Mind-brain reduction: New light from the philosophy of science

The discussion of the reduction of mental states to brain states is placed in the broader context of reduction in other scientific disciplines such as chemistry, physics and biology. This is important in achieving a perspective on what sort of business reduction is and is seeing that reductions are primarily transitions between theories and only derivatively relations between phenomena. It also reveals that though reducing theories sometimes absorb the old theory as largely correct, more often the old theory is substantially modified and revised and sometimes it is replaced outright. How much of the old theory survives in the reducing theory depends on iots imperical integrity and whether its basic categories are imperically sound. The reduction of psychology to neuroscience is considered in this light and it is suggested that psychology may be substantially revised or even replaced by a reduction to neuroscience.     

Infection and disease: cause and cure

Much can be learnt about the mechanisms by which micro-organisms cause disease from the ways that they interact with cells and tissues. This issue of The Journal of Pathology contains articles that address the roles that cell and tissue biology and pathology are playing in the elucidation of these mechanisms. A review of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is followed by a discussion of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Two articles on human papillomavirus (HPV) infection address the association between viral infection and neoplasia, as do reviews on viruses and lymphoma/leukaemia, and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (human herpesvirus 8, HHV8). The section on viral disease concludes with an article on morbilliviruses. The intracellular effects of bacteria are addressed in a review of Listeria infection and a further review outlines recent advances in our knowledge of syphilis. Reviews on Helicobacter and gastric neoplasia, innate defences against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection, and the function of granulomas in tuberculosis also address aspects of tissue responses to bacterial infection. Following a review of the function of immunoglobulin A in defence against infection, a group of articles considers vaccination and gene therapy approaches, the latter involving consideration of both viral and bacterial strategies. The reviews assembled here bridge several gaps: between microbiology and cellular pathology; between host and infecting organism; and between disease and therapy. It is clear that cell and tissue pathology approaches are of value in all of these spheres, providing cell and tissue relevance to microbiological and immunological observations.     

Medicine and philosophy, and undissolvable link. Literary focus on contributions of Egyptian culture to medicine

Medicine and literature are bound humanistically disciplines from the moment that Man has the necessity to communicate his restlessness, anguish and fears with regard to the presence of illness and death. Medical topics are a frequent resource in literary works in which the writer amalgamates the patient, the doctor, illness, and death from the human point of view. Specifically in the historical quality of the novel, the author is forced nevertheless to be documented thoroughly on the topic on which his work rotate, in such a way that he avoids incorrect historical data, combined with the necessity to give flight to his imagination in the creation of fictitious situations for his narration. Here we analyze as example of the details of medicine in the Egyptian culture beginning with the novel "Sinuhé the Egyptian", as an answer to scientific commentary at an international on congress of neurosurgery.     

Antibiosis and cancer: Clue to cure

Antibiotics are chemical substances produced by living microorganisms which have the capacity to inhibit or kill other microbes of a different class. They were used successfully to revolutionize the treatment of infectious disease several decades ago. It is hypothesized that the concept of antibiosis or microbe antagonism will do the same for the treatment of cancer during the forseeable future. It is predicted that anti-cancer antibiotics, still mostly unidentified in the environment, which can be classified as being Biologic Response Modifiers to enhance the host's natural immune defenses against cancer, will prove to be the chief weapon to win the final battle against invasive cancer. However, to reach that goal the basic laws of immunity, including that of $\text{anamnesis}$, will have to be implemented and not ignored.