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GARLIC
962
separation as judged by iodine impregnation or by spraying with a fluorescent dye (see Jones and Bowyer ’). However, separation of pure C-labelled free fatty acids in this kind of system reveals considerable " tailing ". From the table in Dr. Stout’s paper the counts in the aortic " cholesterol " were 1-76 and 1-34 c.p.m. for insulintreated and control animals respectively. Thus, even assuming 1% tailing, approximately 200 c.p.m. in the free fatty acids could have resulted in his figures. From a considerable experience of the synthesis of arterial lipids in isolated perfused aortas of rabbits 8,9 it is clear that considerable free fatty acids and complex lipid synthesis from acetate occurs.
It is well known that insulin has a lipogenic action and stimulates fatty acid synthesis in a number of tissues 10-12; this may have been the case in Dr. Stout’s experiments. In any event there is no satisfactory demonstration of the observed activity in cholesterol " being anything other than " tailing-counts ". University Department of Pathology, Cambridge.
*** This letter follows.-ED. L.
was
shown
to
DAVID E. BOWYER.
Dr. Stout, whose
reply
SIR,-Dr. Bowyer criticises the results of my experithe grounds that the cholesterol fraction on the thin-layer plates may be contaminated by tailing of the fatty-acid fraction. In order to keep my communication brief, I omitted certain information which should clarify this point. ments on
"
"
(a) The radioactivity of all the fractions on the thinlayer plates was measured. The cholesterol fraction was separated from the fatty-acid fraction by a zone which neither stained with iodone nor contained any radioactivity. This does not suggest significant " tailing " of the labelled fatty acids. (b) The radioactivity of the fatty acids was identical in the insulin-treated and control aortas (1-11 0-84 c.p.m. and l-16di 0-76 c.p.m. respectively). Samples from treated and control animals were run in pairs on the If contamination is the cause of same thin-layer plates. the difference in cholesterol radioactivity in the two groups, then it must be postulated that selective contamination occurred only in the insulin-treated samples. This seems unlikely. Although, as Dr. Bowyer points out, there is controversy over the existence of cholesterol synthesis in arterial tissue, I feel that my results suggest that this occurs, and that insulin exerts a stimulating effect upon it. Royal Postgraduate Medical School, R. W. STOUT. London W.12.
GARLIC SIR,-Dr. Srinivasan’s suggestion that
garlic lowers high 800) caused little astonishment here. For many decades garlic has been used in this country as an antihypertensive agent; and, if I remember rightly, an blood-pressure (Oct. 11, alcoholic treatment
p.
of garlic is also used in France for the of hypertension.
extract
G. PAPAYANNOPOULOS. Jones, D., Bowyer, D. E. J. Chromatog. 1966, 23, 172. Bowyer, D. E., Howard, A. N., Gresham, G. A., Bates, D., Palmer, B. V. Prog. Biochem. Pharmac. 1968, 4, 235. 9. Bowyer, D. E. PH.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1967. 10. Block, K., Kramer, W. J. biol. Chem. 1948, 173, 811. 11. Brady, R. O., Gurin, S. ibid. 1950, 186, 461. 12. Winegrad, A. I., Reynold, A. F. ibid. 1958, 233, 267. 7. 8.
ROOMING-IN
SIR,-As peediatric surgeon, I have generally looked favourably on the concept of rooming-in ". I have the most gloomy recollections of my own two-week hospitalisation at age nine in an institution where no parental visiting at all was permitted. (My mother sneaked in to see me one evening disguised as a nursing aide, was discovered, and promptly ejected.) a
"
And yet I have had on a number of occasions the uncomfortable feeling that many young children would be better off in hospital if their mothers were not present at all times. In one of my hospitals, mothers may room with their children on request. Since only a few rooms are available for this purpose reservations must be made far ahead. Many of the mothers who insist on rooming-in impress me as showing more anxiety than the mothers who do not so insist. Several experienced anaesthesiologists tell me that they routinely give more premedication to youngsters whose mothers are with them than to those without a parent in attendance in order to achieve equal sedative effects. I find that a disproportionate number of young children whose parents are present are carried off to the operatingroom kicking and screaming despite seemingly proper premedication. The anxiety of the parent(s) appears often to add to that of the child, reaching a climax in the period just prior to delivery of the youngster to the operating-room. Obviously if this is so much of the benefit of the rooming-in arrangement is negated for the child under-
going
a
surgical operation.
