That it was under different administration then is indeed worthy of note, but no more so than that it's worthy of note that getting TB in the 16th century was quite a different proposition from getting it today.
I disagree. Nationality and genetics don't reduce down to the same essentials. That the treatment and prognosis of cases of active infection by assorted strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis differ radically today from those in place even at the beginning of the twentieth century, absolutely. But the presentation of the disease itself is little enough changed that it is possible to make diagnoses in retrospect without needing to exhume everybody to be sure. It's recognizable as itself even when it's being called vampirism. The presentation of the modern-day UK, if you want to call it that, is not identical to the presentation of Tudor England. They do not function identically as societies; they do not produce the same effects on their populations. You can recognize them as closely related and existing on the same cultural continuum, but it's not as though the UK has always existed throughout history and was only correctly identified and named in the early nineteenth century (and then reclassified slightly in 1922). That study steepholm linked notwithstanding, the conditions which define a nation are not comparable to phylogenetic analysis.
I don't see how it's reasonable to discuss the birthplace of Bela Bartok, Hungarian nationalist, without noting both that his birthplace was in Hungary then and in Romania now.
I have no argument with that statement at all. The parenthetical "modern-day [place name]" is invaluable. But using one time's name unqualifiedly in place of the other is like saying that Hannibal Barca was a citizen of the Roman Empire just because the Roman Republic annexed Carthage's land in 146 BCE and the province of Africa Proconsularis remained Roman until the western half of the Empire broke up in the fifth century.* "William Shakespeare was born in the United Kingdom" is a different assertion than "William Shakespeare was born in England, now part of the United Kingdom."
* My original example was "like saying that Ovid was exiled to Constanța just because the city has been continuously occupied for the last three thousand years," but the Romanian poet Liliana Ursu has an amazing cycle about bringing Ovid's ghost back from present-day Constanța to Rome, so I almost give that one a pass.
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Date: 2015-03-20 04:00 am (UTC)I disagree. Nationality and genetics don't reduce down to the same essentials. That the treatment and prognosis of cases of active infection by assorted strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis differ radically today from those in place even at the beginning of the twentieth century, absolutely. But the presentation of the disease itself is little enough changed that it is possible to make diagnoses in retrospect without needing to exhume everybody to be sure. It's recognizable as itself even when it's being called vampirism. The presentation of the modern-day UK, if you want to call it that, is not identical to the presentation of Tudor England. They do not function identically as societies; they do not produce the same effects on their populations. You can recognize them as closely related and existing on the same cultural continuum, but it's not as though the UK has always existed throughout history and was only correctly identified and named in the early nineteenth century (and then reclassified slightly in 1922). That study
I don't see how it's reasonable to discuss the birthplace of Bela Bartok, Hungarian nationalist, without noting both that his birthplace was in Hungary then and in Romania now.
I have no argument with that statement at all. The parenthetical "modern-day [place name]" is invaluable. But using one time's name unqualifiedly in place of the other is like saying that Hannibal Barca was a citizen of the Roman Empire just because the Roman Republic annexed Carthage's land in 146 BCE and the province of Africa Proconsularis remained Roman until the western half of the Empire broke up in the fifth century.* "William Shakespeare was born in the United Kingdom" is a different assertion than "William Shakespeare was born in England, now part of the United Kingdom."
* My original example was "like saying that Ovid was exiled to Constanța just because the city has been continuously occupied for the last three thousand years," but the Romanian poet Liliana Ursu has an amazing cycle about bringing Ovid's ghost back from present-day Constanța to Rome, so I almost give that one a pass.