Scottish Medical Journal 

About: Scottish Medical Journal is an academic journal published by SAGE Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Population & Poison control. It has an ISSN identifier of 0036-9330. Over the lifetime, 4137 publications have been published receiving 35506 citations. The journal is also known as: Scot. Med. J. & Edinburgh Medical Journal.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma. A report on 24 patients seen over 6 years.

Abstract: N A SOP H A R Y N G E A L tumours are not a rarity in ear, nose and throat (ENT) practice. In the United States of America they constitute about 1 to 3 per cent of all malignant tumours (Hara, 1954). In Great Britain according to Ormerod (1951) they form 8 per cent of all malignant lesions seen in ENT clinics, and most of them are carcinomas. However, because of their anatomical situation and very special clinical features, the diagnosis of these tumours is very often delayed, and when the primary is found, the tumour is well advanced.

Cerebral vascular accidents in patients over the age of 60. II. Prognosis.

Abstract: In 29 cases the exact duration of the illness was not known, but was thought to be less than one day. Thus, of the total (248), 178 (72 %) were seen within 24 hours. No patient received active treatment other than nursing attention and general medical supervision; in a few of them therapeutic lumbar puncture was carried out. One hundred and forty four (58 %) died, and whenever it was possible post-mortem examination was carried out: in only 50 per cent was permission granted. In no case seen by the author did a cerebral vascular accident cause sudden death. In the majority, death occurred after a period of days; the interval was never less than 6 hours. enable the investigator to assess the results of specific forms of treatment. Accordingly, a survey was carried out on a number of 'untreated' cases seen shortly after the onset of a cerebral vascular accident, with particular reference to the presence of signs which had prognostic value. This review refers to 252 patients over the age of 40 (120 males and 132 females) in whom a cerebral vascular accident had occurred within the previous 7 days. These were completely unselected cases. Four males were excluded, however, either on account of uncertainty of diagnosis or because of lack of sufficient information. The duration of the lesion when the patients were first seen is given in Table 1.

Myasthenia Gravis: A New Hypothesis:

Abstract: I N a part of the world which has now adopted more sophisticated methods of brain washing, it was once the custom to expose those with unorthodox ideas to a trial by ordeal which consisted of the chewing of the Calabar bean. Today I wish to present you with some unorthodox ideas so let me start by asking you to throwaway the Calabar bean, or at least to keep its active constituent, physostigmine, out of sight, for I believe that this magic bean, or its synthetic competitors may have blurred our vision of the true nature of myasthenia gravis. First let me pay tribute to Mrs HonymanGillespie who has made these lectures possible and the Post-Graduate Committee who invited me to contribute to this famous series. The first lecture was given by Edwin Bramwell (1938) on the contributions of the Edinburgh school to the study of the reactions of the pupil of the eye. From him I learned that the mydriatic action of the Calabar bean was discovered by Sir Thomas Fraser in 1863when he was professor of materia medica in Edinburgh and a physician to the Royal Infirmary, and introduced to ophthalmological practice in the same year by the young Argyll Robertson in a paper read before the MedicoChirurgical Society of Edinburgh. Collier (1930) attributed the first British recognition of myasthenia gravis to this same Edwin Bramwell when he was starting his illustrious neurological career as a housephysician at Queen Square. Though first described by the Englishman Thomas Willis in 1672, the syndrome was unrecognized until the magnificent papers of Erb (1879) and

Cerebral vascular accidents in patients over the age of 60. I. General considerations.

Abstract: I N THE REGISTRAR GENERAL'S returns, cerebral vascular disease is placed next to heart disease and cancer as the commonest cause of death: it is responsible for just over 13 per cent of deaths from all causes. The importance of these lesions as causes of disability is widely realised but is hardly reflected in the volume of research devoted to them. The prevailing attitude towards the therapeutic problem is passive: there is need for a more active approach. No concerted attack has been made on the social, economic and personal problems which are created by cerebral vascular disease. The circumstances seem to be entirely different from those which attend the study of cancer, tuberculosis, diabetes and even a disease as rare as myasthenia gravis. The statistics of the Registrar General show that in 1949 the crude death rate in England and Wales for cerebral haemorrhage was 737 deaths per million living persons. The number of deaths from vascular lesions of the nervous system in England and Wales increases yearly. In 1942 the number was 56,048, and in 1952 it was 69,388. In the United States in 1952, 170,000 people died of cerebral vascular accidents. This is over three times the number who died from tuberculosis and diabetes combined in the same year. It has been estimated that there are 1,800,000 victims of cerebral vascular disease in the United States today. Even allowing for errors in diagnosis, these figures reveal the magnitude of the problem. The statistics, however, fail to reveal the full

Dental disease, fibrinogen and white cell count; links with myocardial infarction?

Abstract: Plasma fibrinogen and white blood cell count were compared in fifty patients aged 25-50 years with periodontal disease and in fifty age-matched controls with relatively healthy periodontal tissues. Patients had significantly higher levels of fibrinogen and white cell count, and dental indices correlated significantly with these two cardiovascular risk factors on multivariate analyses. We suggest that inflammatory dental disease may be a determinant of fibrinogen level and white cell count in the general population, and that fibrinogen and white cell count may be two mediators of the link between dental disease and myocardial infarction.