Decoded: The mysterious Voynich manuscript has finally been explained (Maybe)

Source: Decoded: The mysterious Voynich manuscript has finally been explained — Secret History — Sott.net

http://www.sott.net

Annalee Newitz
Ars Techica
Fri, 08 Sep 2017  

 

Roughly translated, many parts of the Voynich Manuscript say that women should take a nice bath if they are feeling sick. Here you can see a woman doing just that.

History researcher says that it’s a mostly plagiarized guide to women’s health.

Since its discovery in 1912, the 15th century Voynich Manuscript has been a mystery and a cult phenomenon. Full of handwriting in an unknown language or code, the book is heavily illustrated with weird pictures of alien plants, naked women, strange objects, and zodiac symbols. Now, history researcher and television writer Nicholas Gibbs appears to have cracked the code, discovering that the book is actually a guide to women’s health that’s mostly plagiarized from other guides of the era.

Gibbs writes in the Times Literary Supplement that he was commissioned by a television network to analyze the Voynich Manuscript three years ago. Because the manuscript has been entirely digitized by Yale’s Beinecke Library, he could see tiny details in each page and pore over them at his leisure. His experience with medieval Latin and familiarity with ancient medical guides allowed him to uncover the first clues.

After looking at the so-called code for a while, Gibbs realized he was seeing a common form of medieval Latin abbreviations, often used in medical treatises about herbs. “From the herbarium incorporated into the Voynich manuscript, a standard pattern of abbreviations and ligatures emerged from each plant entry,” he wrote. “The abbreviations correspond to the standard pattern of words used in the Herbarium Apuleius Platonicus – aq = aqua (water), dq = decoque / decoctio (decoction), con = confundo (mix), ris = radacis / radix (root), s aiij = seminis ana iij (3 grains each), etc.” So this wasn’t a code at all; it was just shorthand. The text would have been very familiar to anyone at the time who was interested in medicine.

Astrological images appear throughout the book too, mostly because medieval doctors thought the positions of the stars and planets could affect health

Further study of the herbs and images in the book reminded Gibbs of other Latin medical texts. When he consulted the Trotula and De Balneis Puteolanis, two commonly copied medieval Latin medical books, he realized that a lot of the Voynich Manuscript’s text and images had been plagiarized directly from them (they, in turn, were copied in part from ancient Latin texts by Galen, Pliny, and Hippocrates). During the Middle Ages, it was very common for scribes to reproduce older texts to preserve the knowledge in them. There were no formal rules about copyright and authorship, and indeed books were extremely rare, so nobody complained.

Once he realized that the Voynich Manuscript was a medical textbook, Gibbs explained, it helped him understand the odd images in it. Pictures of plants referred to herbal medicines, and all the images of bathing women marked it out as a gynecological manual. Baths were often prescribed as medicine, and the Romans were particularly fond of the idea that a nice dip could cure all ills. Zodiac maps were included because ancient and medieval doctors believed that certain cures worked better under specific astrological signs. Gibbs even identified one image-copied, of course, from another manuscript-of women holding donut-shaped magnets in baths. Even back then, people believed in the pseudoscience of magnets. (The women’s pseudoscience health website Goop would fit right in during the 15th century.)

The Voynich Manuscript has been reliably dated to mere decades before the invention of the printing press, so it’s likely that its peculiar blend of plagiarism and curation was a dying format. Once people could just reproduce several copies of the original Trotula or De Balneis Puteolanis on a printing press, there would have been no need for scribes to painstakingly collate its information into a new, handwritten volume.

Gibbs concluded that it’s likely the Voynich Manuscript was a customized book, possibly created for one person, devoted mostly to women’s medicine. Other medieval Latin scholars will certainly want to weigh in, but the sheer mundanity of Gibbs’ discovery makes it sound plausible.

See for yourself! You can look at pages from the Voynich Manuscript here.

Comment: UPDATE from Ars Technica:

Scholars have started to debunk these claims about the Voynich manuscript, noting that the translation “makes no sense” and that a lot of the so-called original findings were done by other researchers.

As soon as Gibbs’ article hit the Internet, news about it spread rapidly through social media (we covered it at Ars too), arousing the skepticism of cipher geeks and scholars alike. As Harvard’s Houghton Library curator of early modern books John Overholt put it on Twitter, “We’re not buying this Voynich thing, right?” Medievalist Kate Wiles, an editor at History Today, replied, “I’ve yet to see a medievalist who does. Personally I object to his interpretation of abbreviations.”

