As early as 1906 magnesium sulfate was injected intrathecally to prevent eclamptic seizures.¹ Because of reports that intramuscular magnesium sulfate controlled convulsions associated with tetanus, a similar regimen was used in 1926 to prevent recurrent ...

Perioperative complications in patients with sickle cell anemia are common.¹–⁹ Early reviews reported perioperative mortality rates as high as 10 percent, and the rate of postoperative complications reached 50 percent.⁸,¹⁰–¹⁷ These problems may arise from ...

Pulmonary hypertension is generally characterized by increased thickening of the walls of pulmonary arteries, narrowing of the pulmonary-artery lumen, increased pulmonary vascular resistance, and right-sided heart failure.¹–³ Clinically, patients have ...

Outbreaks of tuberculosis often occur under crowded living conditions when there is prolonged close exposure to an infectious person. They have been reported from prisons, nursing homes, residential centers for persons infected with the human ...

Figure 1. A 70-year-old woman had a six-month history suggestive of recurrent, self-limited episodes of acute diverticulitis. A scout film for a barium enema showed a rounded, smooth-walled structure measuring 10 cm in diameter and containing air (Panel A)...

Since before the turn of the century, New York City has been a center for both tuberculosis and its control. In 1889, Hermann Biggs of the New York City Department of Health recommended a comprehensive program of tuberculosis control¹ that eventually ...

Calcium ions are essential for a wide variety of biologic functions, including vital extracellular processes, such as blood clotting, intercellular adhesion, and skeletal integrity, as well as intracellular processes, such as the regulation of hormonal ...

Presentation of Case

A 44-year-old woman was transferred to this hospital because of severe respiratory distress, bilateral pulmonary infiltrates, and increasing pancytopenia.

The patient had been well until 34 days earlier, when a cough productive of ...

Magnesium was first used more than 60 years ago as a therapy for and prophylaxis against eclamptic seizures.¹ It became standard treatment over the next 30 years and was associated with a dramatic reduction in maternal and neonatal morbidity related to ...

Nitric oxide is as simple chemical substance whose many biologic roles have only recently been appreciated. First discovered by Furchgott and Zawadzki as an endothelium-dependent vasodilating substance (endothelium-derived relaxing factor) in the ...

To the Editor: The article by van der Burg et al. (March 9 issue)¹ on debulking surgery after induction chemotherapy raises some important issues. The authors state that the morbidity associated with a second operation was similar to that associated with ...

To the Editor: At the end of the Current Concepts article on melanoma in children (March 9 issue),¹ the authors stress that “the importance of early diagnosis with prompt surgical excision of primary cutaneous melanoma cannot be overemphasized. It ...

To the Editor: On reading in the report of skin cancer occurring in a patient 10 years after the extravasation of doxorubicin (March 16 issue)¹ that “repeated contact with polycyclic carbohydrates” is a risk factor for cutaneous squamous-cell carcinoma, ...

To the Editor: In the review article by Donowitz et al. (March 16 issue),¹ there is no mention of measuring serum or red-cell folate, serum B₁₂, or autoantibodies in the evaluation of patients with chronic diarrhea. These tests are readily available and ...

To the Editor: With respect to Drs. Greaves and Weinstein's review article on the treatment of psoriasis (March 2 issue),¹ we suggest adding alcohol to the list of factors known to exacerbate psoriasis. In men with psoriasis, the mean alcohol intake is ...

To the Editor: The reported incidence of thrombosis of prosthetic mitral or aortic valves ranges from 0.03 to 4.3 percent per year.¹ Thrombectomy or valve replacement is the conventional treatment for this condition, with an associated mortality rate ...

To the Editor: Annas (March 16 issue)¹ discusses the importance of metaphors in the debate on health care reform and argues for a new metaphoric framework based on ecology. Although it may be stretching the point, I propose that the entitlement metaphor ...

To the Editor: The President was given a clean bill of health on March 24 after a routine physical examination — and what an examination it was.¹ According to The New York Times and press releases, President Bill Clinton underwent a four-hour examination ...

Harold Cook is well known as a historian for his work on 17th-century English medicine. His work covers the beginning of the long-drawn-out change from the medicine of antiquity to the new medicine that was supported by the philosophies of the scientific ...

In 1933 the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York, became the site of an annual meeting on a topic of interest in biology. The subject of the 1966 meeting was the genetic code; the following year's meeting, devoted to antibodies, ...

The National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine is currently sponsoring nine pilot projects (with grants of $30,000 each) on research involving the use of acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicines. This summer, the Food and Drug ...

A gynecologist friend of mine suggested that the treatment of infertility could be more practical and efficient. A couple who had not achieved pregnancy should appear in the specialist's office on day 1 of the woman's menstruation with a sample of the man'...

Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital (Case 13-1995) Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital, N Engl J Med 1995:332;1153-1159.. On page 1153, the legend for Figure 1 should have stated that the endoscope, not the patient, was in a ...

Cost Effectiveness of Thrombolytic Therapy with Tissue Plasminogen Activator as Compared with Streptokinase for Acute Myocardial Infarction Special Article, N Engl J Med 1995:332;1418-1424.. On page 1423, the sentence that begins in line 9 of the right-...