Selective β₂-adrenergic agonists are widely used to treat acute episodes of asthma, and long-acting drugs of this type such as salmeterol are often given to prevent the bronchial narrowing that occurs at night¹ or after exercise.² However, there has been ...

Exercise-induced bronchoconstriction is common among adults with mild-to-severe asthma, limiting activity and worsening the quality of life.¹ The presence of airway hyperresponsiveness to exercise suggests a lack of control of asthma. Accordingly, the ...

When used to screen large populations, guaiac-based fecal occult-blood tests have been shown to prevent death from colorectal cancer.¹–³ Nonetheless, drawbacks associated with their use remain, including a high rate of false positive tests (i.e., a lack ...

The clinical spectrum of human babesiosis ranges from an apparently silent infection to a fulminant malaria-like disease resulting in severe hemolysis and occasionally in death.¹–³ In eastern North America, this emerging zoonotic disease is caused by a ...

Figure 1. A 76-year-old woman presented with a two-month history of intermittent melena, weakness, and anemia that required the transfusion of six units of packed red cells. In the past she had been treated for hypertension and hypothyroidism. ...

In the Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill decisions rejecting a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Supreme Court allowed each state to decide whether to legalize the intervention.¹ In state legislatures rather than courtrooms,...

For many years, the functional sequelae of chronic coronary artery disease were considered irreversible and amenable only to palliative therapy. For example, a finding of asynergy (the absence of contraction) on the left ventriculogram was thought to ...

Presentation of Case

A 22-year-old man was seen in the neurology clinic because of an unexplained creatine kinase elevation.

He had been well until the age of 17 years, when congestive heart failure developed; microscopical examination of a specimen from ...

Not long ago, many physicians thought exercise-induced asthma was a variant form of the disease. Now it is apparent that nearly all people with asthma have respiratory symptoms at least occasionally when exercising vigorously in cold, dry air.¹ Although ...

Animal models of sickle cell anemia can be used to improve understanding of the pathophysiology of the disease, aid in the development of antisickling drugs, and test the feasibility of gene therapy. The basis of these interesting models is transgenic ...

To the Editor: Experimental studies have provided unequivocal evidence that suboptimal patterns of mechanical ventilation can injure the lung.¹ The studies of patients with the acute respiratory distress syndrome reported by Weg et al. and Stewart et al. ...

To the Editor: The study of variations in the gene for natural-resistance–associated macrophage protein 1 (NRAMP1) and susceptibility to tuberculosis in West Africans by Bellamy et al. (March 5 issue)¹ offers exciting prospects for the further study of ...

To the Editor: Klahr and Miller reviewed the fundamentals of acute oliguria (March 5 issue)¹ and noted that “the absence of urinary output suggests that the patient has obstructive uropathy, renal cortical necrosis, or necrotizing glomerular disease.” ...

To the Editor: In his review of the treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women (March 12 issue),¹ Eastell says that the response to therapy should be evaluated by performing serial measurements of bone density. Serial measurements of bone density ...

To the Editor: The frustration of Dr. Knoll (March 12 issue)¹ with the rejection by health insurance companies of reimbursement for acute hospitalization for palliative care is avoidable. Had his patients been placed in a hospice, their inpatient ...

To the Editor: Botulism causes skeletal-muscle weakness resulting from bacterial exotoxins that irreversibly block the release of acetylcholine from presynaptic motor neurons. We report three cases of botulism in members of the Native American Church who ...

Edward O. Wilson has already had three careers and has made major contributions to knowledge in all of them. First, as an entomologist, he elucidated the intricacies of behavior and organization in ant societies. Second, as a sociobiologist, he studied ...

It is a common belief that once schizophrenia has bored its way deep into a person's mind, the losses are irretrievable. But over the past decade or so, many patients have had their lives greatly enhanced by the new antipsychotic medications; others, ...

There is a renewed interest in the narratives of patients as recounted by their physicians. These stories of illnesses, often painful in the retelling, reveal much about the nature of the suffering experienced by patients and by the physicians who care ...

As the decade of the brain draws to a close, it is worthwhile to review some of the progress made in advancing our knowledge of this fascinating and enigmatic structure. Louise Marshall (director of the Neuroscience History Archives at the Brain Research ...