Routine CSF Analysis in Coccidioidomycosis Is Not Required

Although routinely done, there has been no evaluation of the utility of performing routine cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) examination in patients with active coccidioidomycosis and high complement fixation (IgG) antibody titers or other risk factors for disseminated infection. In our review 100% of patients diagnosed with coccidioidal meningitis had at least one sign or symptom consistent with infection of the central nervous system, headache was present in 100% of those with meningitis, while no patients without signs/symptoms of CNS infection were found to have coccidioidal meningitis, irrespective of antibody titers or other risk factors. Thus routine lumbar puncture may be unnecessary for patients with coccidioidomycosis who lack suggestive clinical symptoms

Singular thoughts, seeing doubles and delusional misidentification

In this chapter, I will suggest (i) that Kevin Mulligan has given a powerful analysis which suggests that the descriptive account of perception is incomplete: We perceive not only properties of objects but objects themselves, (ii) that problems for descriptive theories and the solutions identified by philosophers such as Mulligan (following, among others, Husserl; see Mulligan and Smith, Grazer Philos Stud 28:133–163, 1986; Mulligan, West Ont Ser Philos Sci 62:163–194, 1999) are the basis for contemporary cognitive theories of object tracking, (iii) that theories of object tracking help explain the phenomenology of delusional misidentification syndromes (DMS). DMS are best explained on the assumption that we perceive objects, not just their properties. The objects in question are selves. The claim defended here is that when we see a familiar face we see a particular person, not merely an assembly of facial features from which we infer the identity of their owner. The way in which we see that person is the same way in which we see an object in virtue of its perceptual appearancePhilip Gerran