Eye injuries in twentieth century warfare: a historical perspective

With successive wars in the twentieth century, there has been a relative increase in injuries to the eye compared to injuries of other parts of the body. The main causes of eye injury have changed with advances in techniques and weaponry of warfare, with blast fragmentation injuries accounting for 50-80% of cases. Penetrating and perforating injuries are most common, and injuries associated with intraocular foreign bodies pose special diagnostic and management problems. Injuries are bilateral in 15-25% of cases. Injuries associated with chemical, nuclear, and laser weapons have distinct characteristics and epidemiology. Enucleation was commonly performed at the turn of the century, but incidence has declined with better understanding of the pathophysiology of ocular trauma, improved surgical techniques and sepsis control with antibiotics. Sympathetic ophthalmia appears to be uncommon and earlier fears of this complication seem to have been exaggerated. Timely evacuation to a surgical facility is important for a good visual prognosis and preservation of the globe. However, prevention of injuries with eye armor is ultimately the best management, and the need for a comprehensive eye protection program in the military cannot be overemphasized, especially since eye injuries pose important socioeconomic, as well as medical, problems.     

Thalidomide and the Titanic: reconstructing the technology tragedies of the twentieth century

Despite a wide interindividual variation of cytochrome P-450 1A2 (CYP1A2) activity, genetic polymorphism of CYP1A2 has not been reported. By amplification of exons of CYP1A2 by polymerase chain reaction in eight Chinese subjects, the polymerase chain reaction products were directly sequenced. One subject showed heterozygous C2866-->G (Phe21-->Leu) polymorphism. DNA from 157 Chinese subjects (104 polychlorinated biphenyl-exposed subjects and 53 control subjects) was screened for polymorphism by single-strand conformation polymorphism method and MboII endonuclease digestion. Only 1 of 157 samples showed another heterozygous C2866-->G mutation. The subject was previously exposed to polychlorinated biphenyl and showed a value of 3.5% in the caffeine breath test. The value is not significantly higher than the mean value of polychlorinated biphenyl-exposed subjects (3.12 +/- 0.29%, mean +/- S.E.M.). The incidence of the point mutation in these Chinese subjects is less than 1%. The prevalence of the F21L mutation in other ethnic groups and its effect on the metabolic activity of CYP1A2 remain to be further evaluated.     

Older chronic patients and their care provisions in the first half of the twentieth century

Contrary to popular beliefs the Dutch nursing home came into existence not after, but long before 1945. The special care units for the old chronic patient (developed between 1900 and 1950) were a response to the problematic status of these patients in the workhouses and general hospitals. In both institutions, they occupied 'the wrong bed'. The workhouses were subject to a lot of criticism because the provided housing for the complete range of elderly persons. This criticism triggered a growing need for specialized and separated housing facilities for the able and disabled elderly. In general hospitals the elderly patients occupied beds needed for other patients, while the care was too expensive. This problem increased because of the ageing of the hospital population. The latter was caused by the age-related increase of both the admission ratio and the average length of stay. In reaction to these problems, inside and outside the existing facilities, special care units with emphasis on nursing, were developed for the elderly chronic patient. Thus, during the first half of this century this provided the foundation of the future nursing homes, which developed so successfully after 1950.     

Late twentieth century medicine: will, education, and the American dream

The ultimate solution to the growing shortage of organs for transplantation could be the use of animal organs or tissues. Xenotransplantation of organs of all kinds, size and number would be available to be transplanted to patients with endstage diseases. Advances in technology, as well as the accelerating rate of progress in biochemical, biological and genetic fields, means that it will be possible to bridge times until allografts are available or that successful engraftment becomes possible. Open questions in immunology or metabolism as well as the transfer of infectious material from animal to man need, however, major efforts to be solved. An optimistic outlook can be given, that the problems of xenotransplantation are solved in the next decade, or certainly in the next generation.     

Anthrax in Switzerland during the early 19th century

The progress of a devastating case of enzootic anthrax is investigated by means of documents found in the archives of a private farm. These reports initiated a detailed historical study of the anthrax situation in Switzerland at the time, notably in the north-west of the country.     

Youth, race, and labor: working kids and historical ambivalence in twentieth century America

As a society, we share assumptions that exhibit a profound historical ambivalence regarding young people at work. On the one hand, we all acknowledge that there is something socially and morally reprehensible about forcing children to toil. Many of us see child labor as a vestigial remnant of the harshest aspects of the Industrial Revolution. On the other hand, we also continue to see work as a sign of the moral and social health of a community and hence, we see employment among the young as a stabilizing and redemptive activity. Especially when addressing the nation's poor, urban and African-American populations, youth unemployment is almost universally understood as a root cause of social unrest and community breakdown. This paper outlines some of the historical arguments about children in the work force and raises the question about the national resolve to seriously address this issue.     

