[Exile of Czechoslovak physicians to Sweden after 1968]. / Exil ceskoslovenských lékaru do Svédska po roce 1968.

The article describes the situation of the Czechoslovak exile, especially the exile of physicians to Sweden. Many of Czechoslovak physicians decided to emigrate due to their political attitudes. Majority of them left Czechoslovakia after the invasion of Warsaw Pact armies in 1968. The top of the exile wave was shortly after August 1968 and during 1969. Most of the people escaped from Czechoslovakia via Austria, where they asked for political asylum. Part of the emigrants had to spend some months in the refugee camps and during this time they tried to get visa to other European or non European countries. One of target countries for medical emigrants was also Sweden. In the 60th Sweden had deficiency in physicians and the wave of Czechoslovak emigration was convenient for Swedish Ministry of Health. The group of emigrants consisted of experts from hospitals or graduated medical students. In Sweden they had to attend special courses of Swedish medical language, Swedish medical law and social medicine. If they had medical training shorter than three years, they had to attend special courses also in internal medicine, surgery and psychiatry. After one year of service in northern part of Sweden, where there was a lack of physicians, they could choose hospital, where they wanted to work. Czechoslovak physicians were very successful in the Swedish medical system and also well accepted in the Swedish society as other exulants from Czechoslovakia. Key words: Czechoslovak exile to Sweden, political asylum 1968-1968.

Population drinking and fatal injuries in Eastern Europe: a time-series analysis of six countries.

AIMS: To estimate to what extent injury mortality rates in 6 Eastern European countries are affected by changes in population drinking during the post-war period. DATA AND METHODS: The analysis included injury mortality rates and per capita alcohol consumption in Russia, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the former Czechoslovakia. Total population and gender-specific models were estimated using auto regressive integrated moving average time-series modelling. RESULTS: The estimates for the total population were generally positive and significant. For Russia and Belarus, a 1-litre increase in per capita consumption was associated with an increase in injury mortality of 7.5 and 5.5 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. The estimates for the remaining countries ranged between 1.4 and 2.0. The gender-specific estimates displayed national variations similar to the total population estimates although the estimates for males were higher than for females in all countries. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that changes in per capita consumption have a significant impact on injury mortality in these countries, but the strength of the association tends to be stronger in countries where intoxication-oriented drinking is more common.

Colorectal cancer in rural Nebraska.

A case-control interview study of colorectal cancer was conducted in two rural counties of eastern Nebraska to determine reasons for the elevated colon cancer mortality rates during 1950 to 1969. Comparison of the information provided by 86 colorectal cancer cases and 176 matched controls (or their next of kin) revealed an increased risk among persons of Czech background, with persons of Bohemian and Moravian extraction predominating in this area. The data suggest an interaction between Bohemian ancestry and certain dietary patterns in the pathogenesis of colon cancer in this region. Colon cancer risk was elevated among commercial beer drinkers regardless of their ethnic background, although Bohemians reported heavier consumption. An excess risk was also associated with intestinal polyps, reported more often by Moravians, and with familial occurrence of gastrointestinal and other cancers. Since 1969, the mortality and incidence rates for colon cancer in this area have declined, possibly as a consequence of acculturation of the American-born descendants of Czech immigrants.

APC germline mutations identified in Czech patients with familial adenomatous polyposis.

Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is an autosomal dominantly inherited predisposition to colorectal cancer, which is caused by germline mutations in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene. The APC mutations have been investigated in 46 Czech unrelated FAP families and 9 suspected FAP families using DGGE analysis and direct DNA sequencing. We found 25 germline APC mutations and identified 11 which were not previously reported. Of the identified mutations, 10 were 1 to 5 bp deletions, four were 1 bp insertions and six were nonsense, all leading to the formation of premature stop codon. In addition, we detected two mutations in the splice-donor region of APC intron 11, one missense and two samesense mutations. Phenotypes of patients with known and novel types of mutations are presented and discussed.

Molecular analysis of Gaucher disease in a Vietnamese-Czechoslovak patient with high residual glucocerebrosidase activity.

A Vietnamese-Czechoslovak type 1 Gaucher disease patient with mild hematological complications was found to have approximately 20% of the normal level of fibroblast glucocerebrosidase activity. Using primers that recognize exon 9 sequences of the glucocerebrosidase structural gene absent in the pseudogene, genomic DNA sequences flanking exons 9 and 10 of the glucocerebrosidase structural gene were amplified by the polymerase chain reaction. Allele-specific oligonucleotide hybridization to amplified genomic DNA sequence of exons 9 and 10 showed an A----G transition in exon 9 that resulted in the 370Ser----370Asp substitution in one of the alleles. In the other allele, a T----C transition in exon 10 resulted in the 444Leu----444Pro substitution, creating a NciI cleavage site. The heterozygote status of the patient's parents was confirmed biochemically by the detection of intermediate levels (42-55% of normal) of fibroblast glucocerebrosidase activity. Allele-specific oligonucleotide hybridization to amplified parental genomic DNA showed that the exon 9 mutation was present in the Czechoslovak father, whereas the exon 10 mutation was inherited from the patient's Vietnamese mother. This is the first report of the exon 10 mutation in a person of Vietnamese origin.

Genetic polymorphism of the C4 component of human complement in the Slovak population.

