The Bi-Coloured Guaiac Reaction in Mental Hospital Practice

1934 ◽  
Vol 80 (328) ◽  
pp. 87-93
Author(s):  
S. W. Hardwick

The object of this investigation was to ascertain the value of the bicoloured guaiac reaction on the cerebro-spinal fluid in mental hospital practice. The reaction, which was first described by de Thurzo (i), is similar in principle to the Lange gold sol test, in that under certain conditions precipitation occurs from a colloidal system. Its originality depends on the fact that two dyes, naphthol green and brilliant fuchsin are contained in the system, one of which attaches itself to the precipitating colloid (brilliant fuchsin), whilst the other (naphthol green) remains in the supernatant fluid. It is claimed that it is not so susceptible to possible fallacies as the gold sol test (such as chemical uncleanliness), that it is possibly more selective in its action, and that it has the same practical value in the laboratory diagnosis of neuro-syphilis. Results have been reported on hospital cases (2) showing fair agreement with the Lange and Wassermann tests, but so far no records are available showing the value of this test in a series of neuro-syphilitic cases from mental hospitals, with the exception of a brief report on 10 cases (3). The present report deals with 325 fluids obtained from cases in L.C.C. mental hospitals, and these included 125 cases of general paralysis treated by malaria and other pyrexial therapies.

1953 ◽  
Vol 99 (414) ◽  
pp. 123-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalton E. Sands

Since the treatment of juveniles as in-patients in a special unit is somewhat unusual in mental hospital practice, a brief introduction may not be out of place. These units might be considered as another development in a trend which has been progressing for the past 25 years. Until 1930 certification of all admissions to mental hospitals and a mainly custodial régime ensured the majority of patients being largely the end-results of psychiatric illness. Since 1930 the steadily increasing use of the voluntary system has brought many patients to hospital at a stage when their illness can be favourably influenced by modern therapeutic methods. An associated development was the increased provision of wards or units separate from the chronically disturbed cases, or even, as at this hospital, a complete villa system of detached and semi-detached wards for mainly voluntary adult patients.


1932 ◽  
Vol 78 (323) ◽  
pp. 843-866 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. D. Nicol

Shortly after the introduction of therapeutic malaria into this country, the Ministry of Health and the Board of Control, in consultation with the London County Council Mental Hospitals Department, established a special centre for this treatment at Horton Mental Hospital. A separate villa in the hospital grounds was set apart for the work, and, through the interest, advice and help of Col. S. P. James, M.D., F.R.S., of the Ministry of Health, a laboratory was equipped and arrangements were made for the supply of malarial infective material to all parts of Great Britain. The work was begun in April, 1925, and during the seven years that have elapsed since then, 200 cases have been treated. These cases are all women, drawn from the various London County Mental Hospitals; recently, however, an annexe has been added to the centre, and facilities are now available for treating men also.


1940 ◽  
Vol 86 (364) ◽  
pp. 928-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Bierer

In no other branch of medicine have doctors appeared so nihilistic or so defeatist as in the domain of psychiatry. It seems to me questionable whether this is due to the disparity in the therapeutic results between psychiatry on the one hand and general medicine on the other. In general medicine it is frequently forgotten that the really specific remedies at our disposal are so few that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. If, on the other hand, we remember that as late as the time of the French Revolution mental patients were kept in chains, and that to-day in modern hospitals we see impressive results with such specific treatments as malarial therapy, then it must be admitted that the psychiatrist is not the only nihilist; but that this also applies to representatives of other branches of general medicine.


1927 ◽  
Vol 73 (301) ◽  
pp. 200-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. K. Drury

The subject of artificial heliotherapy is at present attracting much attention in both scientific and lay worlds. The Board of Control report for 1925 states that there were only five installations in mental hospitals at that time, but doubtless there are more now. I venture therefore to place before you some notes on ultra-violet therapy in the hope that they may be of interest to those thinking of taking up this line of work; and that by their criticisms and observations I may learn from those who have already done so.


1937 ◽  
Vol 83 (345) ◽  
pp. 472-477
Author(s):  
David Prentice

Dr. Prentice said that syphilis, in its incidence, diagnosis and treatment, presented, in mental hospital practice, problems which differed from those met with in dealing with the disease in general practice and in V.D. clinics. In the former its incidence was higher than in the general population, and that was largely because many of those whose nervous system had become affected by the later stages of the infection ultimately developed a psychosis. Drugs which were efficacious in somatic syphilis showed but little therapeutic effect in the treatment of the nervous system when affected by syphilis. There was a wide variation in the syphilis occurrence-rate among new admissions to mental hospitals, namely, from 5% to 31%; there was no doubt that incidence varied in different parts of the country; for instance, at Whittingham Mental Hospital, Lancashire, the male admissions in one year showed 21–9% with syphilis, and females 8–9%. At Narborough in the past two years—using the same methods of diagnosis—the positive males were only 7–7%, the females 4–6%. It was difficult to estimate reliably what proportion of the general population suffer from syphilis, but comparison of the figures of the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases with those given by numerous workers in mental hospitals—excluding cases of general paresis and meningo-vascular syphilis—showed that the part played by syphilis in the ætiology of ordinary mental diseases must be a very small one. Bearing in mind the body-mind relationship, any toxic or infective process which could be a factor in the ætiology of mental illness should be dealt with. Even if the disease were predominantly psychogenic, all possible physiogenic factors should be eliminated or dealt with.


