Dr Hetty Brenda Ockrim (1919-2007) and her medical legacy.

Dr Hetty Ockrim was a general practitioner in an inner-city Glasgow district for 43 years, before retiring in 1989. This paper looks at her career and her legacy through the pioneering oral history study she undertook, on retirement, with former patients, and the 'Letters to No-one' written at the time of her retirement but only discovered at the time of her death.

Ernest Hart: Editor of the British Medical Journal 1866-1898.

Ernest Abraham Hart (26 June 1835-7 January 1898) was the long-time editor of the British Medical Journal. He held strong opinions, and was often controversial but his views generally prevailed. He was born into a Jewish family in London and was educated at the City of London School. He studied medicine at the St George's Hospital School of Medicine and specialised in diseases of the eye. His medical journalism began with The Lancet in 1857 and in August 1866, he was appointed editor of the British Medical Journal taking it, in his decades of leadership, from a small publication to a significant scientific journal increasing the British Medical Association membership substantially. Julia Frankau's novel of scandal, Dr Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll (1887) published under the pseudonym of Frank Danby, has a leading character, Dr Phillips, thought to be modelled on Ernest Hart and who murders his wife reviving speculation about the death of Hart's first wife from accidental poisoning.

Philip De la Cour (1710-1785), a Jewish Physician in eighteenth-century London and Bath.

Portugal exiled its Jews in 1497. In 1536, the Portuguese Inquisition began to persecute Jews who continued to practice their religion in secret. It became difficult for the secret Jews to leave Portugal, but small communities of emigres grew up around Europe, especially in London, Amsterdam and Salonica (Thessaloniki), and beyond. As the Portuguese Inquisition became more active in the early decades of the eighteenth-century, Jews, who had been accustomed to practising their religion in secret, while outwardly conforming to Catholicism, were again sought out for persecution. Philip De la Cour's parents escaped from Portugal and arrived in London around 1707 and his eventful life in London and Bath illustrates many of the aspects of eighteenth-century Jewish medical life.

Effects of a polysaccharide-rich extract derived from Irish-sourced Laminaria digitata on the composition and metabolic activity of the human gut microbiota using an in vitro colonic model.

BACKGROUND: Brown seaweeds are known to be a rich source of fiber with the presence of several non-digestible polysaccharides including laminarin, fucoidan and alginate. These individual polysaccharides have previously been shown to favorably alter the gut microbiota composition and activity albeit the effect of the collective brown seaweed fiber component on the microbiota remains to be determined. METHODS: This study investigated the effect of a crude polysaccharide-rich extract obtained from Laminaria digitata (CE) and a depolymerized CE extract (DE) on the gut microbiota composition and metabolism using an in vitro fecal batch culture model though metagenomic compositional analysis using 16S rRNA FLX amplicon pyrosequencing and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) analysis using GC-FID. RESULTS: Selective culture analysis showed no significant changes in cultured lactobacilli or bifidobacteria between the CE or DE and the cellulose-negative control at any time point measured (0, 5, 10, 24, 36, 48 h). Following metagenomic analysis, the CE and DE significantly altered the relative abundance of several families including Lachnospiraceae and genera including Streptococcus, Ruminococcus and Parabacteroides of human fecal bacterial populations in comparison to cellulose after 24 h. The concentrations of acetic acid, propionic acid, butyric acid and total SCFA were significantly higher for both the CE and DE compared to cellulose after 10, 24, 36 and 48 h fermentation (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the acetate:propionate ratio was significantly reduced (p < 0.05) for both CD and DE following 24, 36 and 48 h fermentation. CONCLUSION: The microbiota-associated metabolic and compositional changes noted provide initial indication of putative beneficial health benefits of L. digitata in vitro; however, research is needed to clarify if L. digitata-derived fiber can favorably alter the gut microbiota and confer health benefits in vivo.

Career perspective: Kenneth J. Collins.

A career interest in thermoregulation research has included wide contrasts in the subjects of enquiry, extending from heat stroke to hypothermia, special investigations in many different purpose-built climatic chambers, laboratory-based biomedical studies together with hospital practice, and field work in tropical climates to physiological surveys on urban populations in temperate environments. The scientific process and need to focus on careful planning of experiments, using the most appropriate methods, selecting the right controls and eventually applying correct statistical analysis do not always follow a smooth transition, as illustrated in this account. The result of endeavour to resolve a human environmental problem, however, is greatly satisfying, and sometimes becomes a unique experience when the solution reveals new fundamental facts.

Development of Maryland Local Overdose Fatality Review Teams: A Localized, Interdisciplinary Approach to Combat the Growing Problem of Drug Overdose Deaths.