[…]

However, this isn’t sitting well with people who actually read medieval Latin. Medieval Academy of America director Lisa Fagin Davis told The Atlantic‘s Sarah Zhang, “They’re not grammatically correct. It doesn’t result in Latin that makes sense.” She added, “Frankly I’m a little surprised the TLS published it…If they had simply sent to it to the Beinecke Library, they would have rebutted it in a heartbeat.” The Beinecke Library at Yale is where the Voynich Manuscript is currently kept. Davis noted that a big part of Gibbs’ claim rests on the idea that the Voynich Manuscript once had an index that would provide a key to the abbreviations. Unfortunately, he has no evidence for such an index, other than the fact that the book does have a few missing pages.

The idea that the book is a medical treatise on women’s health, however, might turn out to be correct. But that wasn’t Gibbs’ discovery. Many scholars and amateur sleuths had already reached that conclusion, using the same evidence that Gibbs did. Essentially, Gibbs rolled together a bunch of already-existing scholarship and did a highly speculative translation, without even consulting the librarians at the institute where the book resides.

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Pakistani Christian sentenced to death for sending Islam-insulting poem via WhatsApp

I hate to break it to you but if your God /religion permits you to kill others who don’t believe, you have a fake God.

Source: Pakistani Christian sentenced to death for sending Islam-insulting poem via WhatsApp — RT News

RT News

15 Sep, 2017

FILE PHOTO Pakistani Christians © Mohsin Raza / Reuters

A Pakistani Christian has been handed a death sentence for allegedly sending a poem insulting Islam, in particular Prophet Mohammed, to a Muslim friend via WhatsApp. The friend reported him to police, annoyed by the Christian man’s affair with a Muslim girl, the defendant’s lawyer said.

“[Nadeem] James was handed a death sentence by the court Thursday on blasphemy charges,” James’ defence lawyer Anjum Wakeel told AFP Friday. Wakeel said James will “appeal the sentence in the high court as he has been framed by his friend [Yasir Bashir] who was annoyed over James’ affair with a Muslim girl.”

Read more

Pakistan to blame for its own ‘bad name’ – Malala Yousafzai

James was held inside the prison for safety reasons as local Muslim clerics repeatedly threatened his family, the lawyer added.

The story of James from the town of Sarai Alamgir in Punjab province hit the headlines in summer 2016.

James, 28, is “illiterate and works as a tailor”, according to the Rescue Christians charity group which fights persecution of Christians.

The group said Pakistani police also “intimidated” James’s family and arrested his sisters-in-law. “They were threatened with prosecution if they did not give up their brother,” the group said, adding that the women were later released.

In July 2016, James shared the details of the incident to the Rescue Christians group.
“… One of my friends sent me a WhatsApp message. I forwarded it to the Muslim friends as I was not educated and unaware of the contents written in the messages. [Now] they are after me to kill me as they believe that I have committed blasphemy against their prophet,” he stated.

Read more

Pakistani Christian burnt with rods after ‘befriending’ Muslim woman – report (GRAPHIC PHOTO)

The man continued, saying his Muslim friends “wanted to kill him” and sent a complaint to police who later raided his home and eventually arrested him.

“Nadeem is uneducated and could not have possibly sent that text message. I’m certain that Yasir Bashir downloaded the supposedly blasphemous text onto Nadeem’s phone and then forwarded it to his cell number to build a case against my brother,” the man’s sibling Shahbaz James, told the Morning Star News, an independent news service focusing on persecution of Christians.

The charge of blasphemy can carry heavy sentences in Pakistan. According to Amnesty International, “Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are often used against religious minorities.”

A 2016 Amnesty report ”shows how once a person is accused, they become ensnared in a system that offers them few protections, presumes them guilty, and fails to safeguard them against people willing to use violence.”

Medieval Disease Documentary: The Syphilis Enigma (49 min)

Timeline – World History Documentaries

Published on 7 Aug 2017 

In 1495 a new disease hit Europe. It was deadly, devastating and attacked those who were promiscuous, well-heeled and well-traveled. But what was Syphilis and where had it come from? The traditional view has been that syphilis was part of “the Columbian exchange” – one of the things, along with tobacco and the potato, that the New World gave the Old. Arriving in Spain in the 1490s with Columbus and his crew, this destructive new plague spread quickly across Europe, leaving no country, no city, no royal household untouched. But what if this assumption is wrong? There is evidence of syphilis in skeletons dug from sites in France, Italy and England. Bones found in a medieval graveyard in Hull show signs of the ravages of syphilis. But if syphilis was present in Europe before Columbus went to America, why was the 1495 outbreak so deadly? And why did everyone see it as an entirely new plague?

