Joseph disease in India--report of two families

Joseph disease (JD) has only rarely been described in families of non-Portuguese ancestry. Two Indian families with an autosomal dominant inherited ataxia are described in this report. The clinical picture resembled the spectrum seen in JD. An interesting feature was the very early manifestation of the disease process in the third generations. Considerable phenotypic variation within one family was another important aspect. These families had always lived in northern India for the past many generations.

Cerebrovascular diseases: a review of the Indian experience in the last 35 years

The relevant literature on cerebrovascular diseases from the Indian subcontinent in the last 35 years has been reviewed. Most of the data available are from retrospective studies carried out in various large urban hospitals. The incidence of stroke reported is less when compared with western figures, which may be a reflection of the population at risk. The incidence of stroke in the young Indians below the age of 40 years is higher compared to other countries, which again may be a statistical aberration or may be due to local aetiological factors. Ischaemic cerebrovascular complications of pregnancy and puerperium occur frequently, but the total picture is probably the same as elsewhere in the world.

Pure motor hemiparesis due to non-hypertensive putaminal haemorrhage

The syndrome of pure motor hemiplegia (PMH) has been traditionally regarded to be due to lacunar infarcts at various places in the brain. Recently, attention has been drawn towards various other aetiological factors which have been responsible for this clinical presentation. PMH as a result of hypertensive putaminal haemorrhage is extremely uncommon. A case of PMH as a result of non-hypertensive putaminal haemorrhage is described.

Dermatoglyphics in leprosy

In the present study, dermatolyphic parameters were analysed in the handprints of 25 LL/BL, 25 TT/BT and 25 healthy persons, by printer's ink method. Frequency of loops, were more on right hand and whorls were more on left hand in LL patients as compared to normal healthy controls. In TT the whorls were less frequent than in controls. The a-b ridge count in LL patient has shown insignificant difference from control while the same in TT was significantly decreased (P less than 0.05). Distance between distal wrist crease and axial triradius was significantly decreased in LL as compared to normal (P less than 0.05), whereas no such decrease was observed in TT patients.

Application of ARIMA model in adjustment of seasonal and non-seasonal variations in births of Ontario

"The objective of this paper is to justify the use of Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models for birth time series data of the province of Ontario [Canada]." The results show that the model provides satisfactory short-term forecasts. "It shows that along with seasonal varations, non-seasonal variations due to reporting etc. must be taken into account for interpreting similar time series data." (summary in FRE, ITA)

Multiple sclerosis: Indian experience in the last thirty years

A total of 354 cases of multiple sclerosis (MS) were collected from various published reports from India over the last three decades. MS is definitely an uncommon disease in India. Certain clinical characteristics, previously noted individually, have been confirmed to exist in India. When compared to MS in Western countries, the Indian cases show a relatively high incidence of optic nerve involvement (both at the onset and during the course of the disease). Neuromyelitis optical is also seen more frequently. MS may be more common in northern as compared to southern India. In isolated studies HLA-B12 has been reported to be associated with MS in India and positive CSF oligoclonal bands have been seen in only 30% of the cases.

Pure motor hemiparesis due to hypertensive putaminal haemorrhage

A hypertensive woman presenting as pure motor hemiparesis with rapid and complete recovery from the neurological deficit is described. The probable aetiology was primary hypertensive putaminal haemorrhage, as revealed by CT scan. This rare presentation has been described only once earlier and emphasizes the value of CT scanning as a tool for diagnosis of such cases.

Allozyme variation and evolutionary relationships of grain amaranths (Amaranthus spp.)

