Traumatic

Traumatic (pronounced traw-mat-ik (U), truh-mat-ik or trou-mat-ik (both non-U))

(1) In clinical medicine, of, relating to, or produced by a trauma or injury (listed by some dictionaries as dated but still in general use).

(2) In medicine, adapted to the cure of wounds; vulnerary (archaic).

(3) A psychologically painful or disturbing reaction to an event.

1650–1660: From the French traumatique, from the Late Latin traumaticum from traumaticus, from the Ancient Greek τραυματικός (traumatikós) (of or pertaining to wounds, the construct being traumat- (the stem of τραῦμα (traûma) (wound, damage) + -ikos (-ic) (the suffix used to forms adjectives from nouns).  Now familiar in the diagnoses post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) & post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS), it was first used in a psychological sense in 1889.  Traumatic is an adjective & noun and traumatically is an adverb; the noun plural is traumatics.

PTSD, PTSS and the DSM

Exposure to trauma has been a part experience which long pre-dates the evolution of humans and has thus always been part of the human condition, the archeological record, literature of many traditions and the medical record all replete with examples, Shakespeare's Henry IV often cited by the profession as one who would fulfill the diagnostic criteria of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Long understood and discussed under a variety of labels (famously as shell-shock during World War I (1914-1918)), it was in 1980 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) added PTSD to the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III).  The entry was expected but wasn’t at the time without controversy but it’s now part of the diagnostic orthodoxy (though perhaps over-used and even something of a fashionable term among the general population) and the consensus seems to be that PTSD filled a gap in psychiatric theory and practice.  In a sense that acceptance has been revolutionary in that the most significant innovation in 1980 was the criterion the causative agent (the traumatic event) lay outside the individual rather than there being an inherent individual weakness (a traumatic neurosis).

However, in the DSM-III, the bar was set higher than today’s understanding and a traumatic event was conceptualized as something catastrophic which was beyond the usual range of human experience and thus able to be extremely stressful.  The original diagnostic criteria envisaged events such as war, torture, rape, natural disasters explosions, airplane crashes, and automobile accidents as being able to induce PTSD whereas reactions to the habitual vicissitudes of life (relationship breakdowns, rejection, illness, financial losses et) were mere "ordinary stressors" and would be characterized as adjustment disorders.  The inference to draw from the DSM-III clearly was most individuals have the ability to cope with “ordinary stress” and their capacities would be overcome only when confronted by an extraordinarily traumatic stressor.  The DSM-III diagnostic criteria were revised in DSM-III-R (1987), DSM-IV (1994), and DSM-IV-TR (2000), at least partly in response to the emerging evidence that condition is relatively common even in stable societies while in post-conflict regions it needed to be regarded as endemic.  The DSM-IV Diagnostic criteria included a history of exposure to a traumatic event and symptoms from each of three symptom clusters: intrusive recollections, avoidant/numbing symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms; also added were the DSM’s usual definitional parameters which stipulated (1) the duration of symptoms and (2) that the symptoms must cause significant distress or functional impairment.

#freckles: Freckles can be a traumatic experience.

The changes in the DSM-5 (2013) reflected the wealth of research and case studies published since 1980, correcting the earlier impression that PTSD could be thought a fear-based anxiety disorder and PTSD ceased to be categorized as an anxiety disorder, instead listed in the new category of Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders, the critical definitional point of which is that the onset of every disorder has been preceded by exposure to a traumatic or otherwise adverse environmental event.  It required (1) exposure to a catastrophic event involving actual or threatened death or injury or (2) a threat to the physical integrity of one’s self or others (including sexual violence) or (3) some indirect exposure including learning about the violent or accidental death or perpetration of sexual violence to a loved one (reflecting the understanding in the laws of personal injury tort and concepts such as nervous shock).  Something more remote such as the depiction of events in imagery or description was not considered a traumatic event although the repeated, indirect exposure (typically by first responders to disasters) to gruesome and horrific sight can be considered traumatic.  Another clinically significant change in the DSM-5 was that symptoms must have their onset (or a noticeable exacerbation) associated with the traumatic event.  Sub-types were also created.  No longer an anxiety disorder but now reclassified as a trauma and stressor-related disorder, established was the (1) dissociative sub-type which included individuals who meet the PTSD criteria but also exhibit either depersonalization or derealization (respectively alterations in the perception of one's self and the world) and (2) the pre-school subtype (children of six years and younger) which has fewer symptoms and a less demanding form of interviewing along with lower symptom thresholds to meet full PTSD criteria.

When the revised DSM-5-TR was released early in 2022, despite earlier speculation, the condition referred to as complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) wasn’t included as a separate item, the explanation essentially that the existing diagnostic criteria and treatment regimes for PSTD were still appropriate in almost all cases treated by some as CPTSD, the implication presumably that this remains an instance of a spectrum condition.  That didn’t please all clinicians and even before DSM-5-TR was released papers had been published which focused especially on instances of CPTSD be associated with events of childhood (children often having no control over the adverse conditions and experiences of their lives) and there was also the observation that PTSD is still conceptualized as a fear-based disorder, whereas CPTSD is conceptualized as a broader clinical disorder that characterizes the impact of trauma on emotion regulation, identity and interpersonal domains.

