https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/50-100-150-years-ago-the-politics-of-urban-riots-in-1968/

“A view of the U.S. urban riots of the past four years as a ‘pre-political’ form of collective action rather than a series of senseless outbreaks of blind rage is beginning to emerge among social scientists. While there is no consensus among investigators, all of whom agree that the riots have varied and complex origins, there is general emphasis on the idea that the disorders represent more than a Negro protest, more than a sudden reaction to years of deprivation. The riots are seen rather as implicitly political demonstrations, although not as organized, conspiratorial political acts. This view is illustrated by a number of papers on urban violence and disorder in a recent issue of the American Behavioral Scientist. ‘Rioting evolves as a form of collective pressure or protest where large numbers of people are crowded and alienated together, sharing a common fate that they no longer accept as necessary.’”

“The disappearance of stones in the urinary tract is particularly well documented in England. Between 1772 and 1816 one in every 38 patients at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital was under treatment for bladder stones. In the same period so many of the boys at the Westminster School in London suffered from bladder stones that they had their own hospital ward. A factor that may be related to the decline of stones, Dame Kathleen Lonsdale of University College London suggests, is that the bread the English ate during the 19th century was heavily adulterated with alum and chalk.”