Diaries as "Soul Portraits"? Interpretation and Theorization of Adolescents' Self-Descriptions in the German-Speaking Youth Psychology of the 1920s and 1930s

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the figure of the adolescent (Jugendlicher) was introduced into public discourse in the German-speaking world. The adolescent soon became an epistemic object for the still loosely defined field of psychology. Actors in the slowly differentiating scientific field of youth psychology were primarily interested in the normal development of adolescent subjects and sought out new materials and methods to research the inner life of young people. In order to access this inner life, they turned to the interpretation of diaries and other self-descriptions. This article takes up the questions of how diaries were used in the scientific context of psychology, and how diary writing was psychologically interpreted and theorized. The theoretical and methodological contexts of psychological knowledge production grouped around the subject of the diary will be examined in keeping with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's concept of historical epistemology. This analysis is carried out by using the example of three central actors who were in conversation with each other during the 1920s and 1930s: the developmental psychologist Charlotte Bühler (1893-1974), the psychologist and founder of personalistic psychology William Stern (1871-1938), and the youth activist Siegfried Bernfeld (1892-1953), who was influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis.

Association of concentration of asbestos and asbestos-like fibers with the patient's survival and the binding capacity of lung parenchyma to galectin-1 and natural alpha-galactoside- and alpha-mannoside-binding immunoglobulin G subfractions from human serum

Our aim in this study was to search for lung parenchyma alterations associated with asbestos and/or asbestos-like fiber concentration. This was done by means of immuno- or glycohistochemistry. The hot-ashing technique determined the asbestos and asbestos-like fiber concentrations in the lung tissues of 100 patients of whom 52 were treated for primary lung and 25 for secondary lung tumors; fiber concentration was also measured for 23 patients whose disease was benign. The results were correlated to smoking habits, survival of the patients, and expression of binding capacities for endogenous lectins, natural carbohydrate-binding and lectin-specific antibodies. The cohort with proven asbestos exposure revealed a mean fiber concentration 114 f/g compared to 95 f/g in the non-exposed group. An increased asbestos fiber concentration was correlated to galectin-1-binding and the presence of epitopes for natural immunoglobulin G subfractions with selectivity to alpha-galactosides and alpha-mannosides. The survival of patients with primary and secondary lung tumors was negatively associated with the fiber concentration. The data indicate that increased presence of asbestos is correlated with an alteration of defined glycohistochemical features of alveolar lining cells.

Fine-needle aspiration biopsy of the thyroid gland: results of a five-year experience and discussion of its clinical limitations

The results of a five-year experience with fine-needle thyroid aspiration cytology are reported to assess the value, accuracy and limitations of this biopsy procedure. The cytologic diagnoses on 1,465 thyroid aspirates are listed, and correlation of cytology with histology on 207 cases undergoing surgery is reported. The incidence of malignancy among the atypical and malignant cytology aspirates with histologic confirmed diagnosis was 65% (28/43) while a false negative rate of 11.5% (15/131) was found. Fine-needle aspiration biopsy is a safe and useful procedure with an acceptable accuracy rate that complements other investigations in the screening of patients for thyroid surgery.