This week catgut was mentioned here.
I dug up an old link that provides more information than you probably need to know about catgut:
http://gamutstrings.com/article/article.htmIf the link doesn't work, I'll immediately delete this thread.
Be right back.
It works.
What's the vegan violinist to do?
They're doing OK, Faldage
Ode to the Vega String Quartet
(on their concert of April 23, 2001)
Incline thine ear, Euterpe,
To the offspring you adore.
O Muse of Music, witness
The talents of these four:
What does the vegan violinist do about a lot of things? Let's see, if the vegan violinist won't use gut strings, then there are all those wonderful synthetic strings out there--wide range and wide range of debates over which are the best synthetic strings on the market.
And, if this vegan violinist can be satisfied with a fine set of synthetic strings, well, good. But what about belts and shoes? And buttons made from oil derivatives. Oil was once organic matter--plants and animals. Seems buttons made from oil derivatives would be off-limits, too. And if oil derivatives are off-limits, why, this poor vegan. This poor vegan, who won't use gut strings, is going to have to use wooden buttons and spend a lot of time backtracking to make sure something his Aunt Polly gave him doesn't have anything animal in it.
But at least he can soothe his soul--by pulling out his violin with its Obligatto strings and playing a bit. Oh, drat!!! He can't do that!! His bow has Mongolian stallion horsehair!!!! Back to the luthier for fresh synthetic (horrible quality) bow hair.
And, if this vegan violinist can be satisfied with a fine set of synthetic strings, well, good. But what about belts and shoes?
Wordwind, I am not a vegetarian but I have a son who is. He's very unobtrusive about it and he makes no effort to convert others. He wears leather belts and shoes and, at first, I thought, as you do, that that his use of leather is inconsistent with his principles.
I've never asked him to explain himself on this subject. Frankly, I admire the fact that he has given up something he used to enjoy, namely, meat, because he chooses not to eat anything that has been killed for his dinner when he can eat something else.
Since this is a personal conviction, and not a religion, is it fair of us to hold vegetarians like him to an absolute standard of performance? How many sincere environmentalists get lazy every now and again and neglect to recycle their pop cans? Do we think less of them for that, or question their sincerity?
In any event, a case can be made that some animals will die without being slaughtered and, therefore, it is not dishonorable, but intelligent, to use their hides for leather rather than send those hides to landfills. It can also be argued that horsehairs can be removed from a stallion for a bow string without causing any hurt to the stallion.
Most vegetarians aren't as kookey as they may appear to many of us at first blush.
Dear Plutarch: It is very true that many people eat far more meat than is desirable.
Unfortunately there are some vegetarians who pay a high price for going to extremes.
About a year ago, in DISCOVER magazine there was an article about a man my age
who was jogging five miles a day, until he developed brain damage from eating no
meat whatsoever. Quite recently there was an item in the news of two children being
born with brain damage because their mothers ate no meat. Moderation in all things
is wise.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_11494.html
Moderation in all things is wise.
Agreed, Dr. Bill. I have talked to vegetarians about dietary deficiencies and they tell me that there is nothing available in meat which isn't available in some veggie or vitamin supplement. However, they acknowledge that they have to follow research on the subject more closely than people who eat meat.
Are they correct, Dr. Bill, or are they just fooling themselves? Is it possible to fulfill all dietary requirements without eating any meat?
Dear Plutarch: I am woefully ignorant of the details of those two stories. But both of them
were reported by very sound physicians. To put it bluntly, to eat absolutely no meat is
insane, with a terrible result possible. Imagine how those two mothers must feel.
And any mothers that deny growing children meat are criminally negligent. Ruminant animals
need eat no meat, but humans must have some meat.
There are levels of vegetarianism. Some will eat eggs and dairy products and others will not eat any animal products at all. Vegans will make no use of any animal product although I would suspect that not all of them will eschew the use of products derived from animals that have been dead for longer than the human race has been around.
Oh, Plutarch...I was just making light. Nothing serious in what I wrote. In fact, I had misgivings about what I wrote when I went out this afternoon. I thought, "Suppose someone thinks I was serious?" No, I wasn't at all. I'd hoped that my sense of absurdity would have come across with the comment about oil derivatives--and Aunt Polly. There are many good arguments for staying away from the slaughter of animals, and I really do respect those who are determined to refrain from eating meat.
From what I've read about vegetarianism, the fruitarians have the hardest time of it.
Best regards,
WW
>From what I've read about vegetarianism, the fruitarians have the hardest time of it.
Yeah well, with a name like fruitarians, they are just
begging to be given a hard time.