The battle against acute infections in Poland between the two world wars of the twentieth century, 1918-1939

In two independent studies using different approaches and covering West Berlin and Bavaria, respectively, highly significant temporal clusters of Down syndrome were found. Both sharp increases occurred in areas receiving relatively low Chernobyl fallout and concomitant radiation exposures. Only for the Berlin cluster was fallout present at the time of the affected meioses, whereas the Nuremberg cluster preceded the radioactive contamination by 1 month. Hypotheses on possible causal relationships are compared. Radiation from the Chernobyl accident is an unlikely factor, because the associated cumulative dose was so low in comparison with natural background. Microdosimetric considerations would indicate that fewer than 1 in 200 oocyte nuclei would have experienced an ionizing event from Chernobyl radioactivity. Given the lack of understanding of what causes Down syndrome, other than factors associated with increased maternal age, additional research into environmental and infectious risk factors is warranted.     

International traffic in coca through the early 20th century

This study was carried out to examine the biological and environmental variables associated with non-organic short stature. We observed an unselected population of very short normal children (SN) and their age- and sex-matched controls (C) within the community. All 14,346 children in two health districts entering school during 2 consecutive years were screened for short stature, and those whose height lay below the 3rd centile, according to Tanner and Whitehouse standards (n = 180) were identified. Excluding 32 with pathology, five from ethnic minorities and three who refused to take part, the remaining SN children (mean height SDS-2.26) were matched with 140 age- and sex-matched controls (C) of average height (mean height SDs 0.14). Birth weight, target height and predicted adult height (based on parental height and bone age respectively), medical and social background (obtained from parental interviews), and school performance (assessed by class teachers) were the main outcome measures. Mean birth weight of the SN children was significantly lower than C (SN = 2845 g, C = 3337 g, P < 0.001). Mean mid-parental target height was also very different (SN = 162.0 cm, C = 170.9 cm, P < 0.001). Thirty-five per cent of SN children (C = 6%) had height SD scores below parental target range, though only 10% had predicted heights below target range (mean delay in bone age 0.68 years). There was a significant difference between SN children and C in the number of children in the household (SN = 2.8, C = 2.4 (P = 0.007) and in socio-economic status (P < 0.002). Many more SN children were in social classes IV and V (SN = 31%, C = 13%, P < 0.002), and had an unemployed father (SN = 22%, C = 10%, P < 0.010), highlighting the importance of environmental influences on growth. One in four SN children was judged to have serious psychosocial problems. However, the lower the socio-economic class, the less likely the SN children were to be inappropriately short for parents. Significantly more SN children were reported to have asthma (SN = 18%, C = 7%, P < 0.007) and eczema (SN = 19%, C = 5%, P < 0.001), though only the latter was significantly associated with stature below target height for both SN and C groups. Biological variables are often insufficient to explain short stature. No child, whatever the parental height, should be dismissed as normal without careful evaluation, as poor growth in the early years may be an important pointer to an adverse but potentially remediable environment.     

21世纪初武钢的发展战略

指出２１世纪０初武钢发展战略的基本思路及发展战略重点目标和措施,即推进工艺升级,建成一流的技术效力;推进结构调整,开发一流的精品名牌;推进技术创新,培养一流的核心能力;推进非钢发展,形成一流的高新产业;推进转机建制创造一流的企业效率。     

Is fecundability associated with month of birth? An analysis of 19th and early 20th century family reconstitution data from The Netherlands

The relationship between fecundability and month of birth was investigated in a cohort of 1526 women who married between 1802 and 1929, using only women whose first marriage occurred before the age of 35 years. On the basis of their time to pregnancy (TTP, calculated as time between wedding and first birth minus gestational length), women were categorized into two groups: fecunds (TTP up to 12 months or prenuptial conceptions, n = 1348) and subfecunds (TTP >18 months, n = 118). By use of logistic regression, cosinor functions with a period of 1 year or 6 months and variable shift and amplitude were fitted through the monthly odds of subfecunds versus fecunds. The best fitting curve was unimodal, with a zenith in September (P = 0.13 for H0: no differences). Exclusion of childless women (n = 36, minimum follow-up 5 years) from the subfecunds led to a similar curve (P < 0.01), while childless women, as compared with fecunds, showed a birth distribution that was best represented with a bimodal curve with zeniths in January and July (P = 0.06). This study provides evidence for the existence of differences in fecundability by month of birth. The cause of this relationship is unclear, but may lie in a melatonin-dependent circannual variability of the quality of the oocyte.