Distant Reader - subject-disease-freebo

Introduction

This is a Distant Reader "study carrel", a set of structured data intended to help the student, researcher, or scholar use & understand a corpus.

This study carrel was created on 2021-05-24 by Eric Morgan <emorgan@nd.edu>. The carrel was created using the Distant Reader zip2carrel process, and the input was a Zip file locally cached with the name input-file.zip. Documents in the Zip file have been saved in a cache, and each of them have been transformed & saved as a set of plain text files. All of the analysis -- "reading" -- has been done against these plain text files. For example, a short narrative report has been created. This Web page is a more verbose version of that report.

All study carrels are self-contained -- no Internet connection is necessary to use them. Download this carrel for offline reading. The carrel is made up of many subdirectories and data files. The manifest describes each one in greater detail.

Size

There are 8 item(s) in this carrel, and this carrel is 558,155 words long. Each item in your study carrel is, on average, 69,769 words long. If you dig deeper, then you might want to save yourself some time by reading a shorter item. On the other hand, if your desire is for more detail, then you might consider reading a longer item. The following charts illustrate the overall size of the carrel.

Readability

On a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is very difficult and 100 is very easy, the documents have an average readability score of 89. Consequently, if you want to read something more simplistic, then consider a document with a higher score. If you want something more specialized, then consider something with a lower score. The following charts illustrate the overall readability of the carrel.

Word Frequencies

By merely counting & tabulating the frequency of individual words or phrases, you can begin to get an understanding of the carrel's "aboutness". Excluding "stop words", some of the more frequent words include:

may, take, one, two, must, water, half, also, make, three, ounce, will, disease, let, pain, ounces, much, body, great, following, four, time, sometimes, used, cure, parts, day, use, part, taken, first, blood, cause, sick, humours, every, stomach, often, made, little, matter, quantity, syrup, like, morning, things, wine, medicines, either, diseases

Using the three most frequent words, the three files containing all of those words the most are The store-house of physical practice being a general treatise of the causes and signs of all diseases afflicting human bodies : together with the shortest, plainest and safest way of curing them, by method, medicine and diet : to which is added, for the benefit of young practicers, several choice forms of medicines used by the London physicians / by John Pechey ..., Praxis medicinæ reformata: = or, The practice of physick reformed Being an epitome of the whole art: wherein is briefly shewed, the true causes, signs, prognosticks, and cure, of most diseases. Published for the benefit of all persons. By Robert Johnson, Med. Professor., and Enchiridion medicum, or, A manual of physick being a compendium of the whole art, in three parts ... : wherein is briefly shewed 1. the names, 2. the derivation, 3. the causes, 4. the signs, 5. the prognosticks, and 6. a rational method of cure ... / by Robert Johnson, Med. professor..

The most frequent two-word phrases (bigrams) include:

one ounce, two ounces, sufficient quantity, one dram, four ounces, two drachms, three ounces, one drachm, two drams, whole body, one scruple, red roses, every morning, ten grains, three drams, twenty drops, animal spirits, four hours, every day, sick take, three days, sweet almonds, next day, strained liquor, till half, two scruples, one handful, ordinary drink, may also, every night, part affected, third part, morning fasting, two quarts, small pox, three hours, may give, roses solutive, volatile salt, great quantity, lb ss, salt armoniack, six drachms, six ounces, twenty four, two hours, great pain, red coral, external causes, add syrup

And the three file that use all of the three most frequent phrases are Ortho-methodoz itro-chymikē: or the direct method of curing chymically Wherein is conteined [sic] the original matter, and principal agent of all natural bodies. Also the efficient and material cause of diseases in general. Their therapeutick way and means. I. Diætetical, by rectifying eating, drinking, &c. II. Pharmaceutick. 1. By encreasing and supporting the vital spirits. 2. By pacifying and indulging them. 3. By defacing or blotting out the idea of diseases by proper specificks. Lastly, by removing the extimulating or occasional cause of maladies. To which is added, The art of midwifery chymically asserted. The character of an ortho-cymist, and pseudochymist. A description of the sanative virtues of our stomach-essence. Also, giawo-mempsiz: or a just complaint of the method of the Galenists. By George Thomson, M.D. Paidōn nosēmata· = or Childrens diseases both outward and inward. From the time of their birth to fourteen years of age. With their natures, causes, signs, presages and cures. In three books: 1. Of external 2. Universal 3. Inward diseases. Also, the resolutions of many profitable questions concerning children, and of nurses, and of nursing children. By J. S. physician., and A physical treatise grounded, not upon tradition, nor phancy, but experience, consisting of three parts. The first, a manuduction, discovering the true foundation of the art of medicine. Second, an explanation of the general natures of diseases. Third, a proof of the former positions by practice. By William Russell, chymist in ordinary to His Majesty..