Still, the DSM is never a static document and the committee has much to consider.  There is now the notion of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS) which occurs within the thirty-day technical threshold the DSM establishes for PTSD, clinicians noting PTSS often goes unrecognized until a diagnosis of PTSD is made.  There is also the notion of generational trauma said to afflicting children exposed repeatedly to the gloomy future under climate change and inter-generational trauma Screening tools such as the PTSS-14 have proven reliable in identifying people with PTSS who are at risk of developing PTSD. Through early recognition, providers may be able to intervene, thus alleviating or reducing the effects of a traumatic experience.  Long discussed also has been the effect on mental health induced by a disconnection from nature but there was no name for the malaise until Professor Glenn Albrecht (b 1953; one-time Professor of Sustainability at Murdoch University (Western Australia) and now honorary fellow in the School of Geosciences of the University of Sydney) coined psychoterratic, part of his lexicon which includes ecoagnosy (environmental ignorance or indifference to ecology and solastalgia (the psychic pain of climate change and missing a home transforming before one’s eyes).  The committee may find its agenda growing.

Saved by a “traumatic” transmission

In the 1960s, “the ocean was wide and Detroit far away” from Melbourne which is why Holden was authorized to design and built its own V8 rather than follow the more obviously logical approach of manufacturing a version of Chevrolet’s fully-developed small-block V8.  The argument was the Chevrolet unit wouldn’t fit under the hood of Holden's new (HK) range which was sort of true in that there wasn’t room for both engine and all ancillaries like air-conditioning, power brakes and power steering although it would have been easier and cheaper to redesign the ancillaries rather than embark on a whole new engine programme but this was the 1960s and General Motors (GM) was in a position to be indulgent.  As it was, Holden’s V8 wasn’t ready in time for the release of the HK in 1968 so the company was anyway forced in the interim to use 307 cubic inch (5.0 litre) and 327 (5.3) Chevrolet V8s, buyers able to enjoy things like power steering or disk brakes but not both.

The "Tasman Bridge" 1974 Holden Monaro GTS (308 V8 Tri-matic).  The HQ coupé was Holden's finest design. 

Also under development was a new three-speed automatic transmission to replace the legendarily robust but outdated two-speed Powerglide.  It was based on a unit designed by GM’s European operation in Strasbourg and known usually as the Turbo-Hydramatic 180 (TH180; later re-named 3L30-C & 3L30-E) although, despite the name, it lacked the Powerglide-like robustness which made the earlier (1964) Turbo-Hydramatic 400 (TH400) famous.  Holden called its version the Tri-matic (marketed eventually without the hyphen) and, like the early versions of the TH180 used in Europe, there were reliability problems although in Australia things were worse because the six and eight cylinder engines used there subjected the components to higher torque loadings than were typical in Europe when smaller displacment units were used.  Before long, the Tri-matic picked up the nickname “traumatic” and in the darkest days it wasn’t unknown for cars to receive more than one replacement transmission and some even availed themselves of their dealer’s offer to retrofit the faithful Powerglide.  The Tri-matics’s problems were eventually resolved and it became a reliable unit, even behind the 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) Holden V8 (although no attempt was ever made to mate it with the 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) Chevrolet V8 Holden offered as an option until 1974).  As a footnote, even today the old Powerglide still has a niche because it's well suited to drag-racing, the single gear change saving precious fractions of a second during ¼ mile (402 metre) sprints.  

Whatever its troubled history, the “traumatic” did on one occasion prove a lifesaver.  In the early evening of 5 January 1975, the bulk carrier Lake Illawarra, while heading up Hobart's Derwent River, collided with the pylons of the Tasman Bridge which caused a 420 foot (128 m) section of the roadway to collapse onto the ship and into the river, killing twelve (seven of the ship's crew and five occupants of the four cars which tumbled 130 feet (40 m) into the water.  Two cars were left dangling precariously at the end of the severed structure and it emerged later that the 1974 Holden Monaro was saved from the edge only because it was fitted with a Tri-matic gearbox.  Because the casing sat lower than that used by the manual gearbox, it dug into to road surface, the frictional effect enough to halt progress.

The tragedy had a strange political coda the next day when, at a press conference in The Hague in the Netherlands, the Australian prime-minister (Gough Whitlam, 1916-2014; Australian prime-minister 1972-1975) was asked about the event and instead of responding with an expression of sympathy answered:

I sent a cable to Mr Reece, the Premier of Tasmania, I suppose twelve hours ago and I received a message of thanks from him.  Now you have the text I think.  I expect there will be an inquiry into how such a ludicrous happening took place.  It's beyond my imagination how any competent person could steer a ship into the pylons of a bridge.  But I have to restrain myself because I would expect the person responsible for such an act would find himself before a criminal jury. There is no possibility of a government guarding against mad or incompetent captains of ships or pilots of aircraft.

