Biodiversity, traditional medicine and public health: where do they meet?

Given the increased use of traditional medicines, possibilities that would ensure its successful integration into a public health framework should be explored. This paper discusses some of the links between biodiversity and traditional medicine, and addresses their implications to public health. We explore the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services to global and human health, the risks which human impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity present to human health and welfare

A short history of Fort Wynyard. Table bay defences

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Die uniformknope van die Suid-Afrikaanse vloot en sy voorgangers

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Lower north battery - Defended Port of Simon's town

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A new look at the castle of good hope and its symbolic importance

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Unexplored aspects of the South Africa's First World War history

Although the Great War of 1914-18 is within living memory it is disturbing to discover how many gaps there seem to be in our knowledge of this subject. In this offering I shall consider some of these in the hope that the interest of other researchers may be aroused, before the last of the veterans of that most terrible of all wars, fade away.Keywords: Jan van Melle's short stories; Die Joiner; Weer by die huis; South African War of 1899-1902; Commandant Jopie Fourie; South African Medical Corps; Steinkopf Unit of Intelligence; Union Defence Force; South African Mounted Rifleme

South Africa's first anti-aircraft guns

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Anti-saccharomyces cerevisiae antibodies status is associated with oral involvement and disease severity in Crohn Disease

Objectives: To determine anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibodies (ASCA) status and its relation to disease phenotype in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Patients and Methods: A total of 301 Scottish patients with early-onset IBD-197 Crohn disease (CD), 76 ulcerative colitis (UC), 28 indeterminate colitis (IC)-and 78 healthy control individuals were studied. ASCA status (IgA, IgG) was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. ASCA status was then analyzed in relation to CD phenotype. Results: Patients with CD had a higher prevalence of ASCA than patients with UC and healthy controls: 82/197 versus 12/76, odds ratio (OR) 3.80 (1.93-7.50) and 82/197 versus 6/78, OR 8.56 (3.55-20.62), respectively. Univariate analysis showed that positive ASCA status was associated with oral CD (17/25 vs 59/153, OR 3.39 [1.38-8.34]), perianal CD (39/77 vs 38/108, OR 1.89 [1.04-3.44]) and the presence of granulomata (63/132 vs 15/52, OR 2.25 [1.13-4.48]) and also with markers of disease severity: raised C-reactive protein (44/90 vs 12/49, OR 2.95[1.36-6.37]), hypoalbuminemia (44/85 vs 20/74, OR 2.28[1.19-4.37]), and surgery (27/49 vs 54/147, OR 2.11 [1.10-4.06]). From multivariate analysis, the presence of oral disease (adjusted P = 0.001, OR 22.22 [3.41-142.86]) and hypoalbuminemia (adjusted P = 0.01, OR 4.78 [1.40-16.39]) was found to be independently associated with ASCA status. No association was demonstrated between ASCA and IBD candidate genes. Conclusions: Patients with CD had a higher prevalence of ASCA than did other patients with IBD. ASCA status described patients with CD who had a specific phenotype, showing an association with markers of disease severity and oral CD involvement