1,720,969 research outputs found
8. Development of Dialysis to Treat Loss of Kidney Function
No full textThe kidney regulates the water, acid/alkali and ion balance of the body, and removes toxic products of metabolism and ingested poisons. It is thus not surprising that when the kidney fails to function properly the consequences are dire. Urine production falls and toxins build up in the plasma ultimately producing coma. Cardiac arrhythmias may be induced through build-up of potassium ions in the plasma. Death results if the condition is severe and untreated. Acute renal failure is a sudden dec..
6. The Conquest of Polio and the Contribution of Animal Experiments
No full textAny individual old enough to have even occasional recall of a childhood before World War II must be aware of the impact of antibacterial agents and vaccination on infective disease. With the advent of prontosil and hence the sulphonamides, followed by the antibiotics, death from common bacterial infections has become a comparative rarity. Similarly, the leg braces and iron lungs (Fig. 6.1) – a mark of the epidemics of poliomyelitis that were a regular feature of Europe and North America throu..
4. Pertussis Vaccine, Unfairly Maligned – At What Cost?
No full textWhooping cough prophylaxis, as pertussis vaccine, is routinely administered to infants together with diphtheria and tetanus as the DPT combined immunisation. After a short catarrhal phase, whooping cough begins with a dry nocturnal cough. This progresses to prolonged bouts of coughing which often end with a sharp intake of breath. The coughing fits may induce vomiting and, in severe cases, convulsions. Frank damage to the nervous system may occur, this is due to haemorrhage and lack of oxygen..
17. Penicillin And Laboratory Animals: The Animal Rights Myth
No full textThe dramatic impact of penicillin on the treatment of patients with severe infections has rightfully been paraded by biomedical researchers as a vindication of the value of laboratory animals in research. Opponents of animal experimentation are equally emphatic that animal experiments not only played no part in the development of penicillin but also that reliance on such techniques might well have caused penicillin to be discarded (1,2). The basis of the animal rights argument is that Fleming..
13. Animal Experiments and the Production of Insulin
No full textBefore 1922, the diagnosis of what was then called juvenile onset diabetes (type I or insulin-dependent diabetes, IDD), meant a lingering death within months. In that year, however, a team of workers in the physiological laboratories at the University of Toronto isolated and purified the hormone, insulin, from the pancreas. The purified insulin was shown to control not only the symptoms induced by removal of the pancreas in dogs, but also those of diabetes mellitus in patients. The production..
18. The History of Thalidomide
No full textNo drug has had a greater effect than thalidomide on the extent and intensity of the preclinical investigation of potential medicines required by the regulatory authorities. Indeed, the establishment of thalidomide as the cause of the apparent epidemic of children born with horrific deformities in the late 1950s was responsible for the institution of some regulatory bodies, such as the United Kingdom’s Committee on the Safety of Drugs, and for the strengthening of others, such as the Food and..
9. The Contribution of Animal Experiments to Kidney Transplantation
No full textHaemodialysis is life-saving and curative in acute renal failure. By reversing the build-up of metabolic products normally excreted by a functioning kidney, dialysis enables the temporarily affected kidneys to heal and resume normal function. In chronic renal failure however, the burden of regular dialysis is necessary unless a healthy kidney from a donor can be grafted. Chronic Renal Failure Chronic renal failure (CRF) due to glomerulonephritis, pyelonephritis or polycystic kidney disease is..
11. Artificial Heart Valves: From Caged Ball to Bioprosthesis
No full textThe heart is a dual pump. The right side receives blood from the body into the right atrium. From this chamber it passes to the right ventricle, a muscular pump capable of driving the de-oxygenated blood through the lungs via the pulmonary artery. Freshly-oxygenated blood returns to the left side of the pump via the pulmonary vein. From the left atrium blood passes into the left ventricle, an organ powerful enough to pump blood through all the organs of the body. The heart therefore pumps by ..
12. Animals and Blood Transfusion
No full textDoctors misled for over 200 years:History shows that a dependence on animal research delayed the introduction of blood transfusion by over 200 years.NAVS Leaflet, Ever had a blood transfusion? The assertion that animal experiments delayed the development of blood transfusion derives from the superficial and inaccurate accounts found in animal rights literature (see for example Ref. 1, page 157; Ref. 2 page 220). A brief review of primary sources reveals that animal experiments were crucial to..
19. Misleading Research or Misleading Statistics: Animal Experiments and Cancer Research
No full textScientists supported by the Cancer Research Campaign have prepared a vaccine which it is hoped will protect against infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Apart from causing glandular fever EBV is believed to be one causative factor for certain cancers. There is firm evidence for the involvement of this virus in Burkitt’s lymphoma and in cancer of the throat and nasopharynx, and evidence for the suggested link between EBV and Hodgkin’s disease is becoming more conclusive. Progress has recen..
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