A historical perspective: Infection from cadaveric dissection from the 18th to 20th centuries

Today, the study of human anatomy utilizing the ultimate study guide, the cadaver, is relatively safe. In the past, however, human dissection was dangerous. Prior to the germ theory, antibiotics, and the use of gloves, cadavers were often life threatening to dissectors including both the teacher and the student. Medical students who graduated in the United States before 1880 were unlikely to practice antisepsis in the dissecting room. In the present article, we review human cadaveric dissection in Europe and the United States primarily from the 1700s to the early 1900s in regard to its potential for transmission of infection to the dissector. A brief account of the infectious hazards of human cadavers in general and those of cadavers used for dissection in particular is given. Clin. Anat. 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A summary of the 25th International Papillomavirus Conference 2009: Vaccines,screening, epidemiology and therapeutics

The 25th International Papillomavirus Conference was held in Malmo, Sweden, on May 8–14, 2009. The conference encompassed all areas of papillomavirus (PV) research, from clinical vaccinology to molecular biology. This review highlights some of the 237 presentations and 887 abstracts which were presented and summarizes sessions on prophylactic vaccines, screening, epidemiology and therapeutics. Important advances included identification of variants in four genes associated with HPV persistence, new HPV detection are likely new infections and not latency reactivation, and development of effective DNA vaccines that targets E6/E7 genes of HPV11. Also, many studies from different countries demonstrated that HPV vaccination provided sustained protection and substantial reduction of disease burden in both women and men, and in HIV-infected neonates. All the references cited are from the abstract book of the IPV Conference. See http://www.hpv2009.org/.