Dear Faldage: I think strict Vegans would have a problem keeping their unborn children from
"drinking" their mother's blood while in utero. Gotta be consistent, right?
And if they need surgery, they mustn't have any transfusions, no doubt.
keeping their unborn children from "drinking" their mother's blood while in utero
Interesting points Dr Bill. I don't know anyone that I know to be vegan, but I could imagine easily enough that their reluctance to use any animal products would disappear if the animal product in question were known to be given with completely informed consent, as would be the case with anything given by a mother from her own body to an unborn (or even born) child or with any blood donations but would definitely not be the case with anything taken from any non-intelligent animal. As I understand it the philosophy behind veganism is not a matter of health but of concern for the oppression of other species of animal. Let it be known that I am not a vegan and I do not wish to defend their point of view. I do think it is best to understand what it really is before criticizing it.
I think these people feel superior to the Almighty who established the food chain, and
even punished Adam and Eve for eating fruit. Yuk,yuk. Why didn't God make humans
ruminants? He could presumably easily have done so.
I'm reminded of Scots landlady who scolded an actor for going to walk on Sunday. "Ye're na
gaen t' the Kirk this mornin;?" "Why not? Jesus walked on the Sabbath with all his disciples."
"Ah ken, bu' ah dinna think a bit the better o' 'im for it."
Dear Dr. Bill,
I am a lapsed vegetarian who, for years, did quite well not eating meat, thank you. And soy protein (which includes tofu) is a richer, healthier source of quality protein than meat, and when you realize it takes 16-20 lbs. soy to feed cattle and create
one pound of beef, you can see the benefits to world hunger of eating the soy instead of meat. Combining proteins such as legumes and whole grain bread provides a rich protein source. And nuts of all kinds are excellent sources of protein, as well. Most folks I know, including me, who became vegetarians did so out of a healthwise perspective, and (speaking as a fisherman, myself) it had nothing to do with preserving other life (although I do believe there is a harmony of spirit within all living things). Red meat is just not healthy for you...it's as simple as that...I'd challenge anybody to stop eating red meat for a couple of weeks and see if they don't
feel better. The fat's affects on the heart and as a carcinogen are well known, and the super-dose of protein, especially on a constant basis, is actually enervating and very taxing on the system. An extremely higher rate of colon cancer has been scientifically evidenced in societies which rely heavily on a red meat diet (and thatincludes pork, the worst,
not the other "white" meat...and, as everybody should know, eating bacon with all that fat and salt is like putting a bullet in your heart).
I never felt better in my life than the years I was practicing a natural lifestyle including a vegetarian diet (though I never eliminated dairy, eggs for my wholewheat pancakes and French toast were a must...but I used soy margarine and soy milk, and honey or pure maple syrup since I had also cut out refined sugar for the same health reasons). I just got lazy and first went back to fish (because I caught it and lived by the sea, made sense macrobiotically, and I just
love fish and seafood too much to give it up). And then I got back to chicken and turkey. I still avoid red meat...and if I do eat it, once in a while, when someone offers an ethnic dish for the holidays, for instance (like my Mother's stuffed-cabbage) I feel crummy for a couple of days because my system isn't used to it anymore. Now don't get me wrong...when I was growing up I loved a nice sirloin steak (medium rare) and roast pork loin. But I don't miss it, those look like cardboard to me now. So I stopped eating meat for the same common-sense health reason I started eating wholewheat flour instead of refined white flour...it's just better for you. And nothing
refined is any good for you, BTW...white flour, refined sugar, etc. So, my good Doctor, I have to say that your rantings here, from all my personal experience, are a bunch of unmitigated BS. Especially that stuff about vegetarians having deformed babies...I've known scores of vegetarian families, and healthier, happier children I've never seen.
Oh, Plutarch...I was just making light.
Yes, I know, Wordwind. And it would be best if we all returned to that. :)
Dear WO'N: Diet is a very complex subject. I do not pretend to be well informed about it.
Soy protein can be valuable, but it has limitations that you can learn about.
all I said, and re-iterate, there can be very serious consequences of eating no meat whatsoever.
The cases I referred to involved topnotch physicians.
Dear Dr. Bill: I studied my diet extensively before I entered into working on changing it at that period in my life. I know from where I speak. And your contention that there can be very serious consquences from eating no meat is just a bunch of hooey, as is your statement that "people who eat no meat are insane and feel superior to the Almighty." And many (but not all) medical doctors don't like for people to do things that keep them healthy or are preventative because they don't make money if people don't get sick...we don't practice "health care" in our society, we practice "sick care". Proper nourishment is a complex process and nobody should embark upon a dietary change of any kind blindly. But with the proper knowledge of protein foods (soy, nuts, legumes) and food-combining there is absolutely no danger in not eating meat, in fact your daily protein requirement can be met quite easily.
