November 21, 2015

"For women the punishment was being burnt at the stake, for a bloke it was being hung, drawn and quartered.

"It would have been a lot to have been caught with": The Toenail Hoard.

500 silver clippings, shavings from metal coins dating back to 1560, found by a man with a metal detector in the Forest of Dean.

Looking for that article I'd read earlier today, my keyword "toenail" got me to "Toenails stashed in Harvard basement could hold clues about cancer":
Deep in the basement of Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health sit more than a hundred vault-like freezers. Inside them... the toenail clippings from more than 100,000 people.... Because your toenails grow at different speeds, each one represents a different period in time. A clipping from your little toe captures substances that have been in your body for roughly a month. A clipping from your big toe gives a snapshot of a year’s worth of exposure.“When you take the edge of the nail of all five toes, you have a measure that stretches over the past year,” Tworoger said.....

13 comments:

The Godfather said...

And now it's the Government that debases the currency.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Look, those aren't toenail clippings. They're like an order of magnitude too large.

traditionalguy said...

Ah ha. Looking for a ways get Money and hoard it. Of course that is the real distinguishing feature of the Humans species from all the other animals.

How again does that trait evolve by selection among weaker and superior species. I always forget how the marvelous story goes.

rehajm said...

Yah. People used to appropriately respond to the damage caused by debasing the currency.

Fred Drinkwater said...

rehajm: My history reading suggests that the real crime was infringing on the ruler's monopoly on debasing the currency, hence the draw-and-quarter, a punishment more typical for treason.
I do get your point, though. My own education in economics started when my father explained how much inflation injured the retired, and other folks living on fixed incomes.

chickelit said...

This another reason why chewing your nails is a bad idea. You are just re-ingesting what your body is trying to rid you of.

But if you must chew, always spit, never swallow.

Wince said...

"For women the punishment was being burnt at the stake, for a bloke it was being hung, drawn and quartered."

Study Finds large gender disparities in federal criminal cases

If you're a criminal defendant, it may help—a lot—to be a woman. At least, that's what Prof. Sonja Starr's research on federal criminal cases suggests. Prof. Starr's recent paper, "Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases," looks closely at a large dataset of federal cases, and reveals some significant findings. After controlling for the arrest offense, criminal history, and other prior characteristics, "men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do," and "[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted." This gender gap is about six times as large as the racial disparity that Prof. Starr found in another recent paper.

https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx

William said...

People who were burned at the stake generally perished from smoke asphyxiation and not from burns. It wasn't as painful as it looks. Or so I've read. I don't know how scientific that clam is. I suppose waiting for the fire to be lit is hard on the nerves........Being drawn and quartered is bound to hurt, but being hanged and dead is an effective pain suppressant......Given the choice I'd go with hanged and drawn and quartered.

Gahrie said...

Of course that is the real distinguishing feature of the Humans species from all the other animals.

Tell that to squirrels, magpies and ants.....

madAsHell said...

Posts like this will make the moderating easy!!

Ron Winkleheimer said...

The ridges on coins (called reeding) were originally put there to keep people from shaving the edges off and selling the metal.

http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/why-do-coins-have-ridges

Deja Voodoo said...

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man who is hung is blessed, but to be hanged is misfortune at best.

William: being hanged and dead
Google gibbet. The prisoner would still be alive when his belly was slit, his entrails uncoiled, but not severed, and roasted over an open fire. He would not die until he was pulled in four directions. Sometimes his head was removed before, sometimes after the quartering, but always separated from the body.

Kathy said...

The hanging wasn't "until dead," so it didn't act as a pain suppressant.