The history of medicine teaching program in Croatia

A history of medicine program was first introduced at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, in 1927 by the internist Lujo Thaller, who became the first lecturer on this subject at Zagreb. However, the development of the program did not go smoothly and medicohistorians in Croatia were engaged in a constant struggle for proper status and a permanent place for their program within the medical school curriculum. Today a 15-hour medical history course (offered in the last semester of the 6-year curriculum) is mandatory at all four Croatian medical schools. The course draws on historical, cultural, sociological, epistemological, and bioethical aspects of medicine, with the goal of broadening students' perspectives on the practice of medicine and thereby enabling them to better meet the demands they will face as practicing physicians.     

The recovery of radium and edta from radium leach solutions

The recovery of radium and EDTA from a leach solution used to extract radium from uranium mill solids is described. Ion-exchange is shown to effectively remove radium from the leach solutions. A relationship for the distribution of radium and other ions between the ion-exchange resin and the aqueous phase is developed. The EDTA is recovered in a two-stage process: lime treatment and acid precipitation. The total recovery of EDTA is about 95%. An outline of a process to recover radium and recycle EDTA is given.     

Voice pathology in the history of medicine

This article proposes a new nonparametric method for statistical evaluation of clinical pre-post treatment designs. In clinical research, models of marginal symmetry typically are estimated from log-linear models of axial and quasi-symmetry. As such, they provide overall goodness-of-fit information concerning change in probabilities of categories of one variable that was observed twice. This paper proposes the following three extensions: (1) using models of marginal symmetry for changes in patterns of two or more variables, and (2) following up global marginal symmetry tests using Lehmacher's sign tests. (3) To protect the experiment-wise alpha, a modified Bonferroni-Holm procedure is proposed. The new approach allows researchers to make statements about treatment effects at the level of single symptoms. Examples illustrate application of all three symmetry models and the follow-up test using data from pharmaco-psychiatry. The discussion relates Lehmacher's tests to two-sample Configural Frequency Analysis of multi-discrimination types. Strategies of statistical significance testing are presented and the importance of the proposed methodological approach for psychiatric research is discussed.     

The reconstruction and dose-rate calculation of radium needle implants

A comprehensive computer program has been developed for carrying out the various tasks associated with radium needle implants. Data input for the program are obtained by digitizing an orthogonal pair of radiographs with an analogue tracing system. Corresponding needles in the two radiographs are automatically located, and the implant may be rotated to any desired position in three dimensional space, at the same time presenting a view of the rotation on a storage oscilloscope. Automatic determination of the mean plane of a planar implant is possible, and the dose-rate distribution may be calculated in any specified plane. A Paterson--Parker exposure rate calculation may be performed with a biological dose and treatment time correction incorporated. The program is written in Fortran and runs on a small interactive computer system.     

The reducing-complexing treatment for the leaching of radium from uranium mill tailings

The removal of radium from acid-leach uranium mill tailings has been difficult due to its strong retention as mixed sulfates and in adsorbed forms. In this work, the leaching action of a complexing agent (reducing the free radium cation concentration in solution) is combined with that of a reducing agent. Thus high valency metal hydroxides and basic salts (notably Fe³⁺) which tend to retain radium are converted to the lower valency from which is much more soluble in the complexing agent. The reducing agent employed is sodium hydrosulfite, in combination with various organic complexing agents; the preferred complexing agent is EDTA. Over 90% of the radium in uranium leach tailings from Elliot Lake can be removed in 1 h contact at room temperature with a solution 0.04 M in hydrosulfite and EDTA, with 1.0 M potassium chloride added as a surface charge depressant. The gradual addition of solids to liquid permits the use of low liquid/solid ratios, and a treatment scheme for the process is proposed.