Thanks to the OTC availability of almost all essential nutrients and minerals, dietary preference as a causative factor for disease, is no longer worrisome and if at all considered, might be so due to the ignorant or obdurate stances of the patients concerned. Vit B12 deficiency states do have a higher incidence in vegans (and pregnancy with its obvious demand on nutrition can push a borderline deficiency state over the line); however this can easily be overcome by supplementation. The ladies in question seem to have suffered more from poor obstetric advice. Thankfully, the effects are largely reversible.
As I understand it the philosophy behind veganism is not a matter of health but of concern for the oppression of other species of animal.
...he chooses not to eat anything that has been killed for his dinner when he can eat something else...
I remember a co-worker who told me she wouldn't eat anything that "had a face"...
... and (a Simpsons episode) where someone wouldn't eat anything that "casts a shadow".
There is an ancient joke about the guy who refused to eat lambs tongue, because he
wouldn't eat anything that had been in an animal's mouth. He aske for couple eggs
instead.
Yes, of course, there are those who profess not to eat meat because they won't kill animals...remember Melanie's song "I Don't Eat Animals"? But there are plenty others who come to vegetarianism for other reasons, a purely health-conscious perspective being the foremost among them. Then there are also religions which observe vegetarianism.
And then there are other issues, such as the treatment of animals harvested for food. Even as a fully practicing carnivore I refused to eat veal because of the way they torture the calves to produce the 'tender, white meat.'
Generally I've been avoiding political discussions like the plague, but I feel I have to respond here.
WoN-
...many (but not all) medical doctors don't like for people to do things that keep them healthy or are preventative because they don't make money if people don't get sick...we don't practice "health care" in our society, we practice "sick care".
That's like asserting that the medical profession has been supressing a cure for cancer to line our pockets. There are zealots who believe that, too. Please believe me - neither statement is true.
To force the comment into the form of a word-post:
I would posit that "many-but-not-all" sounds as though you mean "half or more." If this is indeed your opinion, you have been lax in your evaluation of physicians, who deserve as much investigation as you gave to allegations about diets. Or else you've been very unfortunate in your exposure to physicians. I'll accept your characterization as applying to an occasional doctor, but most of the ones I know would much rather earn ourselves more personal time, by getting our patients to do what's good for them, than make more money. It's a losing battle much of the time.
Oversimplifying greatly: we may sometimes - maybe even often - seem to treat sickness to the exclusion of promoting healthful lifestyles, as you say, but that's partly from frustration (unspoken feeling, because it wouldn't be diplomatic to say it aloud: Why are you coming to me for help when you persist in doing things you KNOW are making you worse?) and partly because there's hardly enough time to deal with the immediate problems as is. Remember the alligators? "When you're up to your ears in alligators it's hard to remember that your original task was to drain the swamp..."
--speaking from the trenches: practicing cardiologist; office and hospital care; work only sixty hours a week (my practice is a small one)
wofa, I actually added the parenthetical (but not all) when I thought of you because I didn't want to offend you with too broad a generalization. From a word standpoint 'there are many' would probably have been the better choice. And, of course, the majority of doctors are genuinely concerned with the health and well-being of their patients. But the mindset to remedy sickness rather than to prevent sickeness is something that has crept heavily into the medical science perspective, without malice, as the advance in technology and the focus on drugs has made the cure more important than the prevention. And this attitude has crept into the majority of the populace as well. I think, as indicated by some of your discussion above, this lazy attitude about not taking responsibility for one's health because, if you get sick, the doctors and drugs will take care of you, is something you can agree has become very damaging. And that is why I said we've become foused on "sick care" rather than "health care."
