- Email: [email protected]
INCLUSION BODIES DUE TO BURNS
1333
profound changes
noted in mice and
school devoted to this end.
guineapigs.
When Hisaw and his colleagues3 first put forward
their claims for a special luteal hormone " relaxin " they stressed the occurrence of relaxation as distinct from absorption in the pelvic joints. The subject is complicated, and made more interesting, by the fact that oestrogen will in time cause absorption of the symphysis pubis of the non-pregnant mouse4 and guineapig and may therefore be partly responsible for the process in pregnancy, though in this condition The work of the change is much more rapid. Willard Allen, Robson and others 5 on maintenance of the corpus luteum by oestrogen suggests yet another route through which oestrogen might act. It is not yet clear whether the paradoxical deposition of bone in the long bones which accompanies experimental " oestrogenic" pelvic absorption also takes place in pregnancy. AUGUST BIER AS A PIONEER
THE inclusion of the bust of August Bier among the pioneers of surgery whose work has entitled them to a place in the lecture room of the University Surgical Hospital in Berlin was made the occasion of an address by Prof. Paul Rostock.6 He reminded his audience of a day, exactly seven years earlier, when Bier delivered his valedictory address in the same room. Tracing the most notable features of Bier’s career, the speaker dwelt at some length on the part he played in exploiting hyperaemia of different structures as a therapeutic measure. Bier’s passive congestion, of which so much was heard at the end of last century, had, in the speaker’s opinion, become a well-established principle familiar to the layman as well as to the doctor. In his treatment of surgical tuberculosis, of the bones and joints in particular, Bier emphasised the importance of the general health and consistently opposed the tendency common some decades ago to restrict attention to the local manifestations of tuberculosis. By the success with which he treated tuberculosis on conservative lines in the lowlands he did much to dispel the dogma that an Alpine climate possessed therapeutic properties denied to localities below a certain altitude. Towards the end of the ’nineties he became engrossed in the problems of ansesthesia for operations, and he diligently sought - some ideal anaesthetic acting through the vascular system. His vein-anaesthesia did not, however, prove successful, whereas his lumbar anaesthesia has proved an important advance in this field. It was characteristic of Bier that, in working out the technique of this procedure, he experimented first on himself. In cooperation with Hugo Schulz, the pharmacologist, Bier had the courage to flirt with the principles of homoeopathy, having satisfied himself that dosage may be the determining factor in exciting or allaying various morbid manifestations. He was one of the earliest patrons of modern bloodtransfusion, and he experimented with the injection of blood derived from creatures other than man. Studying the problems of the regeneration of tissues, he found himself more and more interested in the glands of internal secretion and the possibilities of their scientific exploitation. In his later years he did much to promote physical exercises for both the sick and well, and he was the first rector of a high 3. Fevold, H. L., Hisaw, F. L., and Meyer, R. K., Proc. Soc. exp. Biol., N.Y. 1930, 27, 604. 4. Gardner, W. U., Amer. J. Anat. 1936, 59, 459. 5. Allen, W. M., Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 1937, vol. v, p. 66 ; Robson, J. M., J. Physiol. 1937, 90, 435 ; Westman, A., and Jacobsohn, D., Acta obstet. gynec. scand. 1937, 17, 13. 6. Rostock, P., Münch. med. Wschr. April 7, 1939, p. 521.
spite of all these Bier found time to of the greatest of his
In
engrossing practical interests, hark back constantly to a study teachers-Hippocrates.
