Search Results

New Rules of Engagement

Cynthia Grant Tucker

in No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Unitarian World

Endowed with her mother's dominant nature and feminist perspective, Martha May Eliot sets her sights on becoming a “social doctor.” Before graduating from Radcliffe, she spends her sophomore year at ... More

Endowed with her mother's dominant nature and feminist perspective, Martha May Eliot sets her sights on becoming a “social doctor.” Before graduating from Radcliffe, she spends her sophomore year at Bryn Mawr and there meets her life companion, Ethel C. Dunham (1883‐1969 ). Martha and Ethel earn their M.D.s at Johns Hopkins Medical School and find positions together in the Pediatrics Department that Edwards A. Park had just created at Yale. Congress's timely passage of the Sheppard‐Towner Act starts Martha on an ascent as a pioneer of public health service for underserved mothers and children. Her demonstration of Vitamin D's efficacy in wiping out rickets results in a call from the Children's Bureau, of which she eventually serves as Chief. She writes Title V of the Social Security Act, later serves as Assistant Director‐General of the World Health Organization, and is one of the founding signers of UNICEF's charter.Less

Theory and Argument

C. U. M. Smith, Eugenio Frixione, Stanley Finger, and William Clower

in The Animal Spirit Doctrine and the Origins of Neurophysiology

This chapter identifies four attempts to create a successor theory and to accept the new findings of experiment and microscopy during the 17th century. It first studies Francis Glisson, who is known ... More

This chapter identifies four attempts to create a successor theory and to accept the new findings of experiment and microscopy during the 17th century. It first studies Francis Glisson, who is known for his work on rickets and his research on the true function of the liver. Next, it takes a look at William Croone, who published his enquiries into the movement of skeletal muscle in De ratione motus musculorum, and Giovanni Borelli, whose intromechanics can be related to the physiology of the animal spirit. The chapter ends with a discussion on Thomas Willis, whose Cerebri anatome is considered by some to be the foundation work of neurology.Less

Institutionalization as the Last Resort: Famine Diseases, Mortality, and Medical Interventions

Jonny Geber

in Victims of Ireland'S Great Famine: The Bioarchaeology of Mass Burials at Kilkenny Union Workhouse

To resort to the workhouse during the Famine was an act of desperation, and many people were seemingly severely malnourished and physically exhausted when they entered the institution. The ... More

To resort to the workhouse during the Famine was an act of desperation, and many people were seemingly severely malnourished and physically exhausted when they entered the institution. The overcrowded situation of the union workhouses in Ireland during the Famine turned many of them into hotspots of infectious diseases such as typhus, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, cholera and smallpox. The paleopathologcial analysis of the skeletons of deceased inmates from the Kilkenny workhouse revealed high rates of scurvy, which is a direct reflection of the Famine as Vitamin C was primarily acquired from the potato prior to the blight. Other diagnosed conditions include rickets, possible iron deficiency anemia, tuberculosis, osteomyelitis and respiratory disease. Discrepancies in relative mortality frequencies in skeletons with and without diagnosed diseases suggests that scurvy influenced the death rates in the workhouse, and that individuals who had previously experienced severe health insults prior to the Famine had a greater chance of longer survival. The physicians in the Kilkenny workhouse struggled immensely to keep people alive, and this effort is evident from cases of amputations and craniotomies.Less

The Impact of Improved Nutrition on Disease Prevention

Richard D. Semba

in Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth Century America

In the 20th century, major progress was made in the near elimination of many nutritional deficiencies disorders in the United States such as rickets, pellagra, iodine deficiency, infantile scurvy, ... More

In the 20th century, major progress was made in the near elimination of many nutritional deficiencies disorders in the United States such as rickets, pellagra, iodine deficiency, infantile scurvy, iron deficiency due to hookworm, and subclinical levels of vitamin A deficiency and folate deficiency. The vitamins and their roles in human health were characterized, and dietary requirements were established. The landmark studies of Joseph Goldberger revealed that the cause of pellagra was nutritional rather than infectious. The fortification of foodstuffs, nutrition education, home gardening, and federally supported feeding programs all were aimed at improving the nutrition of the U.S. population. The American diet also evolved in light of the newer knowledge of nutrition. Despite the tremendous advances in the 20th century, obesity and other challenges remain for nutrition and public health efforts in the 21st century.Less

The More Things Change: A Historical Perspective on the Debate over Vitamin Advertising in the United States