Hey Macarena: Dancing teen arrested in Saudi Arabia

What? Can’t do the Macarena? Saudi Arabia is a barbaric country.

Source: Hey Macarena: Dancing teen arrested in Saudi Arabia – World – CBC News

CBC News

The Associated Press

Posted: Aug 23, 2017

14-year-old later released with warning after swaying to ’90s hit in intersection

(ahmed/Twitter)

Western music and dancing are taboo in Saudi Arabia, but such incidents have not necessarily led to lengthy imprisonment or serious punishment.

Police in Saudi Arabia arrested and later released a 14-year-old boy who was filmed dancing to the ’90s hit song Macarena at an intersection in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, according to local media reports on Wednesday.

The 45-second video, which went viral on social media in the kingdom, shows the boy wearing headphones, sweat shorts, a striped shirt and neon Crocs. He sways his hips and arms to the Los Del Rio song, and appears to be smiling and giggling throughout the dance.

More words:

Hey Macarena: Dancing teen arrested in Saudi Arabia – World – CBC News

Why these statues must go

J. Marion Sims was a gynecologist in the 1800s who purchased Black women slaves and used them as guinea pigs for his untested surgical experiments. He repeatedly performed genital surgery on Black women WITHOUT ANESTHESIA because according to him, “Black women don’t feel pain.” Despite his inhumane tests on Black women, Sims was named “the father of modern gynecology”, and his statue currently stands right outside of the New York Academy of Medicine. #FightSupremacy

BYP 100

 

The Medical Marijuana Racket

Source: The Medical Marijuana Racket – LewRockwell

http://www.lewrockwell.com

I saw a small sign stuck in the grass near the side of a road where I live in Orlando that I have never seen before. I wrote down the text on the sign so I could remember it. It simply said:

Legal Weed

Office Visit $199

Signs like this were inconceivable until January 3 of this year. That is the day when Florida’s Amendment 2 took effect, “The Florida Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative.” Amendment 2 appeared on the November 8, 2016, ballot in Florida as an initiated constitutional amendment under the title of: Use of Marijuana for Debilitating Medical Conditions. The ballot summary reads:

Allows medical use of marijuana for individuals with debilitating medical conditions as determined by a licensed Florida physician. Allows caregivers to assist patients’ medical use of marijuana. The Department of Health shall register and regulate centers that produce and distribute marijuana for medical purposes and shall issue identification cards to patients and caregivers. Applies only to Florida law. Does not immunize violations of federal law or any non-medical use, possession or production of marijuana.

Florida voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 2 by a vote of 71.32 to 28.68 percent. Article X, section 29 of the Florida constitution has been amended to allow Floridians access to marijuana for medical use. There are now 29 states that have legalized medical marijuana, plus the District of Columbia.

But all is not well.

According to the text of Amendment 2, a “debilitating medical condition” means

cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or other debilitating medical conditions of the same kind or class as or comparable to those enumerated, and for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.

“Identification card” means “a document issued by the Department that identifies a qualifying patient or a caregiver.”

“Medical use” means “the acquisition, possession, use, delivery, transfer, or administration of an amount of marijuana not in conflict with Department rules.”

“Caregiver” means

a person who is at least twenty-one (21) years old who has agreed to assist with a qualifying patient’s medical use of marijuana and has qualified for and obtained a caregiver identification card issued by the Department. The Department may limit the number of qualifying patients a caregiver may assist at one time and the number of caregivers that a qualifying patient may have at one time. Caregivers are prohibited from consuming marijuana obtained for medical use by the qualifying patient.

“Physician” means “a person who is licensed to practice medicine in Florida.” According to the Orlando Sentinel: physicians have been licensed by the state — with dozens in Orlando — to recommend medical cannabis to patients.”

“Physician certification” means

a written document signed by a physician, stating that in the physician’s professional opinion, the patient suffers from a debilitating medical condition, that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for the patient, and for how long the physician recommends the medical use of marijuana for the patient. A physician certification may only be provided after the physician has conducted a physical examination and a full assessment of the medical history of the patient. In order for a physician certification to be issued to a minor, a parent or legal guardian of the minor must consent in writing.