INCLUSION BODIES DUE TO BURNS
ALTHOUGH one thinks of inclusion bodies as chiefly related to virus diseases, they may be found in conditions in which there is no reason to assume the presence of a virus. An example of this is described by Belt/ who in 1932 assisted the late Prof. Oscar Klotz in investigating the histology of the liver in yellow fever. At that time they observed certain cytological changes which they regarded as distinctive of yellow fever, and it was not until two years after the publication of their paper that they encountered a case of fatal burns in which the liver changes were almost identical with what they had found in yellow fever. Belt has now collected three other cases of fatal burning showing the same appearances. The post-mortem findings were similar in all four cases. The livers were enlarged and pale yellow, with an extensive mid-zonal necrosis. Histologically there were cytoplasmic inclusions of the " Councilman body " type, together with many nuclear inclusions of the type described as class A by Cowdry. It has been debated whether or not inclusion bodies represent virus products, and Belt remarks that Klotz held the view that the nuclear inclusions were more like a chromatin degeneration. Their discovery as a concomitant of burns seems to support this ideh. HEALTH OF ICELAND
186-page report on public health in Iceland is published in Icelandic, but a concession is made to readers unfamiliar with this language in an English summary running to five pages. Of the total population of 116,880 at the end of 1936, 35,300 lived in Reykjavik. It is a serious study of epidemiological problems in a community which, as we have had occasion before to point out, is self-contained to an unusual degree. With approximately one-third of its population concentrated in a single town, Iceland has been faced with public-health problems at once urban and rural. In 1935 epidemic diseases were rife and were largely responsible for the unusually high death-rate of 12.2 per 1000 : in 1936 the deathrate was down to 10-8. Apart from measles, which ran through the whole country in 1936, the only infectious disease attracting special attention that A
year
was
enteric fever in The disease
an
island with about 100
having become endemic, bacteriological investigation was carried out, and
inhabitants. a
in due course a carrier was discovered and the necessary steps were taken for the prevention of further infection. The notification of venereal diseases revealed 632 cases of gonorrhoea (as compared with 372 in 1932) but only 16 cases of syphilis and 1 of soft sore. While in 1927 the deaths from all forms of tuberculosis numbered 206, the correspond. ing figure for 1936 was only 157. In spite of this decline, tuberculosis came numerically second in the list of causes of death, " old age " alone providing a greater number of deaths (196). Third in the list Diseases came malignant growths with 149 deaths. of the heart, pneumonia, apoplexy, accidents, measles, premature birth and debility of newborn, and nephritis were of numerical importance in the order given. Leprosy and hydatid disease-familiar 1. Belt, T. J., J. Path. Bact. May, 1939, p. 493.
profound changes
noted in mice and
school devoted to this end.
guineapigs.
When Hisaw and his colleagues3 first put forward
their claims for a special luteal hormone " relaxin " they stressed the occurrence of relaxation as distinct from absorption in the pelvic joints. The subject is complicated, and made more interesting, by the fact that oestrogen will in time cause absorption of the symphysis pubis of the non-pregnant mouse4 and guineapig and may therefore be partly responsible for the process in pregnancy, though in this condition The work of the change is much more rapid. Willard Allen, Robson and others 5 on maintenance of the corpus luteum by oestrogen suggests yet another route through which oestrogen might act. It is not yet clear whether the paradoxical deposition of bone in the long bones which accompanies experimental " oestrogenic" pelvic absorption also takes place in pregnancy. AUGUST BIER AS A PIONEER
THE inclusion of the bust of August Bier among the pioneers of surgery whose work has entitled them to a place in the lecture room of the University Surgical Hospital in Berlin was made the occasion of an address by Prof. Paul Rostock.6 He reminded his audience of a day, exactly seven years earlier, when Bier delivered his valedictory address in the same room. Tracing the most notable features of Bier’s career, the speaker dwelt at some length on the part he played in exploiting hyperaemia of different structures as a therapeutic measure. Bier’s passive congestion, of which so much was heard at the end of last century, had, in the speaker’s opinion, become a well-established principle familiar to the layman as well as to the doctor. In his treatment of surgical tuberculosis, of the bones and joints in particular, Bier emphasised the importance of the general health and consistently opposed the tendency common some decades ago to restrict attention to the local manifestations of