Mr Whitlam’s government had at the time been suffering in the polls, the economy was slowing and ten days earlier Cyclone Tracy had devastated the city of Darwin.  The matter didn’t go to trial but a court of marine inquiry found the captain had not handled the ship in a proper and seamanlike manner, ordering his certificate be suspended for six months.

Aftermath:  Hobart clinical psychologist Sabina Lane has for decades treated patients still traumatized by the bridge’s collapse in 1975.  Their condition is gephyrophobia (pronounced jeff-i-ro-fo-bia), from the Ancient Greek γέφυρα (géphura) (bridge) + -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing), from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later) which describes those with an intense fear of driving over a bridge (which in the most severe cases can manifest at the mere thought or anticipation of it), sometimes inducing panic attacks.   Ms Lane said she had in the last quarter century treated some seven patients who suffered from gephyrophobia trigged by the trauma associated with the tragedy, their symptoms ranging from “...someone who gets anxious about it all the way to someone who would turn into complete hysterics."  Some, she added, were unable “…even to look at a photo of the Tasman Bridge.”  She noted the collapse remains “still quite clear in everybody's mind, and that's perhaps heightened by the fact that we stop traffic when we have a large boat passing beneath it."  Her treatment regime attempts to break the fear into manageable steps, having patients sketch the bridge or study photographs before approaching the structure and finally driving over it.

Capsule

Capsule (pronounced kap-suhl (U), kap-sool (non-U) or kap-syool (non U))

(1) In pharmacology, a gelatinous case enclosing a dose of medicine.

(2) In biology and anatomy, a membranous sac or integument; a cartilaginous, fibrous, or membranous envelope surrounding any of certain organs or parts, especially (1) the broad band of white fibres (internal capsule) near the thalamus in each cerebral hemisphere and (2) the membrane surrounding the eyeball.

(3) Either of two strata of white matter in the cerebrum.

(4) The sporangium of various spore-producing organisms, as ferns, mosses, algae, and fungi.

(5) In botany, a dry dehiscent (one that that liberates its seeds by splitting, as in the violet, or through pores, as in the poppy) fruit, composed of two or more carpels.

(6) A small case, envelope, or covering.

(7) In aerospace, a sealed cabin, container, or vehicle in which a person or animal can ride in flight in space or at very high altitudes within the earth's atmosphere (also called space-capsule).

(8) In aviation, a similar cabin in a military aircraft, which can be ejected from the aircraft in an emergency, complete with crew and instruments etc; an outgrowth of the original escape device, the ejector-seat.  The concept is used also by some sea-going vessels and structures such as oil-rigs where they’re essentially enclosed life-boats equipped for extended duration life-support.

(9) A thin cap or seal (made historically from lead or tin but now usually of plastic), covering for the mouth of a corked (ie sealed with some sort of stopper) bottle.

(10) A concise report; brief outline.

(11) To furnish with or enclose in or as if in a capsule; to encapsulate; to capsulize.

(12) In bacteriology, a gelatinous layer of polysaccharide or protein surrounding the cell wall of some bacteria and thought to be responsible for the virulence in pathogens.  The outer layer of viscous polysaccharide or polypeptide slime of the capsules with which some bacteria cover their cell walls is thought to provide defense against phagocytes and prevent the bacteria from drying out.

(13) In the fashion industry (as a modifier), a sub-set of a collection containing the most important or representative items (a capsule-collection).

(14) In chemistry, a small clay saucer for roasting or melting samples of ores etc, known also as a scorifier (archaic); A small, shallow evaporating dish, usually of porcelain.

(15) In ballistics, a small cup or shell, often of metal, for a percussion cap, cartridge etc.

1645–1655: From the Middle English capsula (small case, natural or artificial), from the French capsula (a membranous sac) or directly from the Latin capsula (small box or chest), the construct being caps(a) (box; chest; case) + -ula (the diminutive suffix).  The medicinal sense is 1875, the origin of the shortened form being that in 1942 adopted by British army quartermasters in their inventory and supply lists (eg Cap, ASA, 5 Gr (ie a 5 grain capsule of aspirin)).  The use to describe the part of a spacecraft containing the crew is from 1954, thought influenced by the number of military personnel involved during the industry’s early years, the sense from the jargon of ballistics meaning "shell of a metallic cartridge" dating from 1864 (although the word in this context had earlier been used in science fiction (SciFi or SF)).  Capsule has been applied as an adjective since 1938.  The verb encapsulate (enclose in a capsule) is from 1842 and was in figurative use by 1939 whereas the noun encapsulation didn’t appear until 1859 but was a figurative form as early as 1934.  Capsule is a noun & verb, capsuler, capsulization & encapsulation are nouns, encapsule, capsulizing, encapsulated & encapsulating are verbs, capsulated and capsuliferous & capsuligenous are adjectives; the noun plural is capsules.  In medicine, the adjective capsuloligamentous is used in anatomical science to mean "relating to a capsule and a ligament".

