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Biomedical subjects

A Sutherland

Publications and source records attributed to A Sutherland.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

Gypsies and health care.

Gypsies in the United States are not a healthy group. They have a high incidence of heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension. When they seek medical care, Gypsies often come into conflict with medical personnel who find their behavior confusing, demanding, and chaotic. For their part, Gypsies are often suspicious of non-Gypsy people and institutions, viewing them as a source of disease and uncleanliness. Gypsy ideas about health and illness are closely related to notions of good and bad fortune, purity and impurity, and inclusion and exclusion from the group. These basic concepts affect everyday life, including the way Gypsies deal with eating and washing, physicians and hospitals, the diagnosis of illness, shopping around for cures, and coping with birth and death.

Attitude to Death

Revision stapes surgery.

With the decline in primary cases of otosclerosis surgery, revision stapes operations are becoming a higher percentage of otosclerosis practice. Are the results from revision stapes surgery today comparable with those of surgeons trained prior to the present decline? A retrospective review of 559 consecutive stapes operations performed by the author revealed 109 revision operations. A retrospective review of these cases reveals that the most common cause for revision surgery was displaced prostheses and incus necrosis. The hearing results are dependent on the surgical pathology. In this series, the airborne gap was closed to less than 10 dB in 58% of cases, there were 64% of cases of displaced prostheses, and 57% of cases of incus necrosis, which is comparable with previously reported studies.

Cochlear Implants

The case for scoliosis screening in Australian adolescents.

A survey of 3660 Year 10 students, with an average age of 15 years, was carried out in a random sample of Adelaide secondary schools to determine the prevalence of structural scoliosis and the need for implementing a programme of scoliosis screening. By means of the Forward Bending Test and a specially devised scoring system 144 (3.9%) children were found to have signs that were suggestive of scoliosis; all but 12 were assessed subsequently by standardized clinical and radiological examinations. One hundred and three children were found to have structural scoliosis of 5 degrees or more; this represented a prevalence of 3.1%. The prevalence in girls (4.3%) was significantly higher than in boys (1.9%), and girls tended to have more severe curves and require treatment more frequently. Only one third (34) of the cases of structural scoliosis had been detected before this survey; most (28) of these had been detected through an earlier, subsequently discontinued, school screening programme. This study concludes that screening for scoliosis by means of a scored Forward Bending Test should be carried out in South Australian schools for all students in Year 8 and for girls in Year 10. The policy of screening boys in Year 8 should be the subject of further research. An educational programme for health professionals, parents, students and physical education teachers should support the programme.

Adolescent

An examination of possible interactions between zimelidine, a serotonin uptake inhibitor, and ethanol ingested conjointly in human subjects.

Non-alcoholic male subjects were given either a placebo or zimelidine (100, 200 or 300 mg, p.o.) 2 h prior to consumption of alcohol (1 g/kg) or a non-alcoholic mixer. Slight increases in heart rate and diastolic blood pressure induced by alcohol were unaffected by pretreatment with zimelidine. Alcohol, zimelidine, and the combination of the two, did not affect any of the hematologic measures except for serum potassium levels. The latter were reduced slightly but not in any discernible pattern. Blood alcohol concentrations were not changed by zimelidine pretreatment. Conversely, blood concentrations of zimelidine and its metabolite norzimelidine were also relatively unaffected by alcohol consumption. In general, the results indicate that the simultaneous administration of zimelidine and alcohol to human subjects does not produce any observable adverse effects.

Adolescent

Technique for microdissection and measurement in biopsies of human small intestine.

A microdissection and measurement technique has been adapted for biopsy of human small intestine. Specimens fixed in alcohol and acetic acid are Schiff stained in bulk. Villi and crypts are then dissected out under a dissecting microscope, placed under a coverslip, examined, measured, and the number of mitoses in individual crypts counted. With this method specimens of normal small intestine have been found to have villi 500 microns to 1100 microns long and crypts 150 microns to 300 microns. These values were double those obtained when measuring sections of the same specimens stained with haematoxylin and eosin. The mean number of mitoses per crypt in normal duodenum and jejunum ranged from 1 to 12 and most of the cells in mitosis were in prophase or telophase. This rapid, sensitive, and inexpensive technique complements the available methods of measuring small intestinal architecture.

Biopsy

Mycoplasmas and ovine keratoconjunctivitis.

The clinical course of an outbreak of keratoconjunctivitis in housed lambs and their dams was followed. Signs were transient generally and became severe in only a small proportion of lambs. The outbreak became most obvious when the lambs were 46 to 55 days old, when 46.9 per cent were affected. Mycoplasma conjunctivae isolations, confirmed by comparison with the type strain by biochemical and serological reactions, increased to 62.1 per cent of all eyes swabbed, but no correlation could be demonstrated between presence of the organism and clinical status. The reasons for this are discussed. Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae was also recovered from the eyes of a small number of lambs. Instillation of a broth culture of M conjunctivae into the conjunctival sacs of four hoggs produced a transient keratoconjunctivitis similar to that observed in the field, but no effect was observed in animals inoculated intravenously. M conjunctivae may therefore be the aetiological agent of non-follicular infectious ovine keratoconjunctivitis, although further work in gnotobiotic or specific pathogen free lambs is required to establish the fact beyond doubt.

Animals

The role of physical dependence in animal models of human alcoholism.

This paper critically examines the concept that physical dependence is a necessary attribute for animal models of human alcoholism. On the basis of a review of the literature, it is argued that, since the production of physical dependence requires the presence of continuous high blood-alcohol levels, and since the production of preference for alcohol requires intermittent presentation of alcohol, the two cannot, in principle, be established in the same organism at the same time. It is further argued that physical dependence does not play a role in the development of high alcohol intake in animals. The implications of these observations for human alcoholism are discussed.

Alcoholism