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THERMOMETRIC SCALES.
677 use only as a last resource might have been underlined and underlined again. For bleeding from the stomach, Dr. Fletcher rightly counsels precaution carried even to excess, and commends the first-aider who mistook for blood a mixture of stale beer and chocolate and accordingly treated the patient for haematemesis. He lays emphasis on the labour required to carry out artificial respiration with Silvester’s method, even though it is success. expected and often, indeed, demanded by a London crowd, is so heavy and strenuous a task as to exhaust the first-aider within a very few minutes. Schafer’s can be started without a second’s delav and is comparatively easy. We predict for this little book the fulfilment of what the author hopes for itnamely, the same degree of usefulness and popularity as his other works on first aid.
attention ; its
method
CRANIAL NERVE PALSIES DUE TO EXTRACRANIAL TUMOURS. As a general rule widespread involvement of the cranial nerves indicates a lesion within the cranium and situated at the base of the brain. W. 0. Ott reports’ a series of three cases from the Mayo clinic, where such a wide involvement was due to extracranial tumours. In these cases there was unilateral paralysis of the larynx with the involvement of the last four cranial nerves, in two cases due to a tumour arising from the deep portion of the parotid gland and in one case to a lesion in the region of the jugular foramen, the exact nature of which was not known. A full history is given with each case, and all were operated upon with considerable improvemerit. It is often difficult in dealing with these tumours to make a diagnosis. Ott points out that the condition was first described by Hughlings Jackson in 1864, and after him unilateral associated laryngeal paralysis with paralysis of the soft palate and tongue on the same side has been called Jackson’s syndrome. Since then there have been reported numerous combinations of unilateral paralysis of the larynx associated with paralysis of one or more of the last four cranial nerves. The technique of operation which Ott advocates consists of an incision along the anterior border of the sternomastoid muscle, extending well up along the front of the mastoid process. By the retraction of the muscle backwards and dissection forwards the tumour can be exposed posterior and medial to the ascending The mastoid process is cut away ramus of the jaw. together with part of the temporal bone below the auditory canal. The bellies of the stylo-hyoid muscle and of the digastric muscle are divided, when by careful dissection the tumour can be removed.
common physical properties of water as a basis. Taking the freezing-point as his zero, he graduated the stem into degrees each corresponding to one-thousandth part of the volume of the alcohol contained in the bulb. It chanced that the boiling-point worked out at the convenient figure of 80 degrees, and to this day sick persons throughout the eastern half of Europe measure their body temperature on this scale. Three years later, in 1742, the astronomer, Anders Celsius, of Upsala, set out before the Swedish Academy of Sciences the simple and practical plan of dividing the interval between the freezing- and boiling-point of The convenience of the water into 100 degrees. decimal method captured central Europe and gradually
to scientific work elsewhere. The most fitting celebrating Fahrenheit’s achievement would be to honour his remarkable idea of measuring the temperature of the human body and to forget his The formulae for transmuting naive deductions. Fahrenheit and Réaumur degrees into Celsius may have had some value in promoting mental agility but, like the propositions of Euclid, they should not burden any longer the life of the scientific student.
