Blood viscosity, cerebral blood flow (CBF) and cerebral oxygen carriage (CBF X arterial oxygen content) were measured in 12 patients with polycythaemia secondary to hypoxic lung disease. CBF and cerebral oxygen carriage were both significantly higher than in a comparative group of 20 patients with raised packed cell volumes and normal lung function. The patients with secondary polycythaemia the...

to be at variance with Galenic vascular anatomy (chapters 6, 8, and 9); and a modern medical justification of Galen's use of venesection as an evacuant (chapter 10). My second reservation about the volume focuses on the texts translated. In the cases of the first and third texts, Brain translates from C. G. Kuhn's 1821-33 edition of the opera that is based on sixteenthand seventeenth-century pr...

INTRODUCTION Reperfusion of acutely ischaemic tissue may, paradoxically, lead to systemic complications. This phenomenon is believed to be initiated by humoral factors that have accumulated in the ischaemic tissue. The ancient art of venesection may reduce the load of these mediators at the point of reperfusion. The aim of this study is to test if selective venesection, by removing the initial ...

Venesection is a widely practised procedure, involving the removal of a unit of blood in order to treat haemochromatosis and polycythaemia. It is still well regarded due to a lack of better alternatives and a small side effect profile. At Barnet General Hospital, venesection has recently been a physician led service, unlike its neighbouring hospital at Chase Farm Hospital, which has a well run ...

Two patients with primary haemochromatosis are reported in whom hepatocellular carcinoma supervened despite removal of excess iron after venesection therapy. These are the first patients described in whom hepatocellular carcinoma has complicated primary haemochromatosis in the absence of concomitant cirrhosis.

We report a case of primary haemochromatosis complicated by anterior hypopituitarism which recovered after aggressive venesection therapy. Reversal of anterior hypopituitarism in haemochromatosis following iron depletion has not been previously described.

It is recognized that iron overload is associated with excess mortality in HIV/AIDS, and that this may be due to iron acting as an HIV-1 transcriptional activator. In vitro evidence using iron chelators suggests that therapeutic iron depletion may be beneficial in HIV-1 infection. We describe the clinical course of a Caucasian man with hereditary haemochromatosis and HIV infection where a signi...

Mr President and Gentlemen,?In response to the request of some of our ex-Presidents, I have selected the subject of Venesection. Though regarded as a bete noire or almost forbidden subject ?indeed, a questio vexata?at various periods during the last three centuries, yet as a wave in its favour seems now impending, I feel it my duty to contribute a few cases from past practice in illustration of...