“... such as spitting blood (usually a sign of tuberculosis). Whether the Herball was effective is unknown, but Stephen Rutherford, who brings a biomedical perspective to his reading of civil war surgical texts, finds much to admire. There was an understanding, at least among military surgeons like Richard Wiseman (a royalist), of the refracted trajectory of a ...”

“... equality were risibly unconvincing. At a time when the dangers of second-hand smoke were largely unknown, the impulse behind non-smokers’ rights wasn’t scientific but civic – ‘a vision of public space as an amenity to be consumed’, as Milov puts it. Non-smokers demanded to be spared the unpleasantness of smoky restaurants, planes and bus ...”

“... from another time and culture’ by today’s moral standards. Yet anti-slavery ideas were hardly unknown during Washington’s lifetime, and he himself expressed them privately. What about expecting an individual to live up to his own professed convictions? Washington deserves full credit for emancipating his slaves. Some Virginia planters, inspired by ...”

“... however, was Patrick Vieira. Before Wenger arrived at Arsenal, he told the club to buy this young, unknown central midfielder from AC Milan. Arsenal were down 1-0 at home to Sheffield Wednesday on 16 September 1996 when, in the 28th minute, Vieira came on for his debut, replacing the injured Ray Parlour. Arsenal went on to win 4-1. According to Dennis ...”

“... in the book is the SNP’s onetime guru-in-chief, the late Stephen Maxwell, whose name is largely unknown even to those who follow Scottish politics. Nobody did more than Maxwell to formulate the now dominant idea of left-wing nationalism. As late as 1982, Alex Salmond and other members of the Maxwellite 79 Group were expelled from the SNP – briefly, as it ...”

“... written between 1560 and 1650 (he lists 81 of them). This is an astonishing archive, totally unknown today. None of these pieces established any kind of reputation at the time since settings of the Requiem, though clearly in demand, were considered so plain and commonplace that they excited little interest; and almost none has been reprinted since. In ...”

“... Bogdal suggests, to arrive in Europe at this moment of change. Peripatetic ‘Gypsies’ of unknown origin were no longer revered as pilgrims but singled out for exclusion, punishment and deportation. In 1499 an edict in Spain ordered the expulsion of the Gypsies and banned the use of the Romani language. Imperial declarations, mandates and other legal ...”

“... through their representation in literature and painting, but at the same time miraculously unknown. Paris was the city they knew best, with a ‘special knowledge “of the heart” and … an intimacy beyond factual information’. But they had factual information too, from sources ranging from Zola’s novels and Ehrenburg’s memoirs to a ...”

“... can’t conjecture ye meaning of this tho’ tis capable of sevral Interpretations.’ An unknown reader of Abel Evans’s The Apparition, a 1710 critique of the deist and republican Matthew Tindal, failed to complete all the gutted names but made up for it with an allegation in the margin that Tindal was known in Oxford for his ‘too great ...”

“... symbol appears in Romanesque churches scattered across north-west Europe, but its significance is unknown. In 1397 the parishioners of Kilpeck presented the visitors with the usual ensemble of fornicators and adulterers. Maiota Leduart with John ap Gwilym ap Rhys (the chaplain, no less); John Hull the piper with Alison, a blood relative of his former ...”

“... or the Jacobin Mountain. There was also a significant counter-Revolutionary production line. Unknown numbers of engravings, both for and against the Revolution, were produced during the few years of the 1790s, but we know little about who purchased them or what they did with them. We know even less about what they meant to their owners. Such products ...”

“... a ‘bouffant hairdo like a fourth Supreme’. In fact, the so-called ‘no-hit Supremes’ were unknown in 1961, though their debut single, ‘I Want a Guy’, an aficionado’s favourite, was released that year when they were a four-piece.Still, there is a lot to be said for Whitehead’s depiction of Carney’s struggle. He is not a pioneer for social ...”

“... Whatever the medium, the corrosive sense of disquiet generated by the knowledge that you have unknown enemies lurking in the shadows hasn’t changed. Such attacks may have serious consequences, and this is formally recognised. Like their numberless digital counterparts, assaults on paper are a criminal offence. The Malicious Communications Act ...”

“... the Ancien Régime aristocracy. The editors of a surviving fragment of her diary – letters to an unknown correspondent, written between 1788 and 1794 and published here in the original French – retrace her rise from already illustrious heights to the top of pre-revolutionary society. Born to a noble family in Brittany, she accumulated wealth and status ...”

“... the bomber. From 1968 the British nuclear deterrent depended on submarines. At the same time, unknown to the public, British and US submarines were monitoring their Russian counterparts, participating in their exercises uninvited and usually unobserved, quietly trailing and watching them closely until they reached their bases. By the 1980s there were many ...”