that this aspect of the rooming-in situation lends itself to a controlled study, the results of which will be of considerable interest to all involved in the It
seems to me
hosoital care of children. Department of Surgery, Harlem Hospital Center, New York, N.Y.
ANTHONY SHAW.
WORKING WOMEN SIR,-Is Dr. Rahel Liebeschuetz (Oct. 11, p. 802) certain that financial pressure is the main reason why wives go out to work ? Many women have led the life which she believes would counter the takeover by " social security personnel ". They have remained at home fulltime beyond the age of 40 only to discover (a) that their married daughters do not turn to them for assistance, but instead prefer the state welfare-workers or the noncritical cooperation of contemporaries; (b) that their own parents, of stouter stuff, cherish their independence too much to admit need; and (c) that their husbands are able to derive comfort from their work. Believing, with Dr. Liebeschuetz, that they may yet be useful at home, they read one day a contemptuous article in a reputable Sunday newspaper by a fashionably popular columnist deriding grandmothers who hang around for the chance of a crack at their grandchildren, and middle-aged wives who, their children having left home, devote themselves to cooking an elderly husband’s fish fingers. They then decide to go out to work in order, not to make money, but to justify their existence; but they find, as a " family" precisely because they have "spent years " woman (now as vestigial as a family doctor), that (whatever their intelligence or uncertificated accomplishments) they are only offered unskilled or semi-skilled jobs. And then comes the new Divorce Law. In five years, all that Dr. Liebeschutz regards as their vital contribution to a humane and personal society can be nullified. Far from seeing their role as important to the future of society, these women feel they are irrelevant to it. But
separation as judged by iodine impregnation or by spraying with a fluorescent dye (see Jones and Bowyer ’). However, separation of pure C-labelled free fatty acids in this kind of system reveals considerable " tailing ". From the table in Dr. Stout’s paper the counts in the aortic " cholesterol " were 1-76 and 1-34 c.p.m. for insulintreated and control animals respectively. Thus, even assuming 1% tailing, approximately 200 c.p.m. in the free fatty acids could have resulted in his figures. From a considerable experience of the synthesis of arterial lipids in isolated perfused aortas of rabbits 8,9 it is clear that considerable free fatty acids and complex lipid synthesis from acetate occurs.
It is well known that insulin has a lipogenic action and stimulates fatty acid synthesis in a number of tissues 10-12; this may have been the case in Dr. Stout’s experiments. In any event there is no satisfactory demonstration of the observed activity in cholesterol " being anything other than " tailing-counts ". University Department of Pathology, Cambridge.
*** This letter follows.-ED. L.
was
shown
to
DAVID E. BOWYER.
Dr. Stout, whose
reply
SIR,-Dr. Bowyer criticises the results of my experithe grounds that the cholesterol fraction on the thin-layer plates may be contaminated by tailing of the fatty-acid fraction. In order to keep my communication brief, I omitted certain information which should clarify this point. ments on
"
"
(a) The radioactivity of all the fractions on the thinlayer plates was measured. The cholesterol fraction was separated from the fatty-acid fraction by a zone which neither stained with iodone nor contained any radioactivity. This does not suggest significant " tailing " of the labelled fatty acids. (b) The radioactivity of the fatty acids was identical in the insulin-treated and control aortas (1-11 0-84 c.p.m. and l-16di 0-76 c.p.m. respectively). Samples from treated and control animals were run in pairs on the If contamination is the cause of same thin-layer plates. the difference in cholesterol radioactivity in the two groups, then it must be postulated that selective contamination occurred only in the insulin-treated samples. This seems unlikely. Although, as Dr. Bowyer points out, there is controversy over the existence of cholesterol synthesis in arterial tissue, I feel that my results suggest that this occurs, and that insulin exerts a stimulating effect upon it. Royal Postgraduate Medical School, R. W. STOUT. London W.12.
