Race, class, caste, disability, sterilisation and hysterectomy.

This interdisciplinary historical paper focuses on the past and current state of diverse forms of surgical hysterectomy as a global phenomenon relating to population control and sterilisation. It is a paper grounded in historical inquiry but is unconventional relative to the norms of historical scholarship both in its wide geographical scope informed by the methodologies of global and intercultural history, in its critique of current clinical practices informed by recent feminist, race, biopolitical and disability studies, and by its engagement with scholarship in health sociology and medical anthropology which has focused on questions of gender and healthcare inequalities. The first part of the paper surveys existing medical, social-scientific and humanistic research on the racial, class, disability and caste inequalities which have emerged in the recent global proliferation of hysterectomy; the second part of the paper is about the diverse global rationales underlying radical gynaecological surgeries as a form of sterilisation throughout the long twentieth century. Radical gynaecological surgeries have been promoted for several different purposes throughout their history and, of course, are sometimes therapeutically necessary. However, they have often disproportionately impacted the most disadvantaged groups in several different global societies and have frequently been concentrated in populations that are already maligned on the basis of race, ethnicity, age, criminality, disability, gender deviation, lower class, caste or poverty. This heritage continues to inform current practices and contributes to ongoing global inequalities of healthcare.

Quantitative Immunoblotting of Cell Lines as a Standard to Validate Immunofluorescence for Quantifying Biomarker Proteins in Routine Tissue Samples.

Quantification of proteins of interest in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples is important in clinical and research applications. An optimal method of quantification is accurate, has a broad linear dynamic range and maintains the structural integrity of the sample to allow for identification of individual cell types. Current methods such as immunohistochemistry (IHC), mass spectrometry, and immunoblotting each fail to meet these stipulations due to their categorical nature or need to homogenize the sample. As an alternative method, we propose the use of immunofluorescence (IF) and image analysis to determine the relative abundance of a protein of interest in FFPE tissues. Herein we demonstrate that this method is easily optimized, yields a wide dynamic range, and is linearly quantifiable as compared to the gold standard of quantitative immunoblotting. Furthermore, this method permits the maintenance of the structural integrity of the sample and allows for the distinction of various cell types, which may be crucial in diagnostic applications. Overall, this is a robust method for the relative quantification of proteins in FFPE samples and can be easily adapted to suit clinical or research needs.

Coprophagy in nineteenth-century psychiatry.

This paper shows how Austrian psychiatrists of the 1870s developed the first pathological accounts of institutional coprophagia, examining how they related the behaviour to mental illness and dementia. These ideas about coprophagia contrasted dramatically to the long European pharmacological tradition of using excrement for the treatment of a wide range of health conditions. Recent medical scholarship on institutional coprophagia is also reviewed here, with a novel hypothesis proposed about why some patients in long-term care resort to the behaviour in institutions where there is little opportunity for healthy human-microbe interactions.

High-grade B-cell lymphoma with MYC and BCL2 rearrangements arising in a composite lymphoma.

BACKGROUND: We report the first case of composite lymphoma consisting of chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL), follicular lymphoma (FL) and high-grade B-cell lymphoma with MYC and BCL2 rearrangements within the same needle biopsy in which a clonal relationship between the FL and high-grade B-cell lymphoma components was demonstrated by molecular cytogenetics. CASE PRESENTATION: An 85-year-old man presented with masses in his neck and right groin. Cutting needle biopsy of the inguinal mass revealed the three lymphoma types which were morphologically, immunophenotypically and topographically distinct. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) identified an IGH-BCL2 rearrangement in both the FL and high-grade B-cell components while a MYC rearrangement was detected in the high-grade B-cell component alone. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the high-grade lymphoma with MYC and BCL2 translocations evolved through transformation of the FL by a process that entailed acquisition of the MYC translocation. No clonal relationship between the FL and CLL/SLL components was evident since the IGH-BCL2 rearrangement was present in in the former but not the latter. This unique case of co-localized FL, CLL/SLL, and high-grade B-cell lymphoma contributes to our understanding of the clonal relationships that may exist between the components of composite lymphomas.