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NOBEL PRIZEMEN
930 to members of lower socio-economic groups without intellectual or artistic interests who have not hitherto been interested in it.22 25 How much it is used in this country is unknown, but these American reports emphasise how varied the manifestations of L.S.D. toxicity can be and the importance of bearing the diagnosis in mind when disturbed patients are seen in hospital or general practice. They also draw attention, once again, to the distressing and long-lasting effects which L.S.D. may produce. While most L.s.D. users seem to be psychologically inadequate, and probably incapable of intelligent foresight in their own interests, there are others who may be tempted to use it in a socially experimental way. Suitable warnings may save them from tragic consequences. These dangers are quite apart from the possible effects of L.S.D. on chromosomes to which we referred last month,28 Since then, Auerbach and Rugowski 29have found evidence of teratogenic activity in mice given doses of L.S.D. below that equivalent to an average single exposure in man.
spreading
established. Apart from his many contributions to knowledge based on the study of the crab, Dr. Hartline also showed unequivocally the existence of off " as well as on responses to light by means of electrical records from single fibres dissected from the frog’s retina. Dr. George Wald’s work has, by contrast, been concerned with the most peripheral component of the visual receptor apparatus-namely, the photosensitive pigment. His careful studies of these pigments extending over many years, some carried out with his wife, Dr. Ruth Hubbard, brought great advances in knowledge of these crucially important substances. His researches on cis-trans was
"
"
"
isomerism in relation to the A vitamins and the retinenes and on the combination of these substances with protein are the basis for present-day ideas on the nature of the primary event in the transduction of light energy which takes place in the retinal rods. Dr. Wald has worked at Harvard for many years, but a short time ago he was induced to exchange Cambridge, Massachusetts, for Cambridge, England, for a period which gave British physiologists a welcome opportunity to enjoy his company.
NOBEL PRIZEMEN
THIS year’s Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine has been awarded to three distinguished workers on visual mechanisms; and the news will focus attention on what is often regarded as an esoteric subject. Six years ago the prize went to Dr. G. von Bekesy for his work on hearing; and again the Nobel committee, within a short time, have seen fit to recognise outstanding work in the study of the
special
senses.
year’s laureates probably Prof. Ragnar Granit, Stockholm, will be best known to the British medical public, partly because his work has extended into wide areas of neurophysiology not immediately connected with vision and partly because of his close association with Sir Charles Sherrington and his school at Oxford. In 1966 Granit wrote an appraisal of Sherrington; and it is a pleasing coincidence that he received news of the Nobel award while in Oxford as a visiting fellow of St. Catherine’s College. His work on vision began before the era of microelectrodes, and his paper with Graham in 1931 demonstrating the phenomenon of inhibition in the visual system is a landmark in the history of the psychophysical approach to sensory mechanisms. Early in his career he exploited the technique of electroretinography and the results of some experiments using this method were published with Dr. Sybil Cooper and her late husband, Dr. R. S. Creed, from Oxford in 1933. Later, with Svaetichin, Granit applied microelectrodes to the investigation of isolated retinal elements, and he used such recordings with considerable success to attack the problems of colour vision. From this work there emerged his well-known dominator-modulator theory. The name of Dr. H. K. Hartline is especially associated Of this
of
with his introduction in 1928 of the horse-shoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) as an experimental animal. One day at a party he met a patriarchal German ophthalmologist; and the story goes that the great man turned to Hartline and asked what he worked on. Hartline replied " on the eye of limulus ", to which the reply was " then you should know the work of Hartline ". On hearing that he was in fact addressing Hartline, the older man clicked his heels, stood to attention, and a new order of precedence 28. 29.
Lancet, Sept. 2, 1967, p. 504. Auerbach, R., Rugowski, J. A. Science, N. Y. 1967, 157,
1325.
CONTAMINATED NITROUS OXIDE
EARLY
in
September, 1966, three patients were poisoned by higher oxides of nitrogen which were present contaminants in nitrous oxide used for anaesthesia.1 Severe cyanosis within a few minutes of starting to inhale the gas was followed soon by severe circulatory collapse, and some hours later by increasing respiratory insufficiency due to oedema and consolidation of the lung. Despite energetic treatment in an intensive-care ward, two of the patients died of respiratory inadequacy some hours after the poisoning. The third, who had only inhaled the contaminated gas for about 4 minutes, was sufficiently ill to need inhalation of oxygen and very careful observation in the intensive-care ward. Fortunately she rapidly recovered within 24 hours and suffered no permanent harm. The diagnosis of this poisoning was particularly difficult, because it was outside the experience of the anxsthetists, and indeed was only arrived at when two consecutive patients reacted in the same way. The cyanosis was shown to be due to methaemoglobinaemia, which was rapidly and successfully treated by the intravenous injection of 10 ml. of 1% methylene-blue. The early circulatory collapse was probably caused by hypoxia induced by the methoemoglobinoemia. Methsemoglobifi: like carboxyhtmoglobin (but to a lesser degree), not only reduces the amount of haemoglobin in the blood by simple replacement, but also shifts the dissociation curve of the remaining hxmoglobin to the left, and thus may very seriously reduce the oxygen-carrying power of the blood. The methaemoglobinaemia was caused by the higher oxides of nitrogen producing nitrite ions, and the respiratory inadequacy followed the formation in the lungs of nitrous and nitric acids which produce non-specific oedema and bronchopneumonia, closely resembling the Mendelson’s syndrome which occurs when hydrochloric acid from the stomach is inhaled. As soon as poisoning was confirmed by the discovery of the methaemoglobinaEmia the suspect cylinders were returned to the makers, whose initial finding was that the nitrous oxide had been contaminated with a small amount of nitrogen peroxide. as
1.