Rima D. Apple

in Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth Century America

Vitamin supplements have been popular from the time the micronutrients were discovered in the early 20th century. Popular news media and advertisements promoted vitamins as crucial for two critical ... More

Vitamin supplements have been popular from the time the micronutrients were discovered in the early 20th century. Popular news media and advertisements promoted vitamins as crucial for two critical concerns: vitamin supplements insured that the diet contained sufficient quantities of critical micro-nutrients; and vitamins—whether as a dietary supplement or as an ingredient in cosmetics—could enhance beauty. While health professionals and medical practitioners recognized the critical value of vitamins, they often saw the growth of the vitamin industry as a threat to the general population's health and well-being. Over the century the themes of beauty and insurance were re-interpreted and reinforced through successive eras, reverberating in the contemporary promotion of the cancer fighting potential and beautifying effects of anti-oxidants.Less

Reading a Life: A Fourteenth-Century Ancestral Puebloan Woman

Ann L. W. Stodder and Ann M. Palkovich

in The Bioarchaeology of Individuals

This chapter presents the osteobiography of a middle-aged woman from Arroyo Hondo Pueblo, a Pueblo IV Late Prehistoric site near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Permanent bone deformation due to early ... More

This chapter presents the osteobiography of a middle-aged woman from Arroyo Hondo Pueblo, a Pueblo IV Late Prehistoric site near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Permanent bone deformation due to early childhood rickets presented physical challenges as residual rickets to this woman throughout her life. The author discusses notions of physical impairment and “disability” as they may have been perceived by the inhabitants of this late prehistoric village.Less

Case study 3: mandatory milk fortification with vitamin D

Mark Lawrence

in Food Fortification: The evidence, ethics, and politics of adding nutrients to food

Mandatory milk fortification with vitamin D (MMFVD) is a public health policy intervention for reducing vitamin D deficiency among the population. It was the case study selected to assess and analyse ... More

Mandatory milk fortification with vitamin D (MMFVD) is a public health policy intervention for reducing vitamin D deficiency among the population. It was the case study selected to assess and analyse food fortification as a policy option to tackle public health problems that arise when there is a reduction in exposure to the primary source of a nutrient. MMFVD is moderately effective and equitable in reducing the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, though it is associated with risk of exposing certain groups to excessive amounts of the nutrient. Ethically, the apparent significant prevalence of vitamin D deficiency suggests there is some justification for MMFVD. However, the overarching challenge in assessing MMFVD is the extent of scientific uncertainties associated with its potential benefits and risks. Nevertheless, prominent policy processes are using an approach to evidence-informed practice that is framing vitamin D deficiency to effectively privilege micronutrient interventions as preferred policy solutions.Less

Ethnicity, Activism, and ‘Race Relations’: From ‘Asian Rickets’ to Asian Resistance, 1963–1983

Roberta Bivins

in Contagious Communities: Medicine, Migration, and the NHS in Post War Britain

Maternal and child health and nutrition were issues of great political sensitivity in the post-war era. The Welfare State’s in-built surveillance of mothers, infants, and young children also ... More

Maternal and child health and nutrition were issues of great political sensitivity in the post-war era. The Welfare State’s in-built surveillance of mothers, infants, and young children also functioned as a lens through which immigrant mothers and their children faced additional scrutiny, particularly in relation to questions of behaviour and nutrition. As a result, the nutritional disorder rickets became a focus in debates around ‘immigrant’ health from the 1960s through the 1980s. Easily prevented and cured, ‘Asian rickets’ came to symbolize both immigrant/ethnic recalcitrance—their putative refusal to assimilate - and state indifference to ethnic inequalities in health. Changing responses to rickets reflect the gradual transformation of Britain’s South Asians from scrutinized ‘immigrants’ to political actors. The 1981 Stop Rickets campaign mixed old-fashioned assimilationism with a new drive to medically integrate affected communities, offering a unique perspective on ‘race’ and racialization at the intersection of race relations and molecular biology.Less

The Dawn of Scientific Sunlight

in American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light

This chapter addresses the new knowledge of sunlight. Two main discoveries—rickets and the significance of ultraviolet light—changed discussions about sunlight's uses. The new knowledge of sunlight ... More

