From the Library

“Last year, approaching Vienna after a fifteen-year absence, I passed through Blindenmarkt—in English Blind Market, as one might say Slave Market—a place whose existence I have never previously suspected. The name struck me like a whiplash and has stayed with me since. This year, arriving in Marrakesh, I suddenly found myself among the blind. There were hundreds of them, more than one could count, most of them beggars. A group of them, sometimes eight, sometimes ten, sit close together in a row in the market, and their hoarse, endlessly repeated chant was audible a long way off. I stood in front of them, as still as they were, and was never quite sure whether they sensed my presence. Each man held out a wooden alms dish, and when someone tossed something in the proffered coin passed from hand to hand, each man feeling it, each man testing it, before one of them, whose office it was, finally put in a pouch. They felt together, just as they murmured and called together. (

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Antioxidants continue to be advocated for the prevention of many illnesses despite the fact that well controlled studies showing their usefulness are relatively few. A study of dementia from the Johns Hopkins University has been …