The factors affecting blood vitamin C levels are described in detail in this series. Many factors such as aging, smoking, infection, trauma, surgery, hemolysis, hormone administration, heavy metals, pregnancy, alcohol, ionizing radiation and several medicines have been found to cause a disturbance of ascorbic acid metabolism and to reduce blood vitamin C levels. Indeed, abnormalities of ascorbic acid metabolism, due to factors such as smoking, occur much more frequently than does dietary vitamin C deficiency today.It is now known that low blood vitamin C levels are associated with histaminemia (high blood histamine levels), and also that ascorbate-responsive histaminemia is common in apparently healthy people. High blood histamine levels are believed to cause small hemorrhages within the inner walls of the blood vessels and these may lead to the deposition of cholesterol, as an aberrant form of wound healing. Ascorbic acid not only reduces blood histamine levels, but also aids the conversion of cholesterol to bile acids in the liver. The clinical pathological and chemical changes observed in ascorbic acid deficiency are discussed in detail. Several diseases and disorders associated with low blood vitamin C levels are also described. Possible toxic effects resulting from the oxidation of ascorbic acid are noted, and reasons for the use of D-catechin or other chelating fiber to prevent or minimize the release of ascorbate-free radical are detailed. An excellent reference for physicians, nutritionists and other scientists

Introduction -- Sources -- Litigation -- Status and family -- Crimes and delicts -- Property and inheritance -- Contracts -- Conclusion

List of members in each volume.

How are we to see the Old Testament's characters--typically a tangle of both virtue and vice--as models for our own ethical living? It is clear that Scripture intends for us to embody some qualities while eschewing others, and at times these are immediately obvious: David's wholehearted pursuit of God is admirable, while his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah are deplorable. But more often than not we are left with shades of gray, not really knowing whether the narrator approves, disapproves, or is indifferent to the behavior of these characters. The present work seeks to address this issue, situating itself at the fault line of the problem: character portrayal. It argues that often what we take to be the narrator's silence about a character is not silence at all; rather, the narrator is simply speaking in ways that we are not attuned to. By becoming attuned to the voice of biblical narrative and by understanding its role in ethics, therefore, we are better able to understand the characters as resources for our own ethics. This work develops its ideas by leveraging pertinent literary and ethical models, which are then trained upon a particular case in point: the Gideon account in Judges 6-8.

Ancient cultures, such as that of the Hebrews, commonly associated wisdom with advanced years. In A Biblical Theology of Gerassapience the author investigates the validity of this correlation through an eclectic approach - including linguistic semantic, tradition-historical, and socio-anthropological methods - to pertinent biblical and extra-biblical texts. There are significant variations in the estimation of gerassapience (or «old-age wisdom») in each period of ancient Israel's life - that is, in pre-monarchical, monarchical, and post-monarchical Israel. Throughout this study, appropriate cross-cultural parallels are drawn from the cultures of ancient Israel's neighbors and of modern societies, such as the West African Yoruba tribe. The overall results are bi-dimensional. On the one hand, there are semantic elements of gerassapience, such as the elusiveness of «wisdom» and the mild fluidity of «old age». Both terms have strong contextual affinity with minimal exceptions. Thus, the attribution of wisdom to old age is evident but not absolute in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). On the other hand, gerassapience is depicted as primarily didactic, through direct and indirect instructions and counsels of the elderly, fostering the saging fear-of-Yahweh legacies. On the whole, socio-anthropocentric tendencies of gerassapience (that is, of making old age a repertoire of wisdom) are checked by theological warrants of theosapience (Yahwistic wisdom). Therefore, in the Hebrew Bible, the fear of Yahweh is also the beginning of growing old and wise.