This chapter addresses the new knowledge of sunlight. Two main discoveries—rickets and the significance of ultraviolet light—changed discussions about sunlight's uses. The new knowledge of sunlight covered a brighter future in which technology brought salvation. The relative scarcity of sunlight was a major problem. Rickets, which offered cues to one of the great curiosities of sunlight therapy, remained the unquestioned king of the diseases of darkness; it was also the only one that sunlight treated fully and perfectly. Sunshine was a newly (re)discovered health agent and one that pitchmen enthusiastically sold. Technology would restore natural bright light and good health to every American. It can be stated that the techniques employed to make the sick healthy and the rest robust varied, but all experts counseled that they had to be precise and based on sound, scientific principles.Less

A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City: A Social Bioarchaeology of the Subadults of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church

Meredith A. B. Ellis

in Tracing Childhood: Bioarchaeological Investigations of Early Lives in Antiquity

This chapter illustrates how historical archaeology can understand both the structuring institutions of childhood and the agency of children within these structures. This chapter discusses the ... More

This chapter illustrates how historical archaeology can understand both the structuring institutions of childhood and the agency of children within these structures. This chapter discusses the presence of rickets in the commingled subadults of the 19th century Spring Street Presbyterian Church. Of the 91 left tibiae present, over 31 percent have rickets, and unusually high number. This chapter argues for a contextual, embodied approach to subadult remains that considers how the impact and structures of the city, the church ideology, and the family would have affected the biologies of the children and the subsequent prevalence of rickets. At the same time, this chapter explores the agency of the children themselves within these structures. This article argues that an approach like this can illuminate what the experiences of childhood, in this case a disciplined childhood, would have been for these children.Less

Parathyroid gland and bone disease

Atul Kalhan (ed.)

in Best of Five MCQs for the Endocrinology and Diabetes SCE

This chapter covers core curriculum topics related to the parathyroid gland and bone disease. It starts with questions concerning parathyroid gland embryology and physiology. There is detailed ... More

This chapter covers core curriculum topics related to the parathyroid gland and bone disease. It starts with questions concerning parathyroid gland embryology and physiology. There is detailed discussion on questions related to the diagnosis and management of primary hyperparathyroidism. The section on differential diagnosis of PHPT, including familial hypocalciuric hypercalcaemia and its subtypes, has been updated. MCQs have been included which test a trainee’s knowledge on clinical risk factors and underlying endocrine aetiologies contributing to osteoporosis. Coverage of the management of osteoporosis has been updated in line with UK clinical practice guidelines. A new table has been added to provide concise though comprehensive coverage of the pharmacotherapy available for management of osteoporosis. Topic such as vitamin D deficiency rickets, hypophosphataemia, hypoparathyroidism, and pseudohypoparathyroidism have been covered systematically to provide clear understanding to the trainees.Less

The Fight against Want: Material Prosperity, Inequality, and Poverty with Elisabeth Garratt and Lindsay Richards

Anthony F. Heath, Elisabeth Garratt, Ridhi Kashyap, Yaojun Li, and Lindsay Richards

in Social Progress in Britain

How successful has Britain been in tackling the giant of Want? Britain experienced greatly increased standards of material prosperity during the second half of the twentieth century, with a fourfold ... More

How successful has Britain been in tackling the giant of Want? Britain experienced greatly increased standards of material prosperity during the second half of the twentieth century, with a fourfold increase in GDP per head, similar to that achieved in other large Western democracies. However, Britain saw an even larger increase in economic inequality than did peer countries such as France and Germany. Increased inequality means that the benefits of rising material prosperity were not shared equally but went disproportionately to the better-off. The modest increase in household income for the poorest families suggests that Want, or poverty, should have declined too. However, poorer households also saw their levels of debt rise sharply after 1999, while the rising use of foodbanks and increasing food insecurity suggests that material progress for the poorest may have stalled in the twenty-first century, or gone into reverse.Less

Exam 4

Rebecca Hanlon, John Curtis, Hulya Wieshmann, David White, Caren Landes, and Val Gough

in Long Cases for the Final FRCR 2B

Case 4.1 Clinical details A 70-year-old male with wheeze, cough, and intermittent dyspnoea. Imaging Chest radiograph. HRCT of the chest. Chest radiograph, 3 years after ... More

Case 4.1 Clinical details A 70-year-old male with wheeze, cough, and intermittent dyspnoea. Imaging Chest radiograph. HRCT of the chest. Chest radiograph, 3 years after presentation. HRCT of the chest, 3 years after presentation....Less