Br. J.
Anœsth. 1967, 39, 343.
spreading
established. Apart from his many contributions to knowledge based on the study of the crab, Dr. Hartline also showed unequivocally the existence of off " as well as on responses to light by means of electrical records from single fibres dissected from the frog’s retina. Dr. George Wald’s work has, by contrast, been concerned with the most peripheral component of the visual receptor apparatus-namely, the photosensitive pigment. His careful studies of these pigments extending over many years, some carried out with his wife, Dr. Ruth Hubbard, brought great advances in knowledge of these crucially important substances. His researches on cis-trans was
"
"
"
isomerism in relation to the A vitamins and the retinenes and on the combination of these substances with protein are the basis for present-day ideas on the nature of the primary event in the transduction of light energy which takes place in the retinal rods. Dr. Wald has worked at Harvard for many years, but a short time ago he was induced to exchange Cambridge, Massachusetts, for Cambridge, England, for a period which gave British physiologists a welcome opportunity to enjoy his company.
NOBEL PRIZEMEN
THIS year’s Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine has been awarded to three distinguished workers on visual mechanisms; and the news will focus attention on what is often regarded as an esoteric subject. Six years ago the prize went to Dr. G. von Bekesy for his work on hearing; and again the Nobel committee, within a short time, have seen fit to recognise outstanding work in the study of the
special
senses.
year’s laureates probably Prof. Ragnar Granit, Stockholm, will be best known to the British medical public, partly because his work has extended into wide areas of neurophysiology not immediately connected with vision and partly because of his close association with Sir Charles Sherrington and his school at Oxford. In 1966 Granit wrote an appraisal of Sherrington; and it is a pleasing coincidence that he received news of the Nobel award while in Oxford as a visiting fellow of St. Catherine’s College. His work on vision began before the era of microelectrodes, and his paper with Graham in 1931 demonstrating the phenomenon of inhibition in the visual system is a landmark in the history of the psychophysical approach to sensory mechanisms. Early in his career he exploited the technique of electroretinography and the results of some experiments using this method were published with Dr. Sybil Cooper and her late husband, Dr. R. S. Creed, from Oxford in 1933. Later, with Svaetichin, Granit applied microelectrodes to the investigation of isolated retinal elements, and he used such recordings with considerable success to attack the problems of colour vision. From this work there emerged his well-known dominator-modulator theory. The name of Dr. H. K. Hartline is especially associated Of this
of
with his introduction in 1928 of the horse-shoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) as an experimental animal. One day at a party he met a patriarchal German ophthalmologist; and the story goes that the great man turned to Hartline and asked what he worked on. Hartline replied " on the eye of limulus ", to which the reply was " then you should know the work of Hartline ". On hearing that he was in fact addressing Hartline, the older man clicked his heels, stood to attention, and a new order of precedence 28. 29.
Lancet, Sept. 2, 1967, p. 504. Auerbach, R., Rugowski, J. A. Science, N. Y. 1967, 157,
1325.
CONTAMINATED NITROUS OXIDE
EARLY
in
September, 1966, three patients were poisoned by higher oxides of nitrogen which were present contaminants in nitrous oxide used for anaesthesia.1 Severe cyanosis within a few minutes of starting to inhale the gas was followed soon by severe circulatory collapse, and some hours later by increasing respiratory insufficiency due to oedema and consolidation of the lung. Despite energetic treatment in an intensive-care ward, two of the patients died of respiratory inadequacy some hours after the poisoning. The third, who had only inhaled the contaminated gas for about 4 minutes, was sufficiently ill to need inhalation of oxygen and very careful observation in the intensive-care ward. Fortunately she rapidly recovered within 24 hours and suffered no permanent harm. The diagnosis of this poisoning was particularly difficult, because it was outside the experience of the anxsthetists, and indeed was only arrived at when two consecutive patients reacted in the same way. The cyanosis was shown to be due to methaemoglobinaemia, which was rapidly and successfully treated by the intravenous injection of 10 ml. of 1% methylene-blue. The early circulatory collapse was probably caused by hypoxia induced by the methoemoglobinoemia. Methsemoglobifi: like carboxyhtmoglobin (but to a lesser degree), not only reduces the amount of haemoglobin in the blood by simple replacement, but also shifts the dissociation curve of the remaining hxmoglobin to the left, and thus may very seriously reduce the oxygen-carrying power of the blood. The methaemoglobinaemia was caused by the higher oxides of nitrogen producing nitrite ions, and the respiratory inadequacy followed the formation in the lungs of nitrous and nitric acids which produce non-specific oedema and bronchopneumonia, closely resembling the Mendelson’s syndrome which occurs when hydrochloric acid from the stomach is inhaled. As soon as poisoning was confirmed by the discovery of the methaemoglobinaEmia the suspect cylinders were returned to the makers, whose initial finding was that the nitrous oxide had been contaminated with a small amount of nitrogen peroxide. as
1.
Br. J.
Anœsth. 1967, 39, 343.