Spider-bite in South Africa

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A note on Mimea infections in Cape Town

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Diagnosis and incidence of neisseria gonorrhoeae in Cape coloured females in the Western Cape

Specimens were taken, using carbon-impregnated swabs, from the cervix, urethra and rectum of 945 Cape Coloured gynaecological patients, and from the cervix only of 1 276 pregnant Cape Coloured women. These specimens were submitted to the laboratory in a modified Stuart transport medium and cultured on Thayer-Martin medium. Neisseria gonorrhoeae was cultured in 5,3% of the specimens from the gynaecological patients and in 5,3% of specimens from the pregnant women. All cultures showed type I or 11 colony pattern. No strains showed resistance to any of the antibiotics tested.S. Afr. Med. J., 48, 259 (1974)

Prevention of food poisoning in hospital patients

Bacteriological investigations of raw and cooked foods and of food handlers in abattoirs, food factories and hospital kitchens show that they are potential sources of food poisoning organisms. The use of reheated (reconstituted) frozen foods is recommended as an ideal means of preventing food poisoning among hospital patients.S. Afr. Med. J., 48, 1109 (1974)

Escherichia coli serotypes associated with urinary tract infections in the Western Cape

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A note on the use of reduced transport fluid (RTF) for isolation of Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Swabs containing pus from urethral discharges obtained from 55 male patients attending venereal disease clinics were transported in Stuart's transport medium or RTF (reduced transport fluid) and then cultured on ThayerMartin plates. Forty-eight swabs showed the presence of Neisseria in smears and 45 gave good growth of N. gonorrhoeae when cultured 18 - 24 hours after the swabs were taken from the patient.S. Afr. Med. J., 48, 1195 (1974)

Detection of biological false positive syphilis serum reactions

A comparative evaluation of reagin tests (Wassermann, VDRL, RPR) and fluorescent treponema antibody absorption tests (FTA-ABS) performed on blood specimens from 5 271 persons (2 493 pregnant women, 1 130 apparently healthy prospective employees, 1 345 newborn babies and 303 leprosy patients) showed that 17,2% of the pregnant women, 11,95% of the prospective employees, 19,0% of the newborn babies, and 27,2% of the leprosy patients gave positive reactions in one or more of the tests. The majority of specimens were from Cape Coloured patients. FTA-ABS tests allowed the exclusion as biological false positives of ±30% of the pregnant 'positive reactors', of ±37% of the prospective employees, 40,2% of the newborn babies, but only 1% of the leprosy patients. The FTA-ABS test, therefore, deserves wide acceptance as the standard by which  the diagnosis of syphilis is confirmed and false positive reactions are defined, although non-specificity in pregnancies, intracellular infections and auto-immune diseases occurs. The classical reagin tests are of value in the control of treatment.S. Afr. Med. J., 48, 1191 (1974)

The ‘mosaic habitat’ concept in human evolution: past and present

The habitats preferred by hominins and other species are an important theme in palaeoanthropology, and the ‘mosaic habitat’ (also referred to as habitat heterogeneity) has been a central concept in this regard for the last four decades. Here we explore the development of this concept – loosely defined as a range of different habitat types, such as woodlands, riverine forest and savannah within a limited spatial area– in studies of human evolution in the last sixty years or so. We outline the key developments that took place before and around the time when the term ‘mosaic’ came to wider palaeoanthropological attention. To achieve this we used an analysis of the published literature, a study of illustrations of hominin evolution from 1925 onwards and an email survey of senior researchers in palaeoanthropology and related fields. We found that the term mosaic starts to be applied in palaeoanthropological thinking during the 1970’s due to the work of a number of researchers, including Karl Butzer and Glynn Isaac , with the earliest usage we have found of ‘mosaic’ in specific reference to hominin habitats being by Adriaan Kortlandt (1972). While we observe a steady increase in the numbers of publications reporting mosaic palaeohabitats, in keeping with the growing interest and specialisation in various methods of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, we also note that there is a lack of critical studies that define this habitat, or examine the temporal and spatial scales associated with it. The general consensus within the field is that the concept now requires more detailed definition and study to evaluate its role in human evolution

Changes in the Blood-Brain Barrier in Hepatic Coma After Hepatectomy in the Rat

The events resulting in the hepatic coma which follows massive hepatic necrosis or hepatectomy have never been adequately defined. Our study was directed at the possibility that part of the abnormality might be at the level of the blood-brain barrier. Bloodless two-stage hepatectomies were performed on Wistar rats and the animals were maintained with intravenous glucose infusions. When the animals were in late stage 3 or stage 4 hepatic coma the functional integrity of the blood-brain barrier was assessed by means of the sudden arterial injection-15-sec decapitation-Oldendorf tissue residue technique, and by the intravenous injection of trypan blue. The former showed that the barrier had become permeable to d-sucrose, inulin, and l-glucose, substances which usually do not cross the barrier; the latter showed that the barrier had also become permeable to trypan blue, so that the brains of the comatose animals stained blue whereas normal brains did not. The brains of comatose animals uniformly showed cerebral edema on gross examination (their water contents were increased); and on electron microscopic examination their astrocytes were swollen, especially in pericapillary locations. The break in the barrier appears to be associated with the formation of cerebral edema, and implies both that substances which usually do not gain access to the brain parenchyma can now do so and that substances usually conserved, such as neurotransmitters, can now escape