Medicines for towns and medicines for countrysides

The regulations of the communities of apothecaries, in towns, ruled the conditions of the preparation and of the distribution of medicines to people. The application of these regulations was very strict and many conflicts occurred between apothecaries, grocers and surgeons. But, all that concerned people living in towns. What was it for countrysides? No medicine doctors, no apothecaries, a few surgeons! How could it be possible to cure countrymen? King's medicines, charitable ladies, ecclesiastics and pedlars were the solutions. Many books were redacted, during the XVIIth and the XVIIIth centuries, in order to help charitable persons to prepare easily non-expensive but efficient medicines for poor people.     

Introversion and self-reported reason for and times of urge for smoking

Forty-eight male and female smokers completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, as well as self-report measures of when and why they smoke. The results of the study are consistent with Eysenck's hypothesis that nicotine and smoking have greater tranquilizing properties in introverts than in extraverts. Reports of smoking for tranquilization correlated positively with introversion and, similarly, introversion correlated positively with reports of a greater desire to smoke in a stressful, as compared to a non-stressful, situation.     

腹部手术切口裂开的防治

目的探讨腹部手术切口裂开的防治措施。方法回顾性分析自1996年2月至2004年1月发生的腹部手术切口裂开病例15例。结果及时清创，减张缝合，积极治疗全身性疾病，13例痊愈，2例死亡。结论重视对手术前、后危险因素的处理，正确运用缝合技术，可有效地预防腹部手术切口裂开。提高手术的成功率。     

Requirements for standards for monoclonal anti-A and anti-B antibodies

On the model of the Soviet monoclonal anti-A and anti-B antibody--erythrocytes of the groups A1, A2, A1B and A2B the conditions for the elaboration of the branch standard for anti-A and anti-B monoclonal antibodies were worked out. In comparison with the standard for human sera determining the ABO groups, the requirement for avidity can be increased, furthermore it seems necessary to determine the percentage of non-A blood cells in the A2B group, which should not exceed 30%, and the percentage of non-B blood cells in A1B erythrocytes, which should not exceed 10%.     

Recommendations for water safety and drowning prevention for travelers

Drowning is a serious worldwide, mostly preventable injury problem, particularly among international travelers. In 2000, approximately 449,000 people have drowned worldwide, and the exact number of travelers is not precisely known. Although comprehensive infectious disease information has been available to international travelers for many years, advice on injury risk and prevention, more specifically on drowning prevention, has received little attention. The goals of this review were to develop research-based drowning prevention and water-safety recommendations for travelers and to identify research needs for future recommendations. A group of injury-prevention and travel-medicine experts conducted several rounds of voting and ranking of the strength and evidence of drowning-prevention recommendations. Each of the thirty-two recommendations created have also been categorized using the Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel scale and have been framed in the context of preevent, event, and postevent categories commonly used in injury-control theory and Haddon's Matrix. These recommendations were developed for use by travel-medicine professionals or others who prepare individuals for travel. Several of the identified interventions to prevent drownings lack conclusive scientific evidence of their effectiveness and warrant further studies to better understand their true effectiveness. Furthermore, funding for the studies of intervention effectiveness and the implications of these interventions for international travelers are essential, yet insufficient.     

Proposal for international guidelines for reproductive and developmental toxicity testing for pharmaceuticals.

1. A Workshop was organized by the Centre for Medicines Research in London, 13th-15th May 1991 to discuss the current situation concerning tests for reproductive and developmental toxicity required for new drug development, and whether a unified series of guidelines could be developed which would satisfy Regulatory Authorities and Scientists worldwide. 2. The international group of experts invited to participate in this meeting reached a consensus regarding the desirability of developing new and flexible guidelines. An approach was proposed based on the state of the art of scientific knowledge in the field of reproductive and developmental toxicology coupled with the minimum use of experimental animals, and taking into consideration the European proposal for a new guideline which has been open for discussion since 1989. 3. Although time did not permit detailed discussion of all study designs, several which are considered to provide acceptable tests for reproductive and developmental toxicity of new therapeutic candidates have been proposed for further discussion. These include the possibility of considerable reduction in duration and size of studies, and numbers of animals used where there is an indication that a low hazard potential exists. 4. Whichever of the combinations are ultimately used in the premarketing assessment, it is most important that the investigators justify in detail the rationale underlying the choice of studies undertaken. This should take into account the specific properties of the drug molecule and its proposed clinical use. 5. This paper reflects the discussions which took place at the Workshop and its publication has been agreed to by the participants. It is intended that it could be used as the basis for discussions of a harmonized approach to reproductive and developmental toxicity testing of pharmaceuticals. As such, it will be made available to regulatory agencies, trade associations and other appropriate groups for their consideration and acceptance, modification or scientific augmentation.     