The Maryland Local Overdose Fatality Review Teams (LOFRTs) are multiagency, multidisciplinary teams that critically analyze individual cases of drug overdose in their jurisdictions to identify preventable risk factors and missed opportunities for intervention, and to make policy and programmatic recommendations to prevent future overdose deaths. Three Maryland LOFRTs were first piloted in early 2014, and became established in law in May of the same year. LOFRTs provide unique opportunities for enhanced interagency collaboration and locally driven prevention efforts. This study describes the process of establishing LOFRTs in Maryland. The experiences and information regarding LOFRTs may help counties in other states combat the growing problem of deaths by drug overdose.

Looking Beyond the Terrestrial: The Potential of Seaweed Derived Bioactives to Treat Non-Communicable Diseases.

Seaweeds are a large and diverse group of marine organisms that are commonly found in the maritime regions of the world. They are an excellent source of biologically active secondary metabolites and have been shown to exhibit a wide range of therapeutic properties, including anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic activities. Several Asian cultures have a strong tradition of using different varieties of seaweed extensively in cooking as well as in herbal medicines preparations. As such, seaweeds have been used to treat a wide variety of health conditions such as cancer, digestive problems, and renal disorders. Today, increasing numbers of people are adopting a "westernised lifestyle" characterised by low levels of physical exercise and excessive calorific and saturated fat intake. This has led to an increase in numbers of chronic Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes mellitus, being reported. Recently, NCDs have replaced communicable infectious diseases as the number one cause of human mortality. Current medical treatments for NCDs rely mainly on drugs that have been obtained from the terrestrial regions of the world, with the oceans and seas remaining largely an untapped reservoir for exploration. This review focuses on the potential of using seaweed derived bioactives including polysaccharides, antioxidants and fatty acids, amongst others, to treat chronic NCDs such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus.

Levi Myers (1767-1822): An eighteenth century Glasgow medical graduate from South Carolina.

Levi Myers, a native of Georgetown, South Carolina, was the first Jewish medical graduate at the University of Glasgow, obtaining the MD, in 1787. Myers had been registered for studies at the University of Edinburgh for three years, from 1785/1786 to 1787/1788, after some years of training with a physician in Charleston, South Carolina. Recent studies of Jewish life in Edinburgh have revealed the evidence of a settled group of Jewish inhabitants in the city during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, during the time of Myers' sojourn in Edinburgh and thirty years before the formal inauguration of Scotland's first Jewish community. This paper examines the context of Myers' studies in Edinburgh as an American medical student and as a Jew.

Jewish medical students and graduates at the universities of padua and leiden: 1617-1740.

The first Jewish medical graduates at the University of Padua qualified in the fifteenth century. Indeed, Padua was the only medical school in Europe for most of the medieval period where Jewish students could study freely. Though Jewish students came to Padua from many parts of Europe the main geographical sources of its Jewish students were the Venetian lands. However, the virtual Padua monopoly on Jewish medical education came to an end during the seventeenth century as the reputation of the Dutch medical school in Leiden grew. For aspiring medieval Jewish physicians Padua was, for around three hundred years, the first, simplest, and usually the only choice.

Joseph S. Weiner and the foundation of post-WW II human biology in the United Kingdom.

Both the United States and the United Kingdom experienced a transformation in the science of physical anthropology from the period before World War II until the post-war period. In the United States, Sherwood L. Washburn is credited with being a leading figure in this transformation. In the United Kingdom, two individuals were instrumental in bringing about a similar change in the profession. These were Joseph S. Weiner at the University of Oxford and Nigel Barnicot at the University of London, with Weiner playing the principal role as leader in what Washburn called the "New Physical Anthropology," that is, the application of evolutionary theory, the de-emphasis on race classification, and the application of the scientific method and experimental approaches to problem solving. Weiner's contributions to physical anthropology were broad-based--climatic and work physiology, paleoanthropology, and human variation--in what became known as human biology in the U.K. and human adaptability internationally. This biographical essay provides evidence for the significant influence of J.S. Weiner on the post-war development of human biology (biological or physical anthropology) inthe U.K.

Evaluations of the BET, I-point, and α-plot procedures for the routine determination of external specific surface areas of highly dispersed and porous silicas.

