Observations on Martin Kemp's chapter 'Mark of truth'

These are notes from Martin Kemp, 'The mark of truth: Looking and learning in some anatomical illustrations from the Renaissance and eighteenth century' in WF Byrum and R Porter, eds., Medicine and the Five Senses (Cambridge, 1993) pp85-121

Notes for the seminar on 29 Jan 2013. They may not be strictly coherent but offer a summary of Kemp.

Illustrations in medical texts are central to their usefulness, after all a picture says 1000 words and they provided a fundamental change in the history of dissemination of scientific information. 

How to set up an advanced Google alert

Google Alerts are emails sent to you when Google finds new results, such as web pages, newspaper articles, or blogs that match your search term(s). You can use Google Alerts to monitor anything on the Web. For example,

· find out what is being said about their company or product
· monitor a developing news story
· keep up to date on a competitor or industry
· find out if a particular person has been mentioned

Many of you will have set up Google alerts on topics, people, events and it occurred to me that you might not be aware of the useful features on there. It may be that the search is too broad, or the location isn’t specific enough or you may even feel that you want to narrow the source to one website.

· Go to the advanced search 
· Fill in the boxes as required and click search
· Click on the link to create the search alert and follow the instructions, filling in the box as required.
· Ensure you have the right email account – you will be asked to verify the alert.

For more information generally on advanced Google searching.

Updated 1/8/13
Worrying developments regarding Google Alerts have been mentioned here 'Google Alerts' Are Broken

Lexis PSL - a few comments (amended)

Lexis users have always suffered from information overload. Lexis Library contains a wealth of information but unless you are willing to learn how to use Boolean logic, proximity searching and other library professional magic to navigate, you can be left floundering with thousands of hits. Or worse, none at all. They have tried to make Lexis library more intuitive, with special subject pages, personalised home pages and clear signposting, however this still hasn't really helped the busy lawyer.

Exhibiting the body: Seminar notes

I have been grappling with space for weeks so the thought of examining the art/science of the human body was appealing, something on a scale which which I am familiar. To look inward rather than outward reflects Renaissance notions of 'as above so below', macrocosm to microcosm. However The Body is obviously turning out to be just as vast as space. Inevitably and wonderfully. 

These notes condense two seminars and introduce central themes of the module. Interestingly, despite a thematic spread across the ten weeks, there is still a feel of an artistic narrative in the images/sculpture we have been discussing, perhaps reflecting the linear explanation of medical/anatomical developments, e.g., starting with Leonardo and Vesalius through to Jo Spence and John Isaacs. Timelines have also been handed suggesting a coherent structure is required in this area of art history. A skeleton of dates, requiring the flesh of artistic endeavour, perhaps...

New Year 2013

Shores of emotion 
Reflected in light 
Explosions to take us 
Into the future 

Swelling of crowds 
Noise increases 
Excitement of unknown 
Out of this world 

Climactic bursts 
Tensions are high 
Pulsating thrashing 
London's ablaze