Failure to thrive and anorexia nervosa

A case study is reported of an anorexia nervosa mother who battered her elder male child (‘battered baby’) and in collusion with her psychopathic husband starved to death her 10-week-old daughter. The association of anorexia nervosa in the mother with death by starvation has not previously been reported in the literature. The possible underlying psychopathology is briefly discussed.

Poppy capsule dependence

Nine poppy-head addicts were seen at a Birmingham hospital. Seven were Sikhs born in Jullundur and two were West Pakistanis. Most began their poppy-head addiction in their early 20s, usually out of curiosity or to relieve the hangover effects of alcohol. Only two took opium in addition and one of these had taken cannabis, morphine, and heroin. They all drank several pints of beer a day and were heavy smokers. All had had little schooling and married young. Most of them were industrious foundry workers in good physical health. Withdrawal of poppy capsules failed in each case. The present situation whereby an addictive drug is readily imported and sold in local shops is questioned.

Photoperiodic control of the maintenance and termination of larval diapause in Wyeomyia smithii (Coq.) (Diptera: Culicidae) with notes on oogenesis in the adult female

Some aspects of overwintering and oogenesis in the pitcher-plant mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii (Coq.), were examined. The species was shown to overwinter in a diapause state as a third-instar larva. The diapausing larvae overwinter within the frozen ice cores of the host plant but they were nevertheless shown to be intolerant of prolonged periods of freezing at temperatures only a few degrees below 0 °C. The winter survival of the species probably depends almost entirely on the insulating benefits of a snow cover. Larval diapause was stable under short-day conditions but was very rapidly broken when the larvae were exposed to long-day photoperiods. The critical photoperiod required to break larval diapause in a population from the Kenora region of Ontario was between [Formula: see text] and 15 h of light per diem. This critical photoperiod did not change during a prolonged period of overwintering. Larvae which experienced 5 or fewer long-day cycles remained in diapause when they were returned to short-day conditions but diapause was irreversibly broken in larvae exposed to 8 or more long-day cycles in succession. Data on growth rates of larvae as a function of temperature and photoperiod were used to predict the seasonal cycle of W. smithii in northwestern Ontario where the species is probably restricted to a maximum of two generations per year. All females of W. smithii were autogenous for the first ovarian cycle and adult diets of carbohydrate did not affect fecundity. Unlike other mosquitoes, the female of W. smithii was found to be precocious, emerging with the ovarian follicles already initiated with development of the follicles up to stage IIIa of Christophers.

Probable larviposition by Cephenemyia phobifer (Clark) (Diptera: Oestridae)

Observations of five females of Cephenemyia phobifer (Clark), the pharyngeal bot-fly of the white-tailed deer, indicate that this species is larviparous. The behavior of the host and the fly are compared with published records of larvipositing Cephenemyia spp. of the palaearctic region. The internal anatomy of the female reproductive system of C. phobifer is briefly described.

Gulf of California: A Result of Ocean-Floor Spreading and Transform Faulting

Ocean-floor spreading tore southern Baja California from mainland Mexico 4 million years ago and has subsequently rafted it 260 kilometers to the northwest along the Tamayo Fracture Zone. Magnetic-anomaly profiles indicate spreading at the mouth of the gulf at 3.0 centimeters per year and a rise-crest offset of 75 kilometers inside the gulf across the Tamayo Fracture Zone.