classics Archive (http://classics. mit. edu/Aristotle/politics. html) Davis, Michael. (1996) The Politics of Philosophy. Rowman and Littlefield Sophocles (442 BC). Antigone. Trans. Robert Fagles. Penguin Classics

Dairy Farming the Ancient History of Producing Milk

Milk-producing mammals were an important part of early agriculture in the world. Goats were among our earliest domesticated animals, first adapted in western Asia from wild forms about 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Cattle were domesticated in the eastern Sahara by no later than 9,000 years ago. We surmise that at least one primary reason for this process was to make a source of meat easier to get than by hunting. But domestic animals also are good for milk and milk products like cheese and yogurt (part of what V.G. Childe and Andrew Sherratt once called the Secondary Products Revolution). So―when did dairying first start and how do we know that? The earliest evidence to date for the processing of milk fats comes from the Early Neolithic of the seventh millennium BC in northwestern Anatolia; the sixth millennium BC in eastern Europe; the fifth millennium BC in Africa; and the fourth millennium BC in Britain and Northern Europe (Funnel Beaker culture). Dairying Evidence Evidence for dairying―that is to say, milking dairy herds and transforming them into dairy products such as butter, yogurt, and cheese―is only known because of the combined techniques of stable isotope analysis and lipid research. Until that process was identified in the early 21st century (by Richard P. Evershed and colleagues), ceramic strainers (perforated pottery vessels) were considered the only potential method of recognizing the processing of dairy products. Lipid Analysis Lipids are molecules which are insoluble in water, including fats, oils, and waxes: butter, vegetable oil, and cholesterol are all lipids. They are present in dairy products (cheese, milk, yogurt) and archaeologists like them because, under the right circumstances, lipid molecules can be absorbed into ceramic pottery fabric and preserved for thousands of years. Further, lipid molecules which are from milk fats from goats, horses, cattle, and sheep can be easily distinguished from other adipose fats such as that produced by animal carcass processing or cooking. Ancient lipid molecules have the best chance of surviving for hundreds or thousands of years if the vessel was used repeatedly for producing cheese, butter or yogurt; if the vessels are preserved near the production site and can be associated with the processing; and if the soils in the vicinity of the site where the sherds are found are relatively free-draining and acidic or neutral pH rather than alkaline. Researchers extract lipids from the fabric of the pots using organic solvents, and then that material is analyzed using a combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry; stable isotope analysis provides the origin of the fats. Dairying and Lactase Persistence Of course, not every person on the earth can digest milk or milk products. A recent study (Leonardi et al 2012) described genetic data concerning the continuation of lactose tolerance in adulthood. The molecular analysis of genetic variants in modern people suggests that the adaptation and evolution of the ability of adults to consume fresh milk occurred rapidly in Europe during the transition to agriculturalist lifestyles, as a byproduct of the adaptation to dairying. But the inability of adults to consume fresh milk may also have been a spur to inventing other methods for using milk proteins: cheese making, for example, reduces the amount of lactose acid in dairy. Cheese-Making Producing cheese from milk was clearly a useful invention: cheese may be stored for a longer period than raw milk, and it was definitely more digestible for the earliest farmers. While archaeologists have found perforated vessels on early Neolithic archaeological sites  and interpreted them as cheese strainers, direct evidence of this use was first reported in 2012 (Salque et al). Making cheese involves adding an enzyme (typically rennet) to milk to coagulate it and create curds. The remaining liquid, called whey, needs to drip away from the curds: modern cheesemakers use a combination of a plastic sieve and a muslin cloth of some sort as a filter to perform this action. The earliest perforated pottery sieves known to date are from Linearbandkeramik sites in interior central Europe, between 5200 and 4800 cal BC. Salque and colleagues used gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to analyze organic residues from fifty sieve fragments found on a handful of LBK sites on the Vistula River in the Kuyavia region of Poland. Perforated pots tested positive for high concentrations of dairy residues  when compared to cooking pots. Bowl-form vessels also included dairy fats and may have been used with the sieves to collect the whey. Sources Copley MS, Berstan R, Dudd SN, Docherty G, Mukherjee AJ, Straker V, Payne S, and Evershed RP. 2003. Direct chemical evidence for widespread dairying in prehistoric Britain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100(4):1524-1529. Copley MS, Berstan R, Mukherjee AJ, Dudd SN, Straker V, Payne S, and Evershed RP. 2005. Dairying in antiquity I. Evidence from absorbed lipid residues dating to the British Iron Age. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(4):485-503. Copley MS, Berstan R, Mukherjee AJ, Dudd SN, Straker V, Payne S, and Evershed RP. 2005. Dairying in antiquity II. Evidence from absorbed lipid residues dating to the British Bronze Age. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(4):505-521. Copley MS, Berstan R, Mukherjee AJ, Dudd SN, Straker V, Payne S, and Evershed RP. 2005. Dairying in antiquity III: Evidence from absorbed lipid residues dating to the British Neolithic. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(4):523-546. Craig OE, Chapman J, Heron C, Willis LH, Bartosiewicz L, Taylor G, Whittle A, and Collins M. 2005. Did the first farmers of central and eastern Europe produce dairy foods? Antiquity 79(306):882-894. Cramp LJE, Evershed RP, and Eckardt H. 2011. What was a mortarium used for? Organic residues and cultural change in Iron Age and Roman Britain. Antiquity  85(330):1339-1352. Dunne, Julie. First dairying in green Saharan Africa in the fifth millennium BC. Nature volume 486, Richard P. Evershed, Mà ©lanie Salque, et al., Nature, June 21, 2012. Isaksson S, and Hallgren F. 2012. Lipid residue analyses of Early Neolithic funnel-beaker pottery from Skogsmossen, eastern Central Sweden, and the earliest evidence of dairying in Sweden. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(12):3600-3609. Leonardi M, Gerbault P, Thomas MG, and Burger J. 2012. The evolution of lactase persistence in Europe. A synthesis of archaeological and genetic evidence. International Dairy Journal 22(2):88-97. Reynard LM, Henderson GM, and Hedges REM. 2011. Calcium isotopes in archaeological bones and their relationship to dairy consumption. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(3):657-664. Salque, Mà ©lanie. Earliest evidence for cheese making in the sixth millennium BC in northern Europe. Nature volume 493, Peter I. Bogucki, Joanna Pyzel, et al., Nature, January 24, 2013.