A 14-year experience with kidney transplantation.

Between November, 1962 and August, 1975, 668 kidney transplants were done in 556 consecutive patients at Denver, Colorado. The Denver experience has been divided into 7 periods of time, according to the conditions of care during each period. The results in related transplantation have changed little during the decade beginning in 1966. The results in unrelated transplantation have not materially changed since 1968. The long-term patient survival after related transplantation has been better than after cadaver transplantation. The results of transplantation in 57 children ages 3 to 18 years have been slightly better than the results of adult transplantation. The outcome of kidney transplantation and the feasibility of improving this therapy with present techniques are limited by our inability to accurately match each patient with the immunologically best donor and by our inability to precisely control the immune system of the recipient. Rejection is still the main reason for graft loss, and sepsis remains the main cause of patient mortality. More specific and less toxic means of achieving graft acceptance are needed before a higher level of patient service can be realized. However, even with the tools now available, thousands of recipients throughout the world have been returned to useful lives

A biomolecular archaeological approach to ‘Nordic grog’

The combined archaeological, biomolecular, and archaeobotanical evidence from four sites in Denmark (Nandrup, Kostræde, and Juellinge) and Sweden (Havor on the island of Gotland) provide key reference points for reconstructing ‘Nordic grog’ from ca. 1500 BC to the first century AD. In general, Nordic peoples preferred a hybrid beverage or ‘grog,’ in which many ingredients were fermented together, including locally available honey, local fruit (e.g., bog cranberry, and lingonberry) and cereals (wheat, rye, and/or barley), and sometimes grape wine imported from farther south in Europe. Local herbs/spices, such as bog myrtle, yarrow and juniper, and birch tree resin rounded out the concoction and provide the earliest chemical attestations for their use in Nordic fermented beverages. The aggregate ingredients probably served medicinal purposes, as well as contributing special flavors and aromas. They continued to be important ingredients for many kinds of beverages throughout medieval times and up to the present. The importation of grape wine from southern or central Europe as early as ca. 1100 BC, again chemically attested here for the first time, is of considerable cultural significance. It demonstrates the social and ceremonial prestige attached to wine, especially when it was served up as ‘Nordic grog’ in special wine-sets imported from the south. It also points to an active trading network across Europe as early as the Bronze Age in which amber might have been the principle good exchanged for wine. The presence of pine resin in the beverages likely derives from the imported wine, added as a preservative for its long journey northward