[Evolution of antibiotic resistance and serogroups of Streptococcus pneumoniae over the 1997-2003 period in Brittany]. / Evolution de la résistance aux antibiotiques et des sérogroupes de Streptococcus pneumoniae en Bretagne entre 1997 et 2003.

At this time, many antibiotics have decreased activity against Streptococcus pneumoniae, a major agent of infectious disease. In this study, we evaluated antibiotic susceptibility and serogroups of strains isolated from bacteraemia, meningitis and acute otitis media in adults and children over the 1997-2003 period in Brittany, France. In 2003, 62% of the isolates were not susceptible to penicillin and 11% were fully resistant. The prevalence of erythromycin resistance was 63%. Resistance rates were higher among isolates recovered from children than adults. Serogroups 19 and 14 were the most frequently isolated, especially the 19 one among children. The emergence of this serogroup might be a consequence of the use of heptavalent conjugate vaccine introduced in 2001 in France. Future surveillance after vaccination will be needed to detect emerging serogroups and resistance among S. pneumoniae.

[Crisis in adolescence]. / Contestation de l'adolescence.

The authors are reconsidering the usual notion of adolescence taken as a period of contest, as an awkward age, a period of crisis and of rupture. They successively examine the classical view of adolescence, some of the interactions between body and wind, the idea of crisis and the idea of rupture; and they put forward the following hypothesis: Adults--parents--educators--therapists consider the adolescent, struggling with his difficulties, with a defensive complacency which aims at eluding a reactivation of their own identification crisis; this is particularly shown in the interactions which, during this period, reactualize the conflicts about the organization of the genital as well for the adult as for the adolescent. They lean on a few clinical cases to back up their hypothesis and suggest that, in the treatments of adolescents or post-adolescents, a special interest should be taken in the presence or absence of a fantasy of rupture in correlation with rupture behaviors.

[Demonstration of pectin-lyase in Bacillus subtilis]. / Mise en évidence d'une activité pectine-lyase chez Bacillus subtilis.

After a screening performed on pectinolytic micro-organisms, a strain of B. subtilis was isolated. This strain has a pectic enzyme capable of beta-elimination on highly methylated pectin (degree of esterification = 85%), without the action of a pectinesterase. This activity corresponds to that of a pectin-lyase.