spread
way of
MALARIA IN THE VOLGA VALLEY. THE existence of subtertian, so-called tropical, malaria in the lower Volga, valley has been known for many years, but it was only shortly before the war (1913-1914) that a commission was appointed to study the question of malaria in Russia and the Caucasus. Malaria probably exists in most parts of Central Russia, wherever the local conditions are suitable to its spread ; it even occurs in Archangel during the hot summer months, and several authentic
discovered amongst the British troops that region in 1918 and 1919. In the central and northern parts of Russia the benign tertian form occurs, but only in the south can the subtertian or tropical parasite exist. A wave of subtertian malaria (which alone can cause rapid death), spreading in epidemic form, is a common event wherever that disease occurs. There appears, to be a rise of incidence yearly during the autumn months, usually September and early October in southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia. Epidemics of this kind have been recorded with accuracy in the Balkans and Palestine; it is known, also, that in certain years a similar spread of the disease occurs in the Punjab (India) after the rains. The probability is that the term " epidemic " is not strictly applicable to these rises in the general malaria incidence. The spread of this disease is due to several atmospheric and geographical factors which must all coincide and combine so as to produce the most favourable conditions. Moreover, the autumn brood of anopheline mosquitoes has just made its appearance, and the THERMOMETRIC SCALES. insects are more numerous in the early autumn THE anniversary of the death of the German glass- months than at any other time of the year. Add to blower, Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit -he died in this economic conditions such as are reigning in Amsterdam on Sept. 16th, 1736-reminds us that he South Russia to-day which render the population had the remarkable intuition of using the temperature more susceptibile to infections of all kinds, and it is of the human body as the standard for a thermometric no matter of surprise that the spread of a malarial scale. He was also short-sighted enough to suppose that in the Volga valley is reported by the epidemic a mixture of ice and salt which lie prepared was the American Relief Administration. The outbreak is coldest thing in creation, and having made this his particularly severe in Saratov and Samara, whence zero he then counted the body temperature as 12 and, Dr. F. E. Foucar reports that from 20 to 40 cent. working upwards and downwards he noted the freezing- of the population are more or less affected.perLarge point of water to be 8 and its boiling-point 53. He quantities of quinine are available and steps are next multiplied each of these figures by four in order taken to cope with the epidemic. to lengthen out his scale, and even now the German being glass-blower’s inspired miscalculations form the basis LOCAL BLASTOMYCOSIS. of our clinical, sick-room, and even greenhouse thermometers. Fahrenheit spent most of his life in England ALTHOUGH blastomycotic dermatitis is a comparaand was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and tively common disease, many cases having been maybe for that reason and because of a few years’ reported since it was first described in 1894, cases of precedence in time his scale maintains the field in this blastomycosis localised elsewhere than in the skin country and America. It was in 1724 that he published have very rarely been noted, and hence a report by his suggestion; 15 years later, in 1739, the French M. Haase, E. R. Hall, and C. H. Marshalll of an scientist, Rene de Reaumur, made known a. thermo- extremely rare phase of this condition is of interest. metric scale using, not the human body, but the The patient, a negro of 78, had been suffering from 1 Surg., Gyn., and Obstet., vol. xxxiv., p. 597.
were
cases
occupying
1
Journal of American Mod. Assoc., Sept. 2nd, 1922.
attention ; its
method
CRANIAL NERVE PALSIES DUE TO EXTRACRANIAL TUMOURS. As a general rule widespread involvement of the cranial nerves indicates a lesion within the cranium and situated at the base of the brain. W. 0. Ott reports’ a series of three cases from the Mayo clinic, where such a wide involvement was due to extracranial tumours. In these cases there was unilateral paralysis of the larynx with the involvement of the last four cranial nerves, in two cases due to a tumour arising from the deep portion of the parotid gland and in one case to a lesion in the region of the jugular foramen, the exact nature of which was not known. A full history is given with each case, and all were operated upon with considerable improvemerit. It is often difficult in dealing with these tumours to make a diagnosis. Ott points out that the condition was first described by Hughlings Jackson in 1864, and after him unilateral associated laryngeal paralysis with paralysis of the soft palate and tongue on the same side has been called Jackson’s syndrome. Since then there have been reported numerous combinations of unilateral paralysis of the larynx associated with paralysis of one or more of the last four cranial nerves. The technique of operation which Ott advocates consists of an incision along the anterior border of the sternomastoid muscle, extending well up along the front of the mastoid process. By the retraction of the muscle backwards and dissection forwards the tumour can be exposed posterior and medial to the ascending The mastoid process is cut away ramus of the jaw. together with part of the temporal bone below the auditory canal. The bellies of the stylo-hyoid muscle and of the digastric muscle are divided, when by careful dissection the tumour can be removed.