Science (especially zoology, botany, medicine & anatomy) has found many uses for capsule (because in nature capsule-like formations occur with such frequency) as a descriptor including the nouns capsulotomy (incision into a capsule, especially into the lens of the eye when removing cataracts), (the generation and development of a capsule), capsulorhexis (the removal of the lens capsule during cataract surgery) & capsulectomy (the removal of a capsule, especially one that surrounds an implant) and the adjective capsuloligamentous (of or relating to a capsule and a ligament).  Science also applied modifiers as required, thus forms such as intercapsule, pseudocapsule, microcapsule, macrosapsule & subsapsule.  Industry found a use: the noun capsuler describing "a machine for applying the capsule to the cork of a wine bottle" and the first "space capsules" (the part of spaceships with the life-support systems able to sustain life and thus used as the crew compartment) appeared in SF long before any were built or launched.  The derived forms most frequently used are encapsulate and its variations encapsulation and encapulated.  

The Capsule in Asymmetric Engineering

Focke-Wulf Fw 189 Eurl (Owl).

Unusual but far from unique in its structural asymmetry, and offset crew-capsule, the Blohm & Voss BV 141 was tactical reconnaissance aircraft built in small numbers and used in a desultory manner by the Luftwaffe during WWII.  A specification issued in 1937 by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM; the German Air Ministry) had called for a single-engine reconnaissance aircraft, optimized for visual observation and, in response, Focke-Wulf responded with their Fw 189 Eurl (Owl) which, because of the twin-engined, twin-boomed layout encountered some resistance from the RLM bureaucrats but it found much favor with the Luftwaffe and, over the course of the war, some nine-hundred entered service and it was used almost exclusively as the German's standard battlefield reconnaissance aircraft.  In fact, so successful did it prove in this role that the other configurations it was designed to accommodate, that of liaison and close-support ground-attack, were never pursued.  Although its performance was modest, it was a fine airframe with superb flying qualities and an ability to absorb punishment which, on the Russian front where it was extensively deployed, became famous and captured exampled provide Russian aeronautical engineers with ides which would for years influence their designs.

Arado Ar 198.

The RLM had also invited Arado to tender but their Ar 198, although featuring an unusual under-slung and elongated cupola which afforded for the observer a uniquely panoramic view, proved unsatisfactory in test-flights and development ceased.  Blohm and Voss hadn't been included in the RLM's invitation but anyway chose to offer a design which was radically different even by the standards of the innovative Fw 189.  The asymmetric BV 141 design was intriguing with the crew housed in an extensively glazed capsule, offset to starboard of the centre-line with a boom, offset to the left, housing the single-engine in front and tail to the rear.  Prototypes were built as early as 1938 and the Luftwaffe conducted were operational trials over both the UK and USSR between 1939-1941 but, despite being satisfactory in most respects, the Bv 141 was hampered by poor performance, a consequence of using an under-powered engined.  A re-design of the structure to accommodate more powerful units was begun but delays in development and the urgent need for the up-rated engines for machines already in production doomed the project and the Bv 141 was in 1943 abandoned.

Blohm & Voss BV 141 prototype.

Blohm & Voss BV 141.

Despite the ungainly appearance, the test-pilots reported the Fw 141 was a nicely balanced airframe, the seemingly strange weight distribution well compensated by (1) component placement, (2) the specific lift characteristics of the wing design and (3) the choice of rotational direction of both crankshaft and propeller, the torque generated used as a counter-balance.  Nor, despite the expectation of some, were there difficulties in handling whatever behavior was induced by the thrust versus drag asymmetry and pilots all indicated some intuitive trimming was all that was needed to compensate for any induced yaw.  The asymmetry extended even to the tail-plane, the starboard elevator and horizontal stabilizer removed (to afford the tail-gunner a wider field of fire) after the first three prototypes were built; surprisingly, this was said barely to affect the flying characteristics.  Focke-Wolf pursued the concept, a number of design-studies (including a piston & turbojet-engine hybrid) initiated but none progressed beyond the drawing-board.

Lindsay Lohan's promotion of Los Angeles-based Civil Clothing's capsule collection, November 2014.  The pieces were an ensemble in black & white, named "My Addiction".

The capsule on the circuits

Bisiluro Damolnar, Le Mans, 1955.

The concept of the asymmetric capsule made little impact in aviation but it certain made an impression on “Smokey” Yunick (Henry Yunick 1923–2001).  Smokey Yunick was American mechanic and self-taught designer who was for years one of the most innovative and imaginative builders in motorsport.  A dominant force in the early years of NASCAR where his team won two championships and dozens of races, he continued his involvement there and in other arenas for over two decades including the Indianapolis 500, his car winning the 1960 event.  During WWII, Yunick had piloted a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress for the 97th Bombardment Group (Heavy), flying some fifty missions out of Amendola Field, Italy and on one run, he’d had seen in the skies over Germany a Blohm & Voss BV 141 and was intrigued by the outrigger capsule in which sat the crew, immediately trying to imagine how such a layout would affect the flying characteristics.  The image of the strange aircraft stayed with him and a decade later he noted the Bisiluro Damolnar which ran at Le Mans in 1955, the year of the horrific accident in which eighty-four died.  He must have been encouraged by the impressive pace of the Bisiluro Damolnar rather than its high-speed stability (it was blown (literally) of the track by a passing Jaguar D-Type) and to contest the 1964 Indianapolis 500, he created a capsule-car.

