Hispanic Oral Literature: Accomplishments and Perspectives

Hispanic oral literature, together with the Portuguese which should not be separated from it, encompasses a great chronological as well as geographical span, since it is an integral part of the cultural heritage that has accompanied the Spanish and Portuguese people over the centuries wherever they have chanced to establish themselves. Scholarly interest has focused primarily upon two oral genres, the epic and the ballad, while the lyric and the folktale have been accorded less attention, and the proverb almost none at all. The total amount of material published, particularly on the epic and ballad, is enormous. The last decade or so has produced a veritable explosion of critical interest in these traditional forms. After establishing the critical background, we have tried to include here studies that either make a significant contribution or are representative of a certain method or approach. This means that many fine studies are not mentioned solely because of limitations of space. It will be observed that not all of this work has been carried out by oralists. In the belief that good basic research is of value to all, no matter what a particular scholar's theoretical persuasion may be, a number of items have been cited that were destined to support other points of view.--Page 344.Ruth House Webber (University of Chicago, Emerita) was the first to introduce the scholarship of Parry and Lord to Spanish medieval literature in 1951. She is author of a long and distinguished series of articles and monographs on the oral traditional forms of epic and ballad, especially in relation to questions of style and narrative structure

References

Processing note: review needed; see credit on website; add SoRAbstractNot

General anaesthetic and airway management practice for obstetric surgery in England: a prospective, multi-centre observational study

There are no current descriptions of general anaesthesia characteristics for obstetric surgery, despite recent changes to patient baseline characteristics and airway management guidelines. This analysis of data from the direct reporting of awareness in maternity patients' (DREAMY) study of accidental awareness during obstetric anaesthesia aimed to describe practice for obstetric general anaesthesia in England and compare with earlier surveys and best-practice recommendations. Consenting patients who received general anaesthesia for obstetric surgery in 72 hospitals from May 2017 to August 2018 were included. Baseline characteristics, airway management, anaesthetic techniques and major complications were collected. Descriptive analysis, binary logistic regression modelling and comparisons with earlier data were conducted. Data were collected from 3117 procedures, including 2554 (81.9%) caesarean deliveries. Thiopental was the induction drug in 1649 (52.9%) patients, compared with propofol in 1419 (45.5%). Suxamethonium was the neuromuscular blocking drug for tracheal intubation in 2631 (86.1%), compared with rocuronium in 367 (11.8%). Difficult tracheal intubation was reported in 1 in 19 (95%CI 1 in 16-22) and failed intubation in 1 in 312 (95%CI 1 in 169-667). Obese patients were over-represented compared with national baselines and associated with difficult, but not failed intubation. There was more evidence of change in practice for induction drugs (increased use of propofol) than neuromuscular blocking drugs (suxamethonium remains the most popular). There was evidence of improvement in practice, with increased monitoring and reversal of neuromuscular blockade (although this remains suboptimal). Despite a high risk of difficult intubation in this population, videolaryngoscopy was rarely used (1.9%)