Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 August 25

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August 25

Death of Anna Leopoldovna

How did Anna Leopoldovna die? The article claimed she “died during childbirth on 18 March 1746” but her final son Alexei Antonovich of Brunswick was born on 27 February 1746. She can’t have died of childbirth nearly a month after the birth of a child. 73.92.22.17 (talk) 01:12, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

More mysteriously, the actual reference given for the relevant sentence is to an article in the 9th Edition 1879 of the Encyclopædia Britannica which actually states "in 1745, she died in childbed" [my bold], while our article as a whole draws on a later version from the 11th Edition of 1911 which states "on the 18th of March 1746 she died in childbed." The externally linked The American Cyclopædia (1879) also says "died March 18, 1746."

I think it quite feasible that a woman could die of the effects of childbirth some 19 days after the event, but if so the wording in the EB and in our article are misleading.

I could also understand if the death date had been given as 1747, because several calenders used to begin the year from 1st March – possibly there has been in some source document for the EB a mistaken amendment from 1747 (as we now number it) to 1746 on this assumption and the birth in question was of a subsequent infant who also died.

A more likely source of a mistake, however, is that Anna actually died on 7 March by the old Russian calendar which became the 18th by the new calendar (see Old Style and New Style dates), as specified in this reference for example, so perhaps Alexei was born on 27 February (old) and the gap between his birth and her consequent death was only around 8 days.

Aaand, I've now found this source, which definitively states " Nine days after Alexei’s birth, on 19 March 1746, Anna Leopoldovna died of post-natal fever . . . ."

It would seem that the wording and dating in our articles (and in the old EBs) is indeed misleading and amendments are in order. I'll let you do the honours, as I'm not very good at citations. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.61.224 (talk) 02:15, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

"Post-natal fever", in modern terms, is likely some form of infection, perhaps due to vaginal tears, common in childbirth. And it wouldn't be surprising that such an infection would take many days to become fatal. SinisterLefty (talk) 04:28, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Obviously, dying a month later wouldn't be in childbirth, but there's no reason it couldn't be from complications of childbirth. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:24, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Puerperal fever [1] is the term I believe, but our article is called postpartum infections "also known as childbed fever and puerperal fever".

See also The Attempt to Understand Puerperal Fever in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.

Note that Princess Marie of Baden (1782–1808), the wife of Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, also died of puerperal fever in 1802, four days after giving birth to a stillborn daughter. Alansplodge (talk) 11:59, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The mother of Peter II of Russia died ten days after the birth. 2A00:23C5:E111:C500:1D23:9F4B:7F07:8938 (talk) 18:49, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

BTW, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anna Leopoldovna sats that she died "in childbed", not in childbirth. Alansplodge (talk) 20:07, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Which is exactly what I quoted above. Since she doubtless remained in the same bed between giving birth and dying, "childbed" is a logical usage and a term that used to be common, but is perhaps less familiar nowadays, hence the earlier misunderstandings. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.61.224 (talk) 00:48, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Claim by The Guardian about Big Tobacco's power.

"Disputes will be settled in a court of arbitration, where major corporations maintain the right to sue governments that make unilateral changes to the law that affect their profits. This is a mechanism tobacco companies have used to extract compensation for laws restricting or banning smoking." The Guardian

What, when and where "...tobacco companies have used [court of arbitration] to extract compensation for laws restricting or banning smoking." has this happened and the extent of it? --2600:1700:90E0:E040:4131:2D6D:738C:5709 (talk) 16:46, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm neither a lawyer nor very informed, but I'm assuming The Guardian is referring to Investor-state dispute settlement, though that didn't seem to work in Big Tobacco's favour in the cases Philip Morris v. Uruguay or Big Tobacco's response to Australia's plain cigarette packaging law (another occasion to read about pantone 448 C, "the ugliest colour in the world"). ---Sluzzelin talk 17:04, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

To add further colour to Sluzzelin's answer, which is correct - an aggrieved company (and this is not unique to tobacco or even very unusual) usually has three ways to challenge a law that it does not like: (1) domestically, under the law-making country's own rules for challenging a law, e.g. for constitutionality or as a judicial review of an administrative measure; (2) via investor-state dispute settlement, typically designed to protect a foreign investor from government abuse under a bilateral investment treaty; and (3) via a state-to-state mechanism such as the WTO dispute resolution mechanism, though this requires a state to take up the case for the company in question. In the case of Australia's tobacco packaging laws, the tobacco companies tried all three, even managing to find some pliant governments to speak for them at the WTO. --49.255.185.235 (talk) 02:09, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

But did they succeed (in Australia or elsewhere)? Because the sentence "have used to extract compensation" imply they did. Gem fr (talk) 08:43, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Not in the Australian case but I believe tobacco companies have succeeded in investor arbitration against national governments in the past: e.g. this case on the basis of discrimination: https://www.italaw.com/cases/435. I am not an investor-state arbitration expert and do not know how often this happens. --49.255.185.235 (talk) 04:37, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

thanks for the ref, but this case seems pretty irrelevant: the claimant is an exporter who happens to export Tobacco among other things (not a tobacco company), just asking actual application of Mexican law and Mexican courts decisions, that were disregarded because corruption (so he claims, at least, as far as I understand the first pages of https://www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case-documents/italaw7852.pdf ). Would be relevant if The Guardian claimed that courts of arbitration are an effective mean to fight corruption... Gem fr (talk) 06:56, 28 August 2019 (UTC)