物理课教学内容与教学模式的改革

指出传统中药专业物理课教学内容与教学模式存在的问题,介绍开展中药专业物理课教学内容与教学模式改革及实践的成功经验。     

中药“九蒸九晒”的历史沿革及现代研究

本文对历代本草中采用九蒸九晒炮制方法的药材进行综述,选取临床上常见的6味中药材进行归纳整理,探究其炮制工艺的变化,并对目前九蒸九晒工艺展开分析及探讨,发掘九蒸九晒在药材炮制过程中对药材的影响。经过九蒸九晒后的中药材,不仅有助于干燥,利于储存,还可纠正其偏性,发挥更好的临床疗效。现代研究表明,通过九蒸九晒后的中药材其疗效有所提高,具有很好的临床疗效。但是目前尚缺乏对九蒸九晒加工品以及其辅料的深入研究,也未建立相应的标准,这将是今后研究的侧重点。     

Methods for assessing HIV and HIV risk among IDUs and for evaluating interventions

A wide range of methods is now available for assessing the nature and characteristics of drug injecting populations, and for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions developed to reduce injecting related harms. The public health surveillance tasks in relation to injecting drug use populations and associated health problems are the same, in principle, as for the surveillance of other health problems. These are: to describe the patterns of the condition, the nature of the problem and the environment (context) in which it occurs; to determine the scale of interventions needed and estimated coverage required, to forecast future health care needs; to mobilise resources and target prevention; and to evaluate interventions. Countries vary in their existing levels of information as well as resources for surveillance systems, research and evaluation. We propose three levels of assessment: basic assessment, which is suitable in situations of low awareness and information, routine surveillance, and enhanced surveillance, which requires more complex research and/or analyses of data collected from routine surveillance.     

Pharmaceutical pictograms: A model for development and testing for comprehension and utility

BackgroundWith concerns about the medication literacy skills of patients comes the need to develop various types of information materials that will enhance understanding and drug use.ObjectivesTo review pictogram development projects and to propose a model for pharmaceutical pictogram development and testing for comprehension and use.MethodsPrevious efforts in developing specific types of pictograms in engineering and safety as well as in health care and pharmacy are collected and summarized in terms of level of comprehension and recall. The impact of pictogram-enhanced medication information materials on knowledge acquisition, information retention, and adherence is assessed.Results and conclusionsPictograms are a key component in re-designing medication information to improve comprehension, recall, and adherence. Many types of pictograms still produce low levels of comprehension and the impact of pictograms on medication knowledge is inconsistent. Prior training through patient counseling on the intended meaning and use of pictograms greatly increases their effectiveness. A model for the development and testing of pictograms and pictogram sequences for comprehension and use in medication information is presented and discussed.     

Technologies for hair reconstruction and their applicability for pharmaceutical research

Hair follicles are the organs that produce hair shafts. They periodically regenerate throughout the life of the organisms, which is called the hair cycle. To develop new drugs to treat hair disorders and diseases, reproducible and high throughput assays or screening methods have been required to estimate the efficacy of various factors on hair follicle function. Although organ culture of hair follicles is one of the useful ways to carry out such research, it is not suitable for manipulating the genes or cells present in hair follicles. Patch assay is a method used to reconstruct hair follicles from enzymatically dissociated skin cells and has many advantages compared to the conventional Chamber method. Using the Patch method, transferring genes into follicular cells becomes easier than ever before. Chimeric follicles could be produced with dissociated cells by modifying the combination of cells or by simply merging cells of different origins. These applications certainly help the progress of hair research. However, we recently found that some functions of dermal papillae and follicular epithelia change during the growing phase (anagen) of the hair cycle. Dermal papillae produce different factors in early anagen and mid anagen. The signals from dermal papillae in early anagen could produce hair bulbs with clonogenic epithelial precursors but not with dormant epithelial precursors. On the other hand, the signals from dermal papillae in mid anagen strongly promote hair formation with dormant epithelial precursors. Therefore, more attention should be given to the hair cycle stages when using organ culture of hair follicles and conducting reconstruction experiments with follicularly derived cells.     

Control of craving for methamphetamine: development of scales for dependence and search for medicines for treatment]

Methamphetamine dependence presents a serious problem not only for patients but also for society. Medical treatment has mainly targeted psychotic symptoms such as hallucination and delusion, and ignored the symptoms of craving, which are the major cause of dependence. Therefore, the risk of lapse into methamphetamine reuse remains very high. Although development of both medicines and programs for treatment of craving is needed, progress has been hampered by the lack of appropriate scales for assessing the severity of dependence and craving. On the other hand, recent breakthroughs in genomic sciences and molecular medicine have made it possible to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying craving in animals. This paper reviews studies on the development of scales for assessing the severity of methamphetamine dependence and craving, together with recent data on candidate medicines for craving treatment in animals. The reliability and validity of the revised Addiction Severity Index -Japanese version (ASI-J) was confirmed after its administration to 100 drug abuse patients. The Craving Index was also newly developed, and its validity for prediction of relapse was confirmed. In animal experiments, fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, was recognized as a candidate medicine for treatment of methamphetamine dependence.