Res Medica (E-Journal)
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The Diagnosis of Hysteria
Get PDFI must confess at the outset that the subject of hysteria still awaits an adequate definition but the following one is as good as any so far produced. "Hysteria is a person\u27s response to environmental difficulties, which makes it impossible for that person to perform his duties." Hysteria can be considered as subconscious malingering, but this concept too, fails to be comprehensive. In making the diagnosis of hysteria the following aspects should be considered: The personality of the patient. Dissociation. Suggestion. The actual clinical features. The role of organic and psychological factors.Perhaps the most salient feature of hysteria is its propensity to occur more commonly in people with what is known as a hysterical personality
Some Aspects of Poliomyelitis
Get PDFThis article is an attempt to present a few of the interesting facets of poliomyelitis. It certainly does notinclude all the important aspects; these can be found in any standard text-book. There is evidence that poliomyelitis occurred in very early times;indeed, Osler in his Textbook of Medicine in the 1890’s believes the first recorded case to be in the Bible—2 Samuel, ch. 4, verse 4—“And Jonathan, Saul’sson, had a son that was lame on his feet. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled:and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.” It was common belief that this paralysis followed a minor accident, and that it was cause and effect; this belief persisted until well into the nineteenth century. Thus Mephibosheth fell and became lame at the age of five. Was he the first recorded case of poliomyelitis? Osier believes so
Auscultation of the Heart I
Get PDF"And the babe leaps up on his mother\u27s arm I hear, I hear, with joy I hear." Wordsworth.All students find initial difficulty with auscultation and to some, variations in heart sounds and murmurs remain a mystery. However, given normal hearing, a good stethoscope, an appreciation of underlying mechanisms and reasonable opportunity to practise, everyone would become sufficiently competent. The essential requirements are a methodical approach and attention to detail and then, if what is heard is accurately recorded, the correct diagnosis should follow in most cases. It is important to be able to recognise variations in the intensity and splitting of the heart sounds, the physiological and pathological forms of triple rhythm and the murmurs associated with valvular stenosis or incompetence and with congenital cardiac and vascular defects. Recognition of auscultatory phenomena is important not only for accurate diagnosis but to avoid errors of interpretation and, in particular, the frequent error of suspecting or actually diagnosing heart disease when none is present and thereby engendering anxiety and imposing unwarranted restrictions
The Biological Basis of Individuality
Get PDFPhilosophers have had much to say on the question of personal identity, though I must confess that I have not found any of it very helpful. Most of you, I suspect, would find yourselves in agreement with John Locke whose robust common sense has I think a special appeal to medical men, perhaps because he was one himself-that we each have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence. Some of you, on the other hand, as good sons of Edinburgh, may prefer the sophism of David Hume, and affirm that man is nothing but a bundle of perceptions-though Hume himself later in life appeared to have doubts about this. Perhaps, though I hope not, a few of you may believe that Society or The State is the smallest unit worth bothering about, and that what we call an individual is merely an abstraction
The Nature of Leukaemia
Get PDFThe classification of leukaemia as a pathological process has proved difficult, as it exhibits features of more than one of the main disease types. It is most widely recognised as a neoplastic disease, but it does not behave entirely in this way ; the remitting and relapsing course of the chronic leukeamias is not at all typical of the malignant diseases. In some respects, leukaemia resembles a profound metabolic disturbance, while its presentation and course in the acute form are similar to those of a fulminating infection. This last comparison is rather difficult since severe local infection and even septicaemia are sometimes found in association with the acute types of leukaemia. Although a viral agent has been established as causative in avian leukaemias, no micro-organism has yet been shown to be associated with the human forms of the disease. The uncontrolled proliferation of primitive cells of the leucopoietic system and the capacity of these cells to infiltrate various tissues with an eventual fatal termination is in keeping with a neoplastic process and may represent an extreme form, in company with such conditions as diffuse myelomatosis. However, local deposits of leukaemic tissue such as chloroma are not as common as the local type of myeloma
Res Medica
Get PDFVIRUSES AND CANCERThe discovery of many new tumour viruses has established beyond doubt that the virus is a common cause of neoplastic disease in plants, amphibians, birds and mammals. There is as yet no experimental proof available that any one type of human cancer is induced by a virus, although it would be strange if nature were to divide so sharply the origin of cancer in animals and man. Several reports strongly suggest the presence of tumour virus in human neoplasms. These include :-(1) Electron-microscopic findings of virus-like particles in lymph nodes of patients with acute leukaemia.(2) Isolation of nucleic acids with cytopathic properties from human tumours.(3) Development of mammary tumours in mice injected at birth with extracts of a variety of human tumours; the uninoculated controls showed an insignificant tumour incidenc
Harvey Through the Minds of Our Generation
Get PDFFrom the Oration delivered to the Harveian Society, June, 1961."The return of one Harveian Festival recalls from the subconscious a host of feelings to each of us, in the forefront the sense of profound reverence towards one of the Di Immortales of medicine; in little less degree, the sense of pride-national pride-that the unraveller of the enigma of the circulation was British born. For it is not we alone, who, on the day of celebration, stand bareheaded before the perpetual monument; in every school of medicine the world over the same impulse is felt, whatever the outward expression.
Abdominal Crises II
Get PDFWith national concern critically focussed upon the increasing problem of accidents it is well to remember that although the vast majority of injuries affect the extremities and although these injuries are a cause of great morbidity it is injuries to the head, the chest and the abdomen which kill. The closed head injury of civilian life is more misleading and often more rapidly fatal than many open wounds where the brain is exposed. So with abdominal injuries the intact abdomen may make diagnosis difficult and encourage a false sense of security. If the abdominal contents are damaged, two disasters may befall. First—and most urgent—is internal haemorrhage from lacerations of the solid viscera, especially spleen or liver, or from tearing of vessels. Later, if hollow organs have been damaged, the escape of their contents will lead to peritonitis
Res Medica
Get PDFWhy should a serious journal be set in such sombre style that it requires real effort to take it up and open it? Is it not possible to produce an attractive, lively appearance which stimulates rather than deadens the reader?With such questions in mind, a committee sat down to talk over the future of Res Medica last summer. We hope that the answers are evident in this issue. You will have noticed first that the cover has been completely re-designed and we trust that this serves to set the new ‘image’ of our journal. The new format allows us to use double columns which we prefer for both aesthetic and technical reasons
J.B. Baikie – Doctor and Explorer
Get PDFDr. James Balfour Baikie died, aged thirty nine, on the West Coast of Africa one hundred years ago. His name appears in the History of the Royal Medical Society as having been its President in 1847-48: that and nothing, absolutely nothing, more. Yet this man was one of the most remarkable of the many great medical graduates of Edinburgh in the nineteenth century and his name is revered by all scholars of West African history