Allozyme studies in amaranth provided useful assays of genetic variation in order to verify the patterns inferred from morphological traits, for elucidating the genetic structure of landraces, and for the studies of evolutionary relationships among wild, weedy and crop species. Thirty-four populations of cultivated New World amaranths were surveyed along with 21 weedy New World populations for allozyme variation at nine electrophoretic enzyme loci. Eleven populations of cultivated amaranths from the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh and six from Nepal were also surveyed for a comparison. In the New World populations, heterozygosity was low, and different populations ranged from 0 to 44% polymorphic loci. Adjacent populations were often fixed for different alleles or had very different allele frequencies at certain loci, with no apparent geographical patterns. Diversity index H' was partitioned into the intra- and interpopulation as well as the interspecific components of variability. The crop versus weed genetic distances were the largest, whereas the intra- and interpopulation components of H' were about equal. Genetic structure of all three species of the New World amaranths together can be described as a collection of distinct populations, each more or less a heterogeneous collection of highly homozygous individuals. The North Indian populations showed relatively less allozyme variability with the most common alleles same as those of Mexican landraces. Alleles at several loci proved to be diagnostic of the crop and weed groups, and of the three individual crop species. Genetic distances based on pooled gene frequencies showed the three crop species to be generally more closely related inter se than they were to their putative weedy progenitor species, respectively (with the exception of the weed-crop pair A. quitensis and A. caudatus). This implies a single domestication event involving A. hybridus as the common ancestor rather than three separate domestication events. Close similarity between A. caudatus and A. quitensis might have resulted from transdomestication based on a weedy or semi-domesticated species having migrated from Meso-America to South America. This preliminary report must now be expanded by further ecogeographical, cytogenetic and population studies on new extensive collections from the areas of early domestication. Some evidence of recent introgression and/or segregation of crop-weed hybrids between A. caudatus and A. retroflexus is available in the form of rare individuals in crop populations with crop allozyme genotypes except for a single homozygous weedy allele.

An investigation of role-taking in histrionic personalities

Gough's theory that psychopathy stems from a deficiency in role taking, the ability to perceive and evaluate one's own behaviour as it is perceived and evaluated by others in the same culture, was tested. The Socialization scale, developed by Gough to assess role taking, was administered to a group of 20 female psychiatric patients with histrionic personality disorders, and a control group of female depressives of similar age and intelligence. Socialization scores of the histrionic personalities were significantly lower, indicating impaired role taking, and this difference was not attributable to depression of mood. The Socialization scale was a better discriminator between the groups than the scales of two other personality inventories or a test to elicit meta-impressions.

Human infestation by Taenia saginata lasting over 20 years

A case of a 61-year-old woman with a history of infestation by Taenia saginata lasting over 20 years is described. The patients repeatedly denied eating raw or inadequately cooked beef. Despite many attempts using different taenicides during those years, the patient continued to pass tapeworm segments until niclosamide was administered. Eighteen months after treatment with niclosamide the patient remains symptom-free.

Effect of ranitidine and cimetidine on gastric ulcer healing and recurrence

Fifty-eight patients with endoscopically confirmed benign gastric ulceration were randomly allocated to treatment with 150 mg ranitidine twice daily, placebo matching ranitidine twice daily, or 200 mg cimetidine three times daily and 400 mg at night. Patients were endoscoped at monthly intervals for up to 3 months, the endoscopist being unaware of the treatment. Significantly more ulcers (p less than 0.05) had healed after 2 months of ranitidine (14 of 18, 78%) and cimetidine (17 of 20, 85%) than with placebo (9 of 20, 45%; p less than 0.05) and after 3 months of ranitidine (15 of 18, 88%) and cimetidine (18 of 20, 90%) than with placebo (11 of 20, 55%; p less than 0.05). Forty-eight patients with healed ulcers were randomly allocated in a double-blind prophylactic study to receive 150 mg ranitidine at night or matching placebo. After 6 months recurrent ulcers were found in 2 of 24 (8%) of patients receiving ranitidine and 10 of 24 (42%) of patients receiving placebo (p less than 0.05). These data indicate that H2-receptor antagonists are significantly better than placebo in healing gastric ulceration and that ranitidine and cimetidine are equally effective. Ranitidine is significantly superior to placebo in preventing gastric ulcer recurrence.