GARLIC SIR,-Dr. Srinivasan’s suggestion that
garlic lowers high 800) caused little astonishment here. For many decades garlic has been used in this country as an antihypertensive agent; and, if I remember rightly, an blood-pressure (Oct. 11, alcoholic treatment
p.
of garlic is also used in France for the of hypertension.
extract
G. PAPAYANNOPOULOS. Jones, D., Bowyer, D. E. J. Chromatog. 1966, 23, 172. Bowyer, D. E., Howard, A. N., Gresham, G. A., Bates, D., Palmer, B. V. Prog. Biochem. Pharmac. 1968, 4, 235. 9. Bowyer, D. E. PH.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1967. 10. Block, K., Kramer, W. J. biol. Chem. 1948, 173, 811. 11. Brady, R. O., Gurin, S. ibid. 1950, 186, 461. 12. Winegrad, A. I., Reynold, A. F. ibid. 1958, 233, 267. 7. 8.
ROOMING-IN
SIR,-As peediatric surgeon, I have generally looked favourably on the concept of rooming-in ". I have the most gloomy recollections of my own two-week hospitalisation at age nine in an institution where no parental visiting at all was permitted. (My mother sneaked in to see me one evening disguised as a nursing aide, was discovered, and promptly ejected.) a
"
And yet I have had on a number of occasions the uncomfortable feeling that many young children would be better off in hospital if their mothers were not present at all times. In one of my hospitals, mothers may room with their children on request. Since only a few rooms are available for this purpose reservations must be made far ahead. Many of the mothers who insist on rooming-in impress me as showing more anxiety than the mothers who do not so insist. Several experienced anaesthesiologists tell me that they routinely give more premedication to youngsters whose mothers are with them than to those without a parent in attendance in order to achieve equal sedative effects. I find that a disproportionate number of young children whose parents are present are carried off to the operatingroom kicking and screaming despite seemingly proper premedication. The anxiety of the parent(s) appears often to add to that of the child, reaching a climax in the period just prior to delivery of the youngster to the operating-room. Obviously if this is so much of the benefit of the rooming-in arrangement is negated for the child under-
going
a
surgical operation.
that this aspect of the rooming-in situation lends itself to a controlled study, the results of which will be of considerable interest to all involved in the It
seems to me
hosoital care of children. Department of Surgery, Harlem Hospital Center, New York, N.Y.
ANTHONY SHAW.
WORKING WOMEN SIR,-Is Dr. Rahel Liebeschuetz (Oct. 11, p. 802) certain that financial pressure is the main reason why wives go out to work ? Many women have led the life which she believes would counter the takeover by " social security personnel ". They have remained at home fulltime beyond the age of 40 only to discover (a) that their married daughters do not turn to them for assistance, but instead prefer the state welfare-workers or the noncritical cooperation of contemporaries; (b) that their own parents, of stouter stuff, cherish their independence too much to admit need; and (c) that their husbands are able to derive comfort from their work. Believing, with Dr. Liebeschuetz, that they may yet be useful at home, they read one day a contemptuous article in a reputable Sunday newspaper by a fashionably popular columnist deriding grandmothers who hang around for the chance of a crack at their grandchildren, and middle-aged wives who, their children having left home, devote themselves to cooking an elderly husband’s fish fingers. They then decide to go out to work in order, not to make money, but to justify their existence; but they find, as a " family" precisely because they have "spent years " woman (now as vestigial as a family doctor), that (whatever their intelligence or uncertificated accomplishments) they are only offered unskilled or semi-skilled jobs. And then comes the new Divorce Law. In five years, all that Dr. Liebeschutz regards as their vital contribution to a humane and personal society can be nullified. Far from seeing their role as important to the future of society, these women feel they are irrelevant to it. But