tuberculosis. By the success with which he treated tuberculosis on conservative lines in the lowlands he did much to dispel the dogma that an Alpine climate possessed therapeutic properties denied to localities below a certain altitude. Towards the end of the ’nineties he became engrossed in the problems of ansesthesia for operations, and he diligently sought - some ideal anaesthetic acting through the vascular system. His vein-anaesthesia did not, however, prove successful, whereas his lumbar anaesthesia has proved an important advance in this field. It was characteristic of Bier that, in working out the technique of this procedure, he experimented first on himself. In cooperation with Hugo Schulz, the pharmacologist, Bier had the courage to flirt with the principles of homoeopathy, having satisfied himself that dosage may be the determining factor in exciting or allaying various morbid manifestations. He was one of the earliest patrons of modern bloodtransfusion, and he experimented with the injection of blood derived from creatures other than man. Studying the problems of the regeneration of tissues, he found himself more and more interested in the glands of internal secretion and the possibilities of their scientific exploitation. In his later years he did much to promote physical exercises for both the sick and well, and he was the first rector of a high 3. Fevold, H. L., Hisaw, F. L., and Meyer, R. K., Proc. Soc. exp. Biol., N.Y. 1930, 27, 604. 4. Gardner, W. U., Amer. J. Anat. 1936, 59, 459. 5. Allen, W. M., Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 1937, vol. v, p. 66 ; Robson, J. M., J. Physiol. 1937, 90, 435 ; Westman, A., and Jacobsohn, D., Acta obstet. gynec. scand. 1937, 17, 13. 6. Rostock, P., Münch. med. Wschr. April 7, 1939, p. 521.
spite of all these Bier found time to of the greatest of his
In
engrossing practical interests, hark back constantly to a study teachers-Hippocrates.
INCLUSION BODIES DUE TO BURNS
ALTHOUGH one thinks of inclusion bodies as chiefly related to virus diseases, they may be found in conditions in which there is no reason to assume the presence of a virus. An example of this is described by Belt/ who in 1932 assisted the late Prof. Oscar Klotz in investigating the histology of the liver in yellow fever. At that time they observed certain cytological changes which they regarded as distinctive of yellow fever, and it was not until two years after the publication of their paper that they encountered a case of fatal burns in which the liver changes were almost identical with what they had found in yellow fever. Belt has now collected three other cases of fatal burning showing the same appearances. The post-mortem findings were similar in all four cases. The livers were enlarged and pale yellow, with an extensive mid-zonal necrosis. Histologically there were cytoplasmic inclusions of the " Councilman body " type, together with many nuclear inclusions of the type described as class A by Cowdry. It has been debated whether or not inclusion bodies represent virus products, and Belt remarks that Klotz held the view that the nuclear inclusions were more like a chromatin degeneration. Their discovery as a concomitant of burns seems to support this ideh. HEALTH OF ICELAND
186-page report on public health in Iceland is published in Icelandic, but a concession is made to readers unfamiliar with this language in an English summary running to five pages. Of the total population of 116,880 at the end of 1936, 35,300 lived in Reykjavik. It is a serious study of epidemiological problems in a community which, as we have had occasion before to point out, is self-contained to an unusual degree. With approximately one-third of its population concentrated in a single town, Iceland has been faced with public-health problems at once urban and rural. In 1935 epidemic diseases were rife and were largely responsible for the unusually high death-rate of 12.2 per 1000 : in 1936 the deathrate was down to 10-8. Apart from measles, which ran through the whole country in 1936, the only infectious disease attracting special attention that A
year
was
enteric fever in The disease
an
island with about 100
having become endemic, bacteriological investigation was carried out, and
inhabitants. a
in due course a carrier was discovered and the necessary steps were taken for the prevention of further infection. The notification of venereal diseases revealed 632 cases of gonorrhoea (as compared with 372 in 1932) but only 16 cases of syphilis and 1 of soft sore. While in 1927 the deaths from all forms of tuberculosis numbered 206, the correspond. ing figure for 1936 was only 157. In spite of this decline, tuberculosis came numerically second in the list of causes of death, " old age " alone providing a greater number of deaths (196). Third in the list Diseases came malignant growths with 149 deaths. of the heart, pneumonia, apoplexy, accidents, measles, premature birth and debility of newborn, and nephritis were of numerical importance in the order given. Leprosy and hydatid disease-familiar 1. Belt, T. J., J. Path. Bact. May, 1939, p. 493.