2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (11) ◽  
pp. 1393-1398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reikichi Iwamoto ◽  
Akishi Nara ◽  
Toshihiko Matsuda

In the present report we studied spectral characteristics of the near-infrared combination and overtone bands of CH vibrations of a CH sequence. The near-infrared bands of the CH in CHX3 (X, halogen), which were interpreted in terms of the CH stretching and CH deformation fundamentals without any ambiguity, typically showed how the frequency and intensity of a combination or an overtone depend on the vibrational excited state. In the CH–C–CH of CHX2CX2CHX2, the vibrations of one CH are isolated from those of the other CH, and the combination and overtone bands were similarly interpreted as those of the CH, although each of the combination bands was split into two because of non-degeneracy of the CH deformation. In the CH–CH of CHX2CHX2, the CH deformations only have coupled modes. The first combination showed four narrowly separate bands, which were reasonably interpreted on the basis of the CH stretching and the coupled CH deformation modes. We demonstrated that the first combination of coupled modes as well as the combination of up to, at least, the third order of isolated modes have the nature of the characteristic bands.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 482-503
Author(s):  
T. N. HARRIS ◽  
SUSANNA HARRIS ◽  
RUTH L. NAGLE

Titrations of antibodies to four streptococcal antigens have been carried out in the sera of patients with rheumatic fever and of convalescents from streptococcal infections. These antigens are the hyaluronidase, the hemolysin, and two somatic fractions, the cytoplasmic particles and supernate proteins. Mean titers to all of these antigens were elevated in both rheumatic and streptococcal infection. The mean titer was somewhat higher in rheumatic than in streptococcal infection in the case of three of these antibodies. In the case of the fourth, antihyaluronidase, this difference was considerably greater. The antihyaluronidase titer showed better correlation with changes in the activity of the rheumatic infection than did the other tests. There was, however, no striking correlation between this titer and the severity of the illness. Application was made of these findings to the problem of laboratory diagnosis of rheumatic fever by streptococcal serology. A method is presented for assessing the relative usefulness of such tests in terms of the, distribution of their titers in this disease and in health. By this method the antihyaluronidase test was found to be most useful of the four. The comparative diagnostic value for rheumatic fever was studied in the case of the antihyaluronidase test, the antistreptolysin test, and of combinations of both tests.


2010 ◽  
Vol 54 (8) ◽  
pp. 711-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daiane Rodrigues Barbosa Belgini ◽  
Maricilda Palandi de Mello ◽  
Maria Tereza Matias Baptista ◽  
Daniel Minutti de Oliveira ◽  
Fernanda Canova Denardi ◽  
...  

In 2004, Costa-Santos and cols. reported 24 patients from 19 Brazilian families with 17α-hydroxylase deficiency and showed that p.W406R and p.R362C corresponded to 50% and 32% of CYP17A1 mutant alleles, respectively. The present report describes clinical and molecular data of six patients from three inbred Brazilian families with 17α-hydroxlyse deficiency. All patients had hypogonadism, amenorrhea and hypertension at diagnosis. Two sisters were found to be 46,XY with both gonads palpable in the inguinal region. All patients presented hypergonadotrophic hypogonadism, with high levels of ACTH (> 104 ng/mL), suppressed plasmatic renin activity, low levels of potassium (< 2.8 mEq/L) and elevated progesterone levels (> 4.4 ng/mL). Three of them, including two sisters, were homozygous for p.W406R mutation and the other three (two sisters and one cousin) were homozygous for p.R362C. The finding of p.W406R and p.R362C in the CYP17A1 gene here reported in additional families, confirms them as the most frequent mutations causing complete combined 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase deficiency in Brazilian patients.


1893 ◽  
Vol 39 (165) ◽  
pp. 217-224
Author(s):  
M. J. Nolan

At the present time, when our fin de siècle knowledge of “general paralysis” enables us to recognize under that generic term many types of the disorder, and when the relation between it and syphilis continues a rather vexed question, little apology is needed for introducing to notice the following cases. They illustrate unmistakably some of the instances in which syphilis is solely responsible for what. Is termed by Dr. Savage” A process of degeneration which ultimately produces the ruin we recognize as general paralysis.”∗ Whatever may be hereafter formulated from the present evolutionary crisis in the history of the disorder there can be but little doubt that syphilis will be one of its most intimate and important relations. The story of its methods is briefly sketched in the following two short life-histories—in one asserting itself in the offspring of its victims by right of impure heredity, in the other carrying death direct into the vital centres by the force of its malignant virus.


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