“Qualifying patient” means “a person who has been diagnosed to have a debilitating medical condition, who has a physician certification and a valid qualifying patient identification card.”

All medical marijuana treatment centers (MMTCs) must be registered with the Florida Department of Health.

The Department of Health is tasked with issuing “reasonable regulations necessary for the implementation and enforcement of this section” to ensure “the availability and safe use of medical marijuana by qualifying patients.” No later than six months after the effective date of section 29, “the following regulations shall be promulgated”:

1. Procedures for the issuance and annual renewal of qualifying patient identification cards to people with physician certifications and standards for renewal of such identification cards. Before issuing an identification card to a minor, the Department must receive written consent from the minor’s parent or legal guardian, in addition to the physician certification.
2. Procedures establishing qualifications and standards for caregivers, including conducting appropriate background checks, and procedures for the issuance and annual renewal of caregiver identification cards.
3. Procedures for the registration of MMTCs that include procedures for the issuance, renewal, suspension and revocation of registration, and standards to ensure proper security, record keeping, testing, labeling, inspection, and safety.
4. A regulation that defines the amount of marijuana that could reasonably be presumed to be an adequate supply for qualifying patients’ medical use, based on the best available evidence. This presumption as to quantity may be overcome with evidence of a particular qualifying patient’s appropriate medical use.

The text of the amendment is also very clear that nothing in it “shall affect or repeal laws relating to non-medical use, possession, production, or sale of marijuana” or “authorizes the use of medical marijuana by anyone other than a qualifying patient.”

What a racket.

No one in Florida in pain because he suffers from a “debilitating medical condition” can obtain marijuana to alleviate his pain without jumping through numerous hoops and going to great expense even though he can easily purchase and consume all the Tylenol, aspirin, or alcohol he wants to. Yet, these three substances (especially alcohol) cause many deaths every year while the number of deaths from marijuana every year is still a big fat zero.

So, what’s a libertarian to make of all this?

First of all, some freedom is better than no freedom. Some marijuana freedom is better than no marijuana freedom. Legal medical  marijuana and illegal recreational marijuana is better than illegal medical and recreational marijuana. Legal medical marijuana with regulations and restrictions is better than illegal medical marijuana.

Second, limited federalism is better than no federalism. On the federal level, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act with “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” The Supreme Court case of Gonzales v. Raich (2005) affirmed the power of the federal government under the Constitution’s commerce clause to ban the medical use of marijuana. Yet, 29 states, including Florida, are permitted by the federal government to allow the medical use of marijuana.

Third, any adult should be able obtain marijuana just like he would obtain any other medicine. It shouldn’t matter what his medical condition is. He shouldn’t have to obtain an identification card. He shouldn’t have to be a qualified patient. No physician should need a special license to prescribe marijuana. Patients should be able to chose anyone to be a caregiver. No qualifications and standards for caregivers should be promulgated. No physician certification should have to be issued. No MMTCs should have to be registered. No regulations, reasonable or otherwise, should be issued by the government. The amount of marijuana possessed by a patient should not be limited. No prescription should have to be obtained to purchase marijuana. No physician should have to be seen before one is able to use marijuana for some aliment.

And fourth, the use of marijuana for any reason should be perfectly legal. There should be no laws at any level of government regarding the buying, selling, growing, processing, transporting, manufacturing, advertising, using, possessing, or “trafficking” of marijuana for any reason. There should be no laws at any level of government to prohibit, regulate, restrict, or otherwise control what a man desires to smoke, drink, inject, snort, sniff, inhale, swallow, or otherwise ingest into his mouth, nose, veins, or lungs. There should be no federal or state DEAs, no Office of National Drug Control Policy, no drug schedules, and no Controlled Substances Act. There should be marijuana freedom. That is the libertarian position.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance

The Pendle Witch Child (59 min)

Simon Armitage presents the extraordinary story of the most disturbing witch trial in British history and the key role played in it by one nine – year – old girl. Jennet Device, a beggar – girl from Pendle in Lancashire, was the star witness in the trial in 1612 of her own mother, her brother, her sister and many of her neighbours and, thanks to her chilling testimony, they were all hanged. Armitage explores the lethal power and influence of one child’s words – a story of fear, magic and demonic pacts retold partly with vivid and innovative hand – drawn animation. He discovers how Jennet’s appearance in the witness box cast its shadow way beyond Lancashire, impressing lawyers, politicians, clerics and even King James I himself, and setting a dark precedent for child testimony in witch trials as far away as America.