common physical properties of water as a basis. Taking the freezing-point as his zero, he graduated the stem into degrees each corresponding to one-thousandth part of the volume of the alcohol contained in the bulb. It chanced that the boiling-point worked out at the convenient figure of 80 degrees, and to this day sick persons throughout the eastern half of Europe measure their body temperature on this scale. Three years later, in 1742, the astronomer, Anders Celsius, of Upsala, set out before the Swedish Academy of Sciences the simple and practical plan of dividing the interval between the freezing- and boiling-point of The convenience of the water into 100 degrees. decimal method captured central Europe and gradually
to scientific work elsewhere. The most fitting celebrating Fahrenheit’s achievement would be to honour his remarkable idea of measuring the temperature of the human body and to forget his The formulae for transmuting naive deductions. Fahrenheit and Réaumur degrees into Celsius may have had some value in promoting mental agility but, like the propositions of Euclid, they should not burden any longer the life of the scientific student.
spread
way of
MALARIA IN THE VOLGA VALLEY. THE existence of subtertian, so-called tropical, malaria in the lower Volga, valley has been known for many years, but it was only shortly before the war (1913-1914) that a commission was appointed to study the question of malaria in Russia and the Caucasus. Malaria probably exists in most parts of Central Russia, wherever the local conditions are suitable to its spread ; it even occurs in Archangel during the hot summer months, and several authentic
discovered amongst the British troops that region in 1918 and 1919. In the central and northern parts of Russia the benign tertian form occurs, but only in the south can the subtertian or tropical parasite exist. A wave of subtertian malaria (which alone can cause rapid death), spreading in epidemic form, is a common event wherever that disease occurs. There appears, to be a rise of incidence yearly during the autumn months, usually September and early October in southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia. Epidemics of this kind have been recorded with accuracy in the Balkans and Palestine; it is known, also, that in certain years a similar spread of the disease occurs in the Punjab (India) after the rains. The probability is that the term " epidemic " is not strictly applicable to these rises in the general malaria incidence. The spread of this disease is due to several atmospheric and geographical factors which must all coincide and combine so as to produce the most favourable conditions. Moreover, the autumn brood of anopheline mosquitoes has just made its appearance, and the THERMOMETRIC SCALES. insects are more numerous in the early autumn THE anniversary of the death of the German glass- months than at any other time of the year. Add to blower, Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit -he died in this economic conditions such as are reigning in Amsterdam on Sept. 16th, 1736-reminds us that he South Russia to-day which render the population had the remarkable intuition of using the temperature more susceptibile to infections of all kinds, and it is of the human body as the standard for a thermometric no matter of surprise that the spread of a malarial scale. He was also short-sighted enough to suppose that in the Volga valley is reported by the epidemic a mixture of ice and salt which lie prepared was the American Relief Administration. The outbreak is coldest thing in creation, and having made this his particularly severe in Saratov and Samara, whence zero he then counted the body temperature as 12 and, Dr. F. E. Foucar reports that from 20 to 40 cent. working upwards and downwards he noted the freezing- of the population are more or less affected.perLarge point of water to be 8 and its boiling-point 53. He quantities of quinine are available and steps are next multiplied each of these figures by four in order taken to cope with the epidemic. to lengthen out his scale, and even now the German being glass-blower’s inspired miscalculations form the basis LOCAL BLASTOMYCOSIS. of our clinical, sick-room, and even greenhouse thermometers. Fahrenheit spent most of his life in England ALTHOUGH blastomycotic dermatitis is a comparaand was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and tively common disease, many cases having been maybe for that reason and because of a few years’ reported since it was first described in 1894, cases of precedence in time his scale maintains the field in this blastomycosis localised elsewhere than in the skin country and America. It was in 1724 that he published have very rarely been noted, and hence a report by his suggestion; 15 years later, in 1739, the French M. Haase, E. R. Hall, and C. H. Marshalll of an scientist, Rene de Reaumur, made known a. thermo- extremely rare phase of this condition is of interest. metric scale using, not the human body, but the The patient, a negro of 78, had been suffering from 1 Surg., Gyn., and Obstet., vol. xxxiv., p. 597.
were
cases
occupying
1
Journal of American Mod. Assoc., Sept. 2nd, 1922.