And, yes, there are some bad doctors, just like there are bad cops...my Dad was a pharmacist and my Mom a medical assistant, and we've known some doozies along the way. For instance, one young doctor just out of medical school who never talked about anything except how many patients he could "push through" his office on any given day with the $$ signs flashing in his eyes. But those guys are a small percentage. And, yes, our family's had some unfortunate experiences with doctors along the way (and also some very good ones, but that has more to do with personal competence. I was just trying to say that the overall viewpoint in the 20th century has moved to treating sickness rather than preventing it. And that this perspective has encompassed medical science as a general approach. Yet, I do think there are those in positions of power within the drug companies and the AMA who finance studies to discredit certain vitamins, for instance, which have proven enormously beneficial in preventing disease...a cynical business tactic, but what else is new, especially with big corps like the drug companies? Are there a handful of individual doctors out there who vociferously strive to discredit preventative medicine because of selfish financial greed?...probably. But, as you say, wofa, this is a small fraction of the overall picture. Then there are doctors who endeavor the same because they believe it to be the best approach, not because of financial greed, and I respect that. But I do believe that when we move away from this general societal perspective of lazy health habits and relying on treatment for disease, to a more individually responsible preventative health regimen (and we have, gradually, been doing this), we all will be better off for it. The doctor my mother worked for as a medical assistant back in the late 40's and early 50's before she had me, smoked 4 packs of red Pall Malls a day, and after I was born when she was 25 he encouraged her to start smoking to "calm her nerves", which she did. I'm sure he meant well, but could you imagine that happening today? He just didn't know then...if you got a lung problem, you'd treat it. What caused it wasn't important then. So things are changing....obviously.
Agree with just about all of the above.
Doctors do know the value of preventive medicine, and are even - one might say - indoctrinated in it in medical school. And then the exigencies of real life kick in, and there are so many fires to put out that it's very hard to find the resources to make things fireproof in the first place. We haven't lost sight of it, are still working at it, but there's a lot of distraction in between.
We are making slow progress, though. In the field of coronary artery disease, for example, there are fewer smokers, more effective treatments for high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels and even diabetes, so that the outcome is much better. Now we worry about how to deal with the late (meaning twenty-years-after-you-didn't-succumb-to-your-heart-attack) manifestations of the disease.
Now if only we can keep from obliterating ourselves as a species through our own recklessness and arrogance...
[/end of political discussion :-) ]
Thanks for the interesting discussion, wofa. Case closed on this end as well.
Hi,
This is an extremely interesting link. I had no idea that the making of violin strings is such a complicated process, evidently replete with "tacit knowledge" and highly proprietary tricks. How long, do you think, will this knowledge survive?
About as long as the knowledge of Stradivarius' secrets in violin making.
Wow, wsieber, I didn't know that, either, and I played violin for years and years. I didn't have time to read the link before now. Here's rather more than I wanted to know: The intestine must be pulled from the animal immediately after slaughter while the gut is still hot. This will insure that the blood vessels that run into the casing will be broken off close to the gut wall. To allow the organs to cool will risk having these veins break off as much as 1.5 inches away from the casing wall. This creates "whiskers" that lower the quality of the gut for musical string use. These whiskers are almost impossible to get rid of and will inhibit the quality of the string by introducing a contaminating agent in the muscular membrane. Whiskers also increase the likelihood of a false string because they change the otherwise regular linear mass of the gut. To insure the best quality the gut must be removed immediately, separated from the fat, stripped of manure and put into cold running water. The presence of fat will inhibit the bonding of the fibers during the drying process. Manure will cause stains in the set which are difficult to get rid of. The cold water will help preserve color and strength of the casing. This is one of the things that, when I learn about it, makes me wonder how on earth people ever thought to do all those things they did to get it to work.
Wouldn't mind having one of those Strads, Anna!
Some interesting word stuff from the link:
To twist a number of these whole guts together is to have a string that does not distribute the tension evenly between the muscle fibers. To solve this problem the Germans, according to De la Lande, developed a device called the splitting horn, (figure 5). This is also known as a soutil or subtle, taken from the Italian word sottile which means narrow or slender.(6)
Oh, yeah, the splitting horn! It splits the gut in two. Gee--if it split it four ways, could we say it was a tetragutoctomy?
Seriously, though: unless I am completely off base, the Germans invented the splitting horn in the late 1700's; isn't it marvellous that something from so long ago is still the best tool for today?
Thanks for the interesting link, AnnaS.
I am a cellist and have been using gut strings on my cello for the past 20 years. They have a warmer tone than nylon or steel -- just right for playing Bach.
and another musician on the boards!
Yes!! And one who goes for baroque as well!
musiciansNo...another one who goes broke is more like it.
Yah! Hence the reference to "my day job" in another thread...
As I leave the room for lunch I'll often announce "I'll be back" (with an Austro-German accent alla-Schwarzenegger).... ocasionally I'll hear replies like "I'll be Handel" -or- "I'll be Stravinsky")
nah, the best response to that is:
and I'll be Haydn...
I get spam email all the time that says you can make that bigger...
I used to have a colleague who always came back from lunch with a Liszt to port.