A monument to Lazarus: the leprosy hospital of Rio de Janeiro.

Soon after the Portuguese made landfall in 1500, Europeans and, later, African slaves introduced leprosy, and Saint Lazarus, the patron saint of its victims, into Brazil. Social and political pressure mounted by the middle of the eighteenth century in the city of Rio de Janeiro to remove those unfortunates from the city's streets even before the move of Brazil's capital in 1763. Frei Antôniom the bishop of Rio, founded the venerable hospital that year in the neighborhood of São Cristóvão, He requested that the Irmandade do Santissimo Sacramento da Candelária provide oversight and administration. The brotherhood continues to honor its covenant of 239 years ago. The history of this hospital provides insight into the complex relationships that existed between the citizenry and church and state. Rio's leprosy hospital, now the Hospital Frei Antônio, had an important role in the evolution of the health care professions, progress in medical science, and the genesis of the hygienic movement in Brazil. This study also contributes to the history of a disease that persists in 2002 Brazil as a public health issue.

[A plastic model of a lost hospital: the San Lazzaro leper house]. / Modello di un ospedale perduto: il plastico del lebbrosario di San Lazzaro.

The Museum of History of Medicine preserves a polychromatic plastic model drawned to a scale of one to one hundred. This model shows an hospital in Rome where, in the Middle Ages, it used to hospitalize lepers. The buildings were placed extra pomerium in account of sanitary reasons. They were composed of a church, that still does exist, and of a leper house, that was destroyed in 1938. The leper house became part of the Santo Spirito in Saxia hospital just in the XVIII century.

[Space perception: the history and its significance for art]. / Rumperceptionen, dens historie og betydning for kunsten.

Some aspects of the opthalmologic history of Denmark are briefly mentioned. Lens extraction in 1667 in Copenhagen, Edmund Hansen Gruts stereoophtalmoscopy in 1857, Ludvig Panums area in 1858 (single vision) space perception and outside this area double vision), squint treatment, Marius Tschernings periscopic spectacle lenses, Henning Rønnes stereoortograph and keiroscope and Gerhard Rønnes stereoscope. Space perception depends mostly on binocular function (convergens), but in fact some space perception occurs in vision due to perspective, accommodation, parallaxe, blurring, colours and shadows. The Danisk Poet, Hans Christian Andersen, has in his novels mentioned latent squint. The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke was much interested in perspective in connection with the development of impressionism, especially Paul Cézanne. Rilke in his later period developed the view that concentration on perspective removed those essential aspects from the world, in which he found God or a fourth dimension, as exemplified in the presence of ghosts.

Detection of leprosy in ancient human skeletal remains by molecular identification of Mycobacterium leprae.

We isolated ancient DNA from skeletal remains obtained from a South German ossuary (approximately 1400-1800 AD) and from a 10th century Hungarian cemetery partially indicating macromorphologic evidence of leprosy. In samples taken of 2 skulls from Germany and of 1 hard palate from Hungary, Mycobacterium leprae-specific fragments of RLEP1 and RLEP3 were amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), thereby confirming their specificity by sequencing. In another case, PCR with primers targeting IS6110 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis gave positive results only for a mandibular specimen. No signal for any mycobacterial DNA was observed in samples from 2 Hungarian foot bones. In ancient material, osseous involvement of M leprae may be detected and distinguished from other mycobacterial infections by specific PCR. In the small bones of leprous hands and feet, not enough M leprae DNA seems to be present for detection. This supports the view that rhinomaxillary leprous alterations result from direct bacterial involvement, while osseous mutilations of hands and feet result from a nervous involvement and/or secondary infections due to small lacerations of the overlying soft tissues.

[History of Saint-Louis' hospital through his building's history]. / Histoire de l'Hopital Saint-Louis a travers l'histoire de ses batiments.

After a few epidemics of pestis in the XVth century, the authority decided to erect a new hospital far from the heart of the city of Paris with an adapted architecture to isolation of contagious patients. All the buildings of the hospital were built in the same time and the result is homogeneous. The architecture is characterized by a central quadrilateral, four buildings in square, a chapel and few others pavilions. To maintain isolation, many galleries communicate to the squares and the stores. We can also find a cistern, a pavilion for the baths and one consecrated to the treatment of the leprosy and erected by the Order of Knighthood of Malta. All these edifices are scheduled as an ancient monument and actually don't receive patients but are hallowed to research, formation or meeting. A new hospital has been erected at the back of the old one.

Traditional pharmacology and medicine in Africa. Ethnopharmacological themes in sub-Saharan art objects and utensils.

