Sirocco ( sih-RO-koh), scirocco, or, rarely, siroc (see § Names below) is a Mediterranean wind that comes from the Sahara and can reach hurricane speeds in North Africa and Southern Europe, especially during the summer season. Names Sirocco derives from šurūq (Arabic: شروق), verbal noun of šaraqa, related to the East, aš-šarq. Various names for this wind in other languages include: Italian: scirocco Sicilian: sciroccu Spanish: siroco Catalan: xaloc Maltese: xlokk Occitan: siròc or eisseròc Greek: σορόκος, romanized: ...

The lunatic asylum or insane asylum was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry. While there were earlier institutions that housed the "insane", the conclusion that institutionalization was the correct solution to treating people considered to be "mad" was part of a social process in the 19th century that began to seek solutions outside of families and local communities. History Medieval era In the Islamic world, the Bimaristans were described by European travellers, who wrote about their wonder at the care and kindness shown to lunatics. In 872, Ahmad ibn Tulun built a hospital in Cairo that provided care to the insane, which included music therapy. Nonetheless, British historian of medicine Roy Porter cautioned against idealising the role of hospitals generally in medieval Islam, stating that "They were a drop in the ocean for the vast population that they had to serve, and their...

Kumis (also spelled kumiss or koumiss or kumys, see other transliterations and cognate words below under terminology and etymology – Old Turkic: airag Kazakh: қымыз, qymyz) Mongolian: айраг, ääryg) is a fermented dairy product traditionally made from mare milk or donkey milk. The drink remains important to the peoples of the Central Asian steppes, of Turkic and Mongol origin: Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Yakuts. Kumis was historically consumed by the Khitans, Jurchens, Hungarians, and Han Chinese of North China as well.Kumis is a dairy product similar to kefir, but is produced from a liquid starter culture, in contrast to the solid kefir "grains". Because mare's milk contains more sugars than cow's or goat's milk, when fermented, kumis has a higher, though still mild, alcohol content compared to kefir. Even in the areas of the world where kumis is popular today, mare's milk remains a very limited commodity. Industrial-scale production...

Isle of the Dead is a 1945 horror film directed by Mark Robson and made for RKO Radio Pictures by producer Val Lewton. The film's script was inspired by the painting Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin, which appears behind the title credits, though the film was originally titled Camilla during production. It was written by frequent Lewton collaborator Ardel Wray. It starred Boris Karloff. Isle of the Dead was the second of three films Lewton made with Karloff, and the fourth of five pictures Robson directed for Lewton. Plot An onscreen text warns of the superstitious belief in a vorvolaka, a malevolent force in human form. The film properly begins during the Balkan Wars of 1912. While his troops are burying their dead, General Pherides (Boris Karloff) and American reporter Oliver Davis (Marc Cramer) visit the Isle of the Dead to pay their respects to the General's long-dead wife. They discover the crypt despoiled; hearing a woman singing on the supposedly uninhabited island, they set out to find her. They also find retired Swiss archeologist Dr. Aubrecht (Jason Robards, Sr.), his Greek housekeeper...