While often deemed superficial or sophomoric, rudimentary frequencies and their associated "word clouds" can be quite insightful:

Keywords

Sets of keywords -- statistically significant words -- can be enumerated by comparing the relative frequency of words with the number of times the words appear in an entire corpus. Some of the most statistically significant keywords in the carrel include:

stomach, disease, cure, body, patient, belly, spirit, matter, head, child, womb, roses, roots, remedies, powder, pills, pain, juice, guts, decoction, bloud, blood, waters, water, tartar, symptoms, sugar, sick, pouder, pancreas, oyl, nature, method, medicines, lungs, liquor, humours, heart, fever, cinamon, choler, amber, world, vital, urine, ulcer, tcp, syrup, sweats, sulphur

And now word clouds really begin to shine:

Topic Modeling

Topic modeling is another popular approach to connoting the aboutness of a corpus. If the study carrel could be summed up in a single word, then that word might be water, and Paidōn nosēmata· = or Childrens diseases both outward and inward. From the time of their birth to fourteen years of age. With their natures, causes, signs, presages and cures. In three books: 1. Of external 2. Universal 3. Inward diseases. Also, the resolutions of many profitable questions concerning children, and of nurses, and of nursing children. By J. S. physician. is most about that word.

If the study carrel could be summed up in three words ("topics") then those words and their significantly associated titles include:

If the study carrel could be summed up in five topics, and each topic were each denoted with three words, then those topics and their most significantly associated files would be:

Moreover, the totality of the study carrel's aboutness, can be visualized with the following pie chart:

Noun & Verbs

Through an analysis of your study carrel's parts-of-speech, you are able to answer question beyonds aboutness. For example, a list of the most frequent nouns helps you answer what questions; "What is discussed in this collection?":

ounce, water, ounces, time, ℥, day, body, part, blood, parts, quantity, things, roots, pain, morning, use, child, cause, days, half, pills, reason, drops, grains, t, drachm, milk, drachms, humours, hours, dram, wine, matter, nature, night, drams, bed, signs, cure, eyes, self, heat, diseases, causes, drink, p., hour, manner, times, way

An enumeration of the verbs helps you learn what actions take place in a text or what the things in the text do. Very frequently, the most common lemmatized verbs are "be", "have", and "do"; the more interesting verbs usually occur further down the list of frequencies:

be, is, are, take, was, being, make, have, let, used, following, taken, made, do, cured, give, called, were, been, mix, had, given, applied, add, according, put, use, has, took, mingle, affected, having, strain, does, boil, gave, known, prepared, prescribed, boiled, apply, said, cause, drink, caused, done, come, repeated, evacuated, bruised

Proper Nouns

An extraction of proper nouns helps you determine the names of people and places in your study carrel.

〉, ◊, 〈, disease, water, i., stomach, ℥, syrup, pain, c., cure, ℈, head, roses, spirit, medicines, powder, patient, salt, ii, ss, sick, matter, humours, diseases, chap, decoction, sugar, belly, womb, wine, urine, remedies, spirits, oil, juice, fever, electuary, bloud, oyl, julep, nature, f., ℞, liquor, scurvy, observ, diet, m

An analysis of personal pronouns enables you to answer at least two questions: 1) "What, if any, is the overall gender of my study carrel?", and 2) "To what degree are the texts in my study carrel self-centered versus inclusive?"

it, them, they, i, he, their, she, her, you, his, its, we, my, him, our, me, themselves, your, us, himself, ii, ℞, one, us''d, iv, ol, shou''d, thy, theirs, thee, tendo, whereof, pg, ʒi, tart, mine, ♃, ♁, whosoever, whey, wax, s, rhey, ow, ours, ng, lb, join''d, imself, hlm

Below are words cloud of your study carrel's proper & personal pronouns.

Adjectives & Verbs

Learning about a corpus's adjectives and adverbs helps you answer how questions: "How are things described and how are things done?" An analysis of adjectives and adverbs also points to a corpus's overall sentiment. "In general, is my study carrel positive or negative?"

other, great, little, same, such, many, hot, much, good, sufficient, small, cold, white, red, first, whole, like, more, long, violent, sharp, most, proper, sick, next, external, natural, sweet, best, third, common, gentle, ill, large, internal, frequent, effectual, own, dangerous, hard, strong, warm, greater, true, excellent, least, new, better, viscous, convenient

not, also, so, very, then, sometimes, more, often, most, much, as, well, too, only, first, up, out, especially, therefore, off, away, together, presently, commonly, easily, now, afterwards, thus, onely, before, once, long, again, soon, frequently, never, twice, always, in, almost, here, forth, chiefly, yet, likewise, wholly, moreover, gently, there, thereof

Next steps

There is much more to a study carrel than the things outlined above. Use this page's menubar to navigate and explore in more detail. There you will find additional features & functions including: ngrams, parts-of-speech, grammars, named entities, topic modeling, a simple search interface, etc.

Again, study carrels are self-contained. Download this carrel for offline viewing and use.

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