Hurst Floor Shifter Special, Indianapolis, 1964.

Like many of the machines Yunick built, the capsule-car was designed with the rule-book in one hand and a bucket of the sponsor’s money in the other, Hurst Corporation in 1964 paying US$40,000 (equal to circa US$335,000 in 2021) for the naming rights.  Taking advantage of the USAC’s (the Indianapolis 500’s sanctioning body) rules which permitted the cars to carry as much as 75 gallons (284 litres) of fuel, some did, the placement of the tanks being an important factor in the carefully calculated weight-distribution.  The drawback of a heavy fuel load was greater weight which, early on, decreased speed and increased tyre wear but did offer the lure of less time spent re-fueling so what Yunick did was take a novel approach to the "fuel as ballast" principle which balanced the mass by placing the driver and fuel towards the front and the engine to the rear, the desired leftward bias (the Indianapolis 500 being run anti-clockwise) achieved by specific placement.  His great innovation was that using a separate, left-side capsule for the driver, he created three different weight masses (front, rear and left-centre) which, in theory, would both improve aerodynamic efficiency and optimize weight distribution.

Hurst Floor Shifter Special, Indianapolis, 1964.

Despite the appearance, the capsule-car was more conventional than intended.  The initial plan had been to use a turbine engine (as Lotus later would, almost successfully) and a single throttle/brake control but, for various reasons, it ended up using the ubiquitous Offenhauser power-plant and a conventional, two-pedal setup.  Upon arrival at the track, it made quite an impression and many understood the theories which had inspired the design.  Expectations were high.  Unfortunately, the theories didn’t work in practice and the car struggled to reach competitive speeds, an attempt at a qualifying lap delayed until the last available day.  Going into turn one at speed, a problem with the troublesome brakes caused a loss of control and the car hit the wall, the damage severe enough to preclude any chance of repairs being made in time for the race.

Hurst Floor Shifter Special, Indianapolis, 1964.

Yunick wasn’t discouraged and remained confident a year was enough time to develop the concept and solve the problem the shakedown on the circuit had revealed but the capsule-car would never race again, rule changes imposed after a horrific crash which happened early in 1964 race meaning it would have been impossible for it to conform yet remain competitive.  Effectively rendered illegal, the capsule-car was handed to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, where it's sometimes displayed.

Japanese Hotels: The Pod and the Capsule

The term "capsule hotel" is a calque of the Japanese カプセルホテル (kapuseru hoteru).  The capsule hotel is a hotel with very small accommodation units which certainly can’t be called “rooms” in any conventiona sense of the word although the property management software (PMS) the operators use to manage the places is essentially the same (though simplified because there’s no need to handle things such as mini-bars, rollaway beds et al).  Although not exclusive to Japan, it’s Japanese cities with which the concept is most associated, the first opened in Osaka in 1979 and they were an obvious place for the idea to emerge because of the high cost of real estate.  Although the market has softened since the “property bubble” which in 1989 peaked with Tokyo commercial space alone reputedly (at least as extrapolated by the theorists) worth more than the continental United States, the cost per m² remains high by international standards.  Because one typical hotel room can absorb as many m³ as a dozen or more capsules, the optimized space efficiency made the economic model compelling, even as a niche market.

Anna in Capsule 620.

Many use the terms “pod hotel” (pod used here in the individual and not the collective sense) & “capsule hotel” interchangeably to describe accommodation units which compact sleeping spaces with minimal additional facilities but in Japan the industry does note there are nuances of difference between the two.  Both are similar in that structurally the design is one of an array of small, pod-like sleeping units stacked side by side and/or atop each other in a communal space.  In a capsule hotel, the amenities are limited usually to a bed, small television and usually some (limited) provision of personal storage space with bathroom facilities shared and located in the communal area.  The target market traditionally has been budget travellers (the business as well as the leisure market) but there was for a while the phenomenon of those booking a night or two just to post the images as something exotic on Instagram and other platforms.  Interestingly, "female only" capsule hotels are a thing which must be indicative of something. 

Entrance to the world of your capsule, 9h nine hours Suidobashi, Tokyo.