Drawing from the general description that ethnopharmacology studies the human use of crude drugs and poisons in a traditional context, ethnopharmacological themes in native art can be defined as themes visualizing different features of traditional medicines and poisons, such as natural sources, methods of preparation, containers, usage and implements, target diseases and effects. This review documents that native African art objects and utensils are a goldmine of such ethnopharmacological themes by focusing on the following subjects: (a) objects related to the use of medicines (sources as well as tools for their collection, preparation and keeping); (b) objects related to the use of poisons (e.g. for ordeals, hunting and fishing); (c) objects related to the use of psychotropic agents (e.g. alcoholic beverages, kola nuts, smoking and snuffing materials); (d) pathological representations (e.g. treponematoses, leprosy, smallpox, swollen abdomen, scrotal enlargement, goiter and distorted faces); and (e) portrayals of certain types of treatment (e.g. topical instillations, perinatal care, and surgery). To avoid the impression that ethnopharmacology has little else to offer than armchair amusement, an epilogue outlines the medical relevance of this interdisciplinary science for Western and African societies.

[The construction of epidemic station in Leipzig until the beginning of the present century]. / Der Bau von Infektionsstationen in Leipzig zu Beginn unseres Jahrhunderts.

Among three large medieval foundations: St George's Hospital (opened in 1212 as a shelter for the homeless and terminally sick), St John's Hospital (first mentioned as a leprosarium in 1278) and St James' Hospital (probably opened at the end of 15 c. as a shelter for the terminally sick) only St George's and St James' survived the changeable fortunes of Leipzig (though the latter was at a number of occasions destroyed and rebuilt at a different site). Particularly at the times of war and epidemics they were used as field hospitals. E.G. St James' since 1566 was used as a quarantine for the plaque victims. At the end of 19 c. Leipzig hospitals had practically no isolation wards. In 1871 as a result of small-pox, temporary building were constructed for infections patients moved later to St James'. The particular status of Leipzig as a trade, fair and transportation centre influenced a number of decisions concerning the prevention of epidemics whose introduction coincided with the state and land regulations dealing with observation of people suspected to be ill, isolating them and desinfecting objects of contact. The town archives disclose talks concering the construction of isolation stations at St James', in 1913 St George's was reopened. It had kept two buildings for the sick, mostly TB patients.

[A study on the Safranbolu Syphilis Hospital and the lepres' shelter]. / Safranbolu Frengi Hastanesi ve Cüzzamlilar Barinagi Hakkinda Bir Arastirma Denemesi.

Safranbolu Syphilis Hospital, which was founded in the years 1884-1886, was situated in the Kiranköy district of the town. During the Ottoman reign, Kiranköy was the residential area of leather merchants from France and austria. Syphilis was widespresd in Safranbolu, a province of Kastamonu and this hospital was built there by the order of the Sultan in order to protect citizens and to prevent the spread of this disease from Europe. In the 1884 yearbook "Salname" of Kastamonu, the hospital is named as The Safranbolu Hospital for the syphilis and for the poor. ("Safranbolu Frengi ve Gureba Hastahanesi", the word "Gureba" meaning poor and homeless.) According to the marble inscription on the top of the gate of the building, the hospital was built and inaugurated in the year 1302 during the governorship of Abdurrahman Pasha. ...

Cincuenta años de investigación en México / Fifty years of research in Mexico

Contiene un conjunto de investigaciones realizadas por el Doctor Alberto P. León, premio Eduardo Liceaga, donde se abordan los diversos trabajos que ha logrado sumar, a lo largo de su carrera, en cuestiones de investigación sobre diversas enfermedades. El libro contiene los siguientes capítulos: I. Antígenos II. Brucelosis III. Difteria IV. Investigación V. Lepra VI. Meningococcus N. Intracelularis VII. Proteus y proteosis VIII. Salmonella y salmonelosis IX. Shigelosis, shigella y otras enfermedades de origen hídrico X. Streptococcias y streptococci XI. Sulfalumin XII. Sulfargenta XIII. Tifo y rickettsia XIV. Tuberculosis y BCG(AU)

50 Años de investigación en México / Fifty years of research in Mexico

Contiene un conjunto de investigaciones realizadas por el Doctor Alberto P. León, premio Eduardo Liceaga, donde se abordan los diversos trabajos que ha logrado sumar, a lo largo de su carrera, en cuestiones de investigación sobre diversas enfermedades. El libro contiene los siguientes capítulos: I. Antígenos II. Brucelosis III. Difteria IV. Investigación V. Lepra VI. Meningococcus N. Intracelularis VII. Proteus y proteosis VIII. Salmonella y salmonelosis IX. Shigelosis, shigella y otras enfermedades de origen hídrico X. Streptococcias y streptococci XI. Sulfalumin XII. Sulfargenta XIII. Tifo y rickettsia XIV. Tuberculosis y BCG