IBADAN, Nigeria -- The wail of 6-week-old Quari Babaola cut through the air like the blade that had just sliced through his chin. His mother, Kafilat, shuddered but kept a determined grip on his tiny ...

Scarification is a common practice among African tribes. It is a cultural language that tells stories of identity. Scarification marks transitions like womanhood. The cuts are symbolic and affirm ...

How do the Baule see scarification and body ornamentation? Vogel explores these phenomenon with respect to Baule aesthetics and society as a whole rather than as differentiating "marks of civilization ...

Cicatrices often manifesting as facial marks; scarification; and tattoo represent a symbol of specific identification and beautification among the South western Yoruba. The historical practice marks a ...

Many countries are now becoming keenly aware that the creation of a vaccine to help control the spread of virulent respiratory infections like COVID-19 is only half the battle. Easy and effective ...

Originally published in Marks of civilization: artistic transformations of the human body, edited by Arnold Rubin (Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, 1988), pages 57-76.

Among infectious diseases that have caused pandemics and epidemics, smallpox stands out as a success story. Smallpox vaccination led to the disease's eradication in the twentieth century. Until very ...

Freeze-thawing has been established as an effective method to decrease hard-seededness and increase germination of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), but has not been adopted commercially. Since this ...