The “Pod Hotel” came later and tended to be (slightly) larger, some 10-20% more expensive and positioned deliberately as “upmarket”, obviously a relative term and best thought of as vaguely analogous with the “premium economy” seats offered by airlines.  Compared with a capsule, a pod might have adjustable lighting, a built-in entertainment system supporting BYD (bring your own device) and somewhat more opulent bedding.  Demand clearly existed and a few pod hotels emerged with even a private bathroom and additional storage space although the sleeping area tended to remain the same.  It’s part of Japanese urban folklore that these more self-contained pods are often used by the famous “salarymen” who find them an attractive alternative to finding their way home after an evening of karaoke, strong drink, the attention of hostesses and such.  That aspect of the salaryman lifestyle predated the 1980s and capsules and pods were just a more economic way of doing things.  Not however predicted in a country which had since the mid-1950s become accustomed to prosperity, full-employment and growth were the recessions and consequent increase in unemployment which became part of the economy after the bubble burst in 1990.  In this environment, the capsules and especially the pods became low-cost alternative accommodation for the under-employed & unemployed and while estimates vary according to the city and district, it may be that at times as many as 20% of the units were rented on a weekly or monthly basis by those for whom the cost of a house or apartment had become prohibitive.

Anesthetist

Anesthetist (pronounced an-aes-the-tist or uh-nes-thi-tist)

(1) A person who administers anesthetics, usually a nurse or technician (US, Canada and some others).

(2) A physician who specializes in the administration of anesthetics (UK & Commonwealth).

1880–1885: From the New Latin anesthet(ize) (loss of feeling) + ist (From the Old French iste & Latin ista, from the Ancient Greek ιστής (istḗs), from ίζω (ízō, ize, ise, verbal suffix) +‎ τής (tḗs, the agent-noun suffix).  The construct of the Ancient Greek anaisthēsia (absence of sensation) was an (prefix meaning opposite; without) + aisthēsis (feeling).  The word anesthesia was coined by physician Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) in 1846, the construct being the Greek ἀν (an) (without) + αἴσθησις (aisthēsis) (sensation) and refers to the inhibition of sensation.  Anesthetist & anesthesia are nouns, anesthetize is a verb, anesthetical is an adjective and anesthetically is an adverb; the noun plural is anesthetists.

Anesthetist or anesthesiologist?

In North America, the medical study and application of anesthetics is called anesthesiology, and a physician in the specialty is called an anesthesiologist.  In these jurisdictions, the word anesthetist is used to refer to advanced non-physician providers of anesthesia services such as anesthesiologist assistants and nurse anesthetists.  Elsewhere, in most of the English-speaking world, the specialty is instead referred to as anaesthesia or anaesthetics (with an extra "a").  The term anaesthetist is used only to refer to a physician practicing in the field; non-physicians involved in anaesthesia use other titles such as "physician assistant".  Some countries which formerly used anaesthesia and anaesthetist, such as Ireland and Hong Kong, have transitioned to anaesthesiology and anaesthesiologist, or are in the throes of transition.  It’s a case of the influence of London receding and internationalism prevailing as the (admittedly sketchy and actually multi-way) linguistic standardization of the British Empire fades.  Anaesthesiologist is the spelling adopted by the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists and most of its most of its member societies, as well as the European Society of Anaesthesiology.  It is the most commonly used term found in the titles of medical journals.

Navadha's oral anesthesia training manikin head with light & sensor.

Navadha's oral anesthesia training manikin is a device on which may be practiced the methods of intra oral anesthesia.  Augmented with both light and sound sensors, it's intended to provide students a safe and realistic experience while undergoing training on the techniques of local anesthesia.  The model consists of a metal skull with a flexible silicone face and mouth lining over an anatomically correct jaw with 28 permanent teeth, movable tongue and a jawbone with landmarks for placement of dry injection which can be seen and palpated (the silicone will not show needle marks).  The conduction sensors aid in practicing Gow Gates and Standard Mandibular Block anesthesia and local infiltration may also be administered in their respective regions.  Four electronic sensors for light and sound, triggered when the landmarks are touched by dry injection, are included and the battery-powered LED light at the top of the head displays a green light when the correct position and angle of injection have been achieved (requires three AAA batteries (batteries not included)).

Available for US$1980.00; accessories include a table top stand (US$360.00), Columbia dental chair head rest mount (US$780.00), torso for chair mount (US$360.00) & bench mount (US$410.00)

For those who really enjoy their work.

Sometimes, an anesthetist needs a court order to proceed.  

Tank

Tank (pronounced tangk)

(1) A large receptacle, container, or structure for holding a liquid or gas.

(2) A natural or artificial pool, pond, or lake (a now rare British and US dialectical form).

(3) A light-proof container inside which a film can be processed in daylight; any large dish or container used for processing a number of strips or sheets of film.

(4) In the military, an armored, self-propelled combat vehicle, armed with cannon and machine guns and moving on a caterpillar tread.

(5) Slang term for a prison cell or enclosure for more than one occupant, as for prisoners awaiting a hearing.

(6) In fashion, as tank top, a type of sleeveless shirt.

(7) To do poorly or rapidly to decline rapidly; to fail.  In competitive sport (as tanking), intentionally to fail.

(8) As belly tank racer, a specialised class of motorsport using vehicles constructed using WWII surplus auxiliary under-belly aircraft fuel tanks.