The distribution of C4 phenotypes and gene frequencies were studied in 104 genetically unrelated persons of Slovakia using high-voltage agarose gel electrophoresis with subsequent immunofixation. Five C4A alleles and three C4B alleles were detected. The gene frequencies were as follows: A2 = 0.0576, A3 = 0.7644, A4 = 0.0336, A6 = 0.0625, AQ0 = 0.817, B1 = 0.7836, B2 = 0.1009, BQ0 = 0.1153. The C4AQ0 and C4BQ0 alleles established by densitometry appeared in the Slovak population in 16.34% and 23.07%, respectively.

Short communications. A case of cutaneous leishmaniasis with the isolation of the parasite.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis of the zoonotic, rural type caused by Leishmania major was dignosed in a Czechoslovak citizen returning from Iraq. a Leishmania strain was isolated for the first time in Czechoslovakia from the skin lesion on the right forearm of the patient. No treatment was necessary because spontaneous healing of the lesion was well under way.

Repetitive escape nightmares of refugees.

Questionnaire responses of 38 Czechoslovak refugees indicated that 84.2% experienced, at least once, a nightmare about being back in their ex-homeland and trying to escape again. The escape nightmares were most frequent within the first 2 years after escape. A significant decrease in frequency was noted 4 years after escape and during the subsequent years.

Escape nightmares and postescape stressful events.

Correlation matrix based on questionnaire item responses by 38 Czechoslovak refugees suggested that "escape nightmares" (recurrent nightmares about being back in the exhomeland, wanting to or trying to re-escape to the free world) are unrelated to postescape incidence of various stressful events (e.g., illness, job difficulties, financial problems). However, refugees who reported a greater number of the stressful events also reported a somewhat higher incidence of nightmares on themes other than escape from homeland (r = .34).

[Immunogenetic characteristics of the population of the Transcarpathian region of the UkrSSR ABO system erythrocyte antigen findings]. / Immunogeneticheskie osobennosti naseleniia Zakarpatskoi oblasti USSR po dannym éritrotsitarnykh antigenov sistemy ABO.

The phenotypes with their respective alleles frequencies of the ABO system were studied in 33 230 individuals of 9 ethnic groups of the Transcarpathian Region population. Statistically significant differences in allele frequencies were found in Gypsies, Germans and Slovaks as compared to those in the main Ukrainian population. There are significant differences between Hungarians and Gypsies of the Transcarpathian Region and analogous populations beyond the region. Absence of a reliable difference between gene pools of the Slav groups of the population and of Hungarians may point to the local origin of the later.

Peasants on display: the Czechoslavic Ethnographic Exhibition of 1895.

In the increasingly modernized Central Europe of the late nineteenth century, folk culture, with its alleged ancient character, was still understood by some scholars as the bearer of national identity. The Czechoslavic [sic] Ethnographic Exhibition, which took place in Prague in 1895, aimed to promote the idea of the ethnically unified, but at the same time regionally diverse, identity of the Czech-speaking people living in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. Having to negotiate their identity with the ethnic Germans of Bohemia, the Czechs consciously excluded them from the event both as organizers and as exhibitors. The exhibition could therefore be seen as a symptom of its time­in the late nineteenth century Central Europe, locating national heritage was crucial and folk culture played an important role in the national politics, and not only for the Czechs. This article focuses mainly on the ethnographic exhibit entitled 'the Exhibition Village', which consisted of an eclectic selection of village houses and their imitations from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. On this basis, it explores the political intentions behind the display of folk culture to both urban and rural audiences and brings attention to the question of integration of the diverse regional objects in a utopian national whole. The article thus also aims to demonstrate issues related to the use of folk artefacts for the purposes of cultural nationalism in Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth century.

"A matter of physical health and strength": disciplining the female body and reproducing the Czech national community in the mid-nineteenth century.

An 1850 article "Uzavírání snatku" ("Marriage") by Czech physician Jan Spott outlined the requirements for those who considered themselves part of the Czech national community. Spott stressed that those concerned with the future national existence had to educate themselves and each other to create healthy offspring. I examine Spott's article with regard to contemporary ideas about fitness, the role of women, the need to discipline the female body, as well as the importance of education in reproducing the community. This article's analysis - set in the broader context of the history of women, medicine, and nationalisms - shows that nation-oriented education could be perceived as a way to ensure the nation's future existence while simultaneously emphasizing the responsibility of individuals, and particularly women, for the reproduction of the community. Spott's propositions are significant to other nineteenth-century national movements and to postnational contexts where national fitness is a concern.

The survey project: researching women's everyday experience and envisioning modernity in rural Bohemia at the end of the Second World War.

This article examines a survey of rural Czech women conducted in 1944­1945. It argues that the survey tells two very different stories. First, the survey provides an unvarnished look into the everyday material circumstances of a few rural Czech women. But for all they tell us about the material conditions of these rural women's lives, the surveys tell us very little about their ideals, hopes, and dreams. The surveys do, however, reveal quite a bit about the inner motivations of the very different group of women who commissioned this research, a group known as the Women's Center. Reading in between the lines of these texts shows how the activists of the Women's Center imagined modernity in the countryside. Theirs was a vision of rational households, technological advances, and good taste, even in rural villages.

Fy (a-b-) phenotype in Czechoslovakia.

A family of gypsy origin, with 5 Fy(a-b-) members was found in Czechoslovakia. The involvement of the silen allele, Fy, in paternity testing is discussed.