of acupuncture was mediated. But despite being practised quite widely by moderate medical reformers and the odd medical luminary such as John Elliotson (1791-1868), Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Professor of Medicine at London University, 1828-77 saw a decline in academic interest. Bivins examines the records of isolated centres where interest and experiment persisted, particula...

1610 and 1622. From them one can see how different their view of epidemic disease was from our own, and, in passing, they reveal their awareness of the appalling social and economic consequences if they announced the arrival of plague. Cipolla's doctors uncover a variety of diseases, influenza, malaria, typhus, smallpox, which they treat with a variety of therapies. They note the consequences o...

The Past In 1950, as a medical student, I first learned about the management of congestive HF from the first edition of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine,1 which had just been published. Management consisted of strict bed rest, sedation, dietary sodium restriction, digitalis, venesection, and administration of morphine and mercurial diuretics; the latter were only modestly effective an...

BACKGROUND In 2008, it has been 175 years since the publication of Vincenc Alexandr Bochdalek's thesis. RESULTS On October 22, 1833 he defended his inaugural dissertation in the Greater Hall of Carolinum in Prague and six days later he got his degree in the Lesser Hall of Carolinum. The dissertation was called Anleitung zur praktischen Zergliederung des menschlichen Gehirnes (A guide of the p...

We present a 31-year-old primigravida with uncorrected pentalogy of Fallot, pregnant with monochorionic-diamniotic twins, undergoing elective lower segment cesarean section at 36 weeks gestation. Preoperative workup included a transthoracic echocardiogram which revealed a large ventricular septal defect of 1.8 cm with bidirectional shunting, a moderate size atrial septal defect of 1.8 cm with p...

BACKGROUND The Cortecs Diagnostics Helisal Assay test is a quantitative immunoassay for salivary IgG antibodies against Helicobacter pylori. Saliva can be obtained simply with the kit in the general practitioners surgery. AIMS To compare the new saliva serological test for H pylori with 'gold standard' evidence of H pylori infection (antral biopsy specimens for histology, culture, and urease ...

September 2006, Vol. 96, No. 9 SAMJ Symptomatic thrombocytopenic purpura occurred in an otherwise normal 62-year-old man. Bonemarrow studies showed features typical of peripheral sequestration and the condition was diagnosed as autoimmune. There was no response to corticosteroid administration. Laparoscopic splenectomy was uneventful and the patient remained well off all treatment. Four years l...

the physician's attention, and great importance should attach to it, because, when first observed, it is possible to cure or, at any rate, to lessen the congestion by a suitable treatment and, thereby, guard the patient against the complications of a disease which, once established, is frequently beyond all remedial measures. In fact, too much attention cannot be given to the symptom of congest...

Background and aims: In HFE associated hereditary haemochromatosis, the duodenal enterocyte behaves as if iron deficient and previous reports have shown increased duodenal expression of divalent metal transporter 1 (DMT1) and iron regulated gene 1 (Ireg1) in affected subjects. In those studies, many patients had undergone venesection, which is a potent stimulus of iron absorption. Our study inv...

In a previous communication by one of us (Crile) resuscitation was at tempted by means of both direct and indirect cardiac massage, with and without artificial respiration, with and without intravenous saline infusion, and with and without the addition of adrenalin. The results of these experiments may be summarized as foUows: By cardiac massage alone animals were rarely resuscitated at any tim...