1610-1620: A Portuguese import from India, from the Gujarati Hindi ટાંકી (tānkh & ṭāṅkī) (artificial lake; cistern, underground reservoir for water) or the Marathi टाकी (ṭākī, tanken & tanka), the Indian forms possibly from the Sanskrit tadaga-m (pond, lake pool) and reinforced in the later (1680s) sense of "large artificial container for liquid" by the Portuguese tanque (reservoir), contraction of estanque (pond, literally “something dammed up”), derivative of estancar (hold back a current of water; to dam up; block; stanch, weaken (related to the modern English stanch)), possibly (unattested) from the Vulgar Latin stanticāre (to dam up; block; stanch, weaken).  That’s not conclusive, some sources even suggesting the Portuguese word is the source of those in the Indian dialects.  While, at this distance, cause and effect can be difficult to determine, there were links also to languages in west Asia, and the Gujarati, Marathi and other Indian forms may be compared with the Arabic verb اِسْتَنْقَعَ‎ (istanqaʿa) (to become stagnant, to stagnate).  Synonyms include vessel, container, pond, pool, reservoir, keg, cask, cistern, basin, receptacle, vat, cauldron, tub & aquarium.

#Free Britney tank top.

Tank proved an adaptable verb.  The most obvious sense (to pour or put into a tank) was noted first in 1900 but may earlier have been in oral use.  Perhaps surprisingly, the meaning in sporting competition "deliberately to lose” is documented only from 1976 when it was used in a magazine interview by a female professional tennis player noting the practice among the men on the tour.  It’s been suggested use in boxing may have pre-existed this but no evidence has been offered.  As an adjective, “tanked” has been used to describe the inebriated since 1893.

The meaning "fuel container" is recorded from 1902 and came to be applied to just about every transportation vehicle or platform using liquid or gaseous fuels (cars, trains, aircraft, rockets, missiles etc) and even missiles using solid fuels.  Exceptions seemed to be made for novel technologies such as nuclear-powered devices and hydrogen where “cell” seems preferred if the storage tank is exchangeable although tank is still used for fixed hydrogen storage.  It’s tempting to suspect “fuel tank, gas tank or petrol tank” may have been in use prior to 1902 because oil tank is documented from 1862 but all sources quote 1902 as the first recorded instance although the first use of tanker to describe a ship designed to carry oil or other liquid cargo was in 1900.  The railroad tank-car is attested from 1874 and the slang term for a jail-cell is from 1912.

Lindsay Lohan in Gucci tank top.

Two certainly unrelated aquatic terms emerged about the same time.  The first fish-tanks, for hobbyists or as ornamental objects, were advertised in 1921, a year after the tank suit (one-piece bathing suit), so named because it was worn in a swimming tank, a slang term for swimming pools since circa 1890.  The tank top, an item of women’s casual-wear which blended the styling of the tank suit with a tee-shirt was released in 1968.  The first think-tank (in the sense of a formal research institute) established was the Centre for Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, California in 1959.  Think-tank is widely used in colloquial language and the formally established think-tanks have become so associated with political agendas they’ve long habitually needed a modifier (left-wing, liberal, conservative etc).

Another adjectival example has (predictably) ancient roots: the septic tank.  Septic (septic circa 1600) was from the Latin septicus (of or pertaining to putrefaction) from the Greek septikos (characterized by putrefaction) from sepein (make rotten or putrid, cause to rot).  The septic tank is attested from 1902 and was used even in UK rhyming slang as “the septics” to refer to Americans (ie the tank in septic tank rhyming with “yank”).

The sardonic humor of war: March 2022, a young lady from Ukraine in a tank turret.

Johnson and Shipley Belly Tank Racer (1955), Bonneville Salt Flats, circa 1963.

Belly tank racers were built in the post-war years using World War II (1939-1945) era surplus auxiliary under-belly aircraft fuel tanks as bodies, mated to whatever ever engines fell conveniently to hand.  Because the tanks were designed to have optimal aerodynamic properties to minimise drag during flight, they were ideal for straight line speed and most belly tank racers were used for top-speed record attempts at venues like the Bonneville Salt Flats where runs of several miles were possible.  The auxiliary fuel tanks had a profound influence on course the war because they made possible for relatively short-range interceptors like the North American P51D Mustang and ground-attack platform like the Republic P47D Thunderbolt to gain the range required to escort the Allied heavy-bomber fleets to Berlin and other targets in Central Europe.  Not only did this inflict upon the Luftwaffe's dwindling fighter resources losses from which it never recovered, the growing number of raids compelled the Nazis to allocate for home defence large numbers of the 88 mm canons as anti-aircraft flak, meaning they couldn't be used in the anti-tank role on the Eastern Front where the need was so great.  Beyond this, it was the success of the drop-tank (so called because the tanks could be jettisoned as soon as the fuel was expended, thereby reducing weight and gaining aerodynamic advantage) equipped Mustangs & Thunderbirds in decimating the Luftwaffe which meant the Allied control of the skies during the Normandy campaign following the D-Day landings (6 June 1944) was barely contested.  

