diseases

"The Viral Creep: Elephants and Herpes in Times of Extinction"

In this special issue on Multispecies Studies, Celia Lowe and Ursula Münster present three open-ended stories of elephant care in times of death and loss: at places of confinement and elephant suffering like the zoos in Seattle and Zürich as well as in the conflict-ridden landscapes of South India, where the country’s last free-ranging elephants live. They call attention to the Asian elephant, a species that is currently facing extinction through the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus.

Hypothyroidism in Switzerland

The aim of this study is to present the theme from three different but complementary perspectives. The medical perspective lays the groundwork regarding the pathophysiology, the clinical picture, and the differential diagnosis of the condition. The historical perspective presents contemporary scientific studies on conscription and published data on goiter and cretinism as endemic manifestations of hypothyroidism (since 1900), and the archaeoanthropological perspective reports one of the first documentations of the condition in an archaeological population from Switzerland (11th–15th century AD).