One outlier is the tankard.  Despite being something used to hold liquids, it’s said to be a phonetic coincidence, tankard apparently unrelated to tank which it long pre-dated.  The origin of tankard (large tub-like vessel) is uncertain, like corresponding Middle Dutch tanckaert.  One suggestion is it’s a transposition of kantard, from the Latin cantharus (a large drinking cup with two handles or a fountain or basin in the courtyard of a church used by worshippers to purify prior to entry) and another ponders a link with the French tant quart (as much as a quarter).  The meaning "drinking vessel" was first noted in the late fifteenth century.

In military use (to describe the armored vehicle moving on continuous self-laying articulated tracks and with mounted canon), the word is from 1915.  The development of the tank proceeded initially under the auspices of the Royal Navy which probably seems strange but happened that way because the organization with the most expertise in the steel fabrication and with the heavy engines needed was the navy which formed the Admiralty Landships Committee to coordinate the operation.  On Christmas eve 1915, the Committee of Imperial Defense, reviewed the proposal for what was then called the "caterpillar machine-gun destroyer" and approved it “for secrecy” being a project of the “Tank Supply Committee”.  Charmingly, it seems both "cistern" and "reservoir" also were proposed a cover names, all based on the physical similarity, early in production, between the armored vehicles and the navy's water-storage tanks; the admirals preferred the punchier, monosyllabic "tank".

First used in action on the Western Front, at Pozieres ridge, on 15 September 1916, the name was quickly picked up by soldiers and has been part of military jargon since, including derived forms: the tank-trap (ditch, sometime with steel structures) attested from 1920, the tank-destroyer (a kind of propelled grenade, later versions including the bazooka and the famous late WWII German Panzerfaust) from 1928 and the tank-buster (ground-attack fighter aircraft with 40mm canon) in 1942.  In 1940, a French general described the English Channel as “a good tank ditch” and suggested he was more optimistic than most of his colleagues that the British could resist invasion.  So it proved, the scale required for the armada assembled in 1944 an indication of just how good a tank ditch it was.

British Mark I, 1916.

The first tank (150 built) used in combat, the Mark I was deployed in an attempt to break the stalemate of trench warfare.  Protected from small arms fire and able to crush barbed wire emplacements, the early tactical use was as a device to clear a pathway for infantry assaults but, although the first effects were dramatic, counter-measures were soon developed and it wasn't until later in the war it became clear the tank had to be used en masse, as a strategic weapon.  The  rhomboidal shape, unusual by later standards, meant the twin 57mm (2.25 inch) canons had to be side mounted; a turret arrangement would have resulted in a centre of gravity which would have rendered the structure unstable.  By war's end, the British had built more than two-thousand tanks but the design which would most influence future development was probably the French FT.

The German's versatile Sturmgeschütz III (StuG III; 1940-1945) self-propelled gun.

Tanks and self-propelled guns (SPG) are visually similar and sometimes confused.  The difference is that a SPG doesn’t have the rotating gun-turret which gives the tank such a flexible range of fire, SPGs having a range of barrel adjustment usually only in the vertical plane.  They are also almost always less armored, often slower and either with lighter or no subsidiary defenses.  In some ways, the SPG may be compared with a tank in the same way a battlecruiser differed from a battleship.

Soviet era T-34 medium tank (1940-1967 (USSR) still in use by some armed forces)).

The T-34 was one of the outstanding tanks of WWII, its superiority over the German Panzers a shock to the invading Wehrmacht in 1941.  It used a powerful 76.2 mm (3 inch) canon which for years out-gunned almost everything ranged against it but perhaps its most clever feature was a simple design trick, armor sloped at a tumblehome 60^o which afforded a high degree of protection against anti-tank weapons, shells tending to glance off rather than penetrate or explode.  Such was its influence, aspects of the concept and details of design were copied by both by allies and the enemy and, early in the war, there was no better battlefield weapon.  The T-34 had a lasting impact on tank design and there's more of a lineal path from the T-34 to the later Panzers, the Panther and the Tigers, than from earlier German designs.

German Panther: PanzerKampfwagen V (1943-1945 (Germany); 1944-1949 (France)).

Neither as heavily gunned or armored as the better known Tiger family, the Panther was rushed into production to counter the Soviet T-34.  It was immediately effective but the lack of time fully to develop the design meant problems of reliability and field maintenance were never wholly solved.  Like any tank, a compromise between cost, performance, range, firepower, mobility and protection, the Panther was fine machine in the circumstances and its performance in open country and for long-range deployments was outstanding.  Had the Panthers been fully developed and available in strategic numbers earlier in the war, many battles might have taken a different path and, like the "revolutionary" submarines developed late in the war, it was a case of what Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) would later call a "unknown known"; even in 1939 the Germans had the technology to build the Panther and had resource allocation been more efficient, there would also have been the industrial capacity to produce them at the scale needed for them to be used as a strategic weapon.

Lindsay Lohan in tank top.