Nitrogen adsorption isotherms of silicas and other oxidic materials are distorted by the presence of micropore adsorption and capillary condensation. This distortion affects the determination of the specific area of the material, depending on the chosen calculation procedure. Correction of the initial (total) isotherm for micropore capacity decreases or eliminates this source of error to give a useful estimate of the external surface area. In the present work, 26 silica-based adsorbent materials were studied to obtain total and external specific surface areas by the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), I-point, and α-plot procedures, using the micropore capacities from the α-plots to obtain the corrected (external) isotherms. Errors in the specific surface areas due to the presence of micropores are given by the equation ΔsA = 3.267 (m(2)/cm(3) STP) sV(mic), where sA is the specific surface area in m(2)/g and sV(mic) is the micropore capacity in cm(3) STP/g. A consistent set of conversion factors was obtained by which the external specific surface area obtained using one of these procedures can be converted, with part-per-thousand precision, to either of the others. Although the I-point procedure presents the advantage of not requiring a defined p/p(0) range, the α-plot procedure is recommended for routine determinations of external specific areas of silicas and other oxidic materials, except for cases in which the shapes of the adsorption isotherms of the sample and the reference differ significantly from one another in the p/p(0) range used for the determination.

A new generation of more pH stable reversed phases prepared by silanization of zirconized silica.

To further extend our studies in the search for reversed phases with enhanced durability at high pH, zirconized silica has now been explored as an alternative support. The synthesis of the new stationary phases involves silanization of a zirconium-modified silica support with a C(18) trifunctional silane, followed by endcapping. The chromatographic properties of the C(18) phases based on zirconized silica are similar to their titanized silica counterparts. Accelerated high pH stability tests, using phosphate mobile phases and elevated temperature, have shown that the zirconized silica phases have promising advantages not only over similarly prepared non-metalized phases but also over titanized silica C(18) phases.

Joseph Schorstein: R. D. Laing's 'rabbi'.

The Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing (1929-88) was one of the most influential but also one of the most controversial figures in twentieth-century psychiatry as he explored the boundaries in schizophrenia and serious mental illness in families. Joseph Schorstein (1909-76) was born in Moravia, graduated in medicine in Vienna, specialized in neurosurgery and eventually settled in Glasgow following wartime army service. Laing acknowledged the role of Schorstein as his 'spiritual mentor' and guide to the European intellectual world. This paper looks at the relationship between these two very different men and examines the career of Schorstein and the influence of his cultural background in Central Europe in shaping aspects of medical thought and culture in Glasgow.

Stability studies of stationary phases from poly(methyltetradecylsiloxane) sorbed and immobilized onto metalized and unmodified silicas.

Stationary phases for RP-HPLC were prepared from metalized (titanized and zirconized) and unmodified silica particles using sorbed and immobilized poly(methyltetradecylsiloxane) (PMTDS). Different immobilization procedures, such as gamma irradiation and thermal treatments, were used for the preparation of the immobilized PMTDS phases. The stabilities of these stationary phases were evaluated by passing alkaline (pH 10) mobile phase through 60 mm x 3.9 mm columns of the different phases, with periodic tests to evaluate chromatographic performance. The results show that higher stabilities were obtained with stationary phases based on PMTDS immobilized on zirconized silica, these phases being 50% more stable than their titanized silica counterparts and 400% more stable than those based on unmodified silica. These supports provide higher chemical stability to the laboratory-made stationary phases, when compared with chemically bonded silica-based phases.

Preparation of stationary phases for reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography using thermal treatments at high temperature.

Batches of poly(methyloctylsiloxane) (PMOS)-loaded silica were prepared by deposition from a solution of PMOS into the pores of HPLC silica. Portions of PMOS-loaded silica were subjected to a thermal treatment at 100 degrees C for 24h (condition 1) in a tube furnace under a nitrogen atmosphere. After that, the material was heated for 4h at higher temperatures (150-400 degrees C) (condition 2). Heating at higher temperatures produces polymer bilayers. Non-immobilized and thermally treated stationary phases were characterized by percent carbon, (29)Si cross-polarization magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and reversed-phase chromatographic performance. The results show that thermal treatment between 150 and 300 degrees C accelerates the immobilization process, possibly due to some bond breaking of the polysiloxane, with formation of strong linkages to the surface of the support, resulting in more complete coverage of the silica. The chromatographic results show an improvement of efficiency with the increase of the temperature of condition 2 up to 300 degrees C and an increase in the resolution of the components, mainly for the phase heated at 300 degrees C. Such results demonstrate that a two-step thermal treatment (100 degrees C then 150-300 degrees C) produces stationary phases with good properties for use in reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

Preparation and characterization of poly(methyltetradecylsiloxane) stationary phases immobilized by gamma radiation onto zirconized silica.

The preparation of stationary phases with enhanced chemical stability in alkaline eluents has been the principal objective of many chromatographers. New and improved silica substrates and advanced chemical modification methods are among the possibilities being investigated to reach this objective. The present work has evaluated these two possibilities for new stationary phases. First, the silica surface was modified by reaction with zirconium tetrabutoxide to produce zirconized silica particles having about 21% (w/w) of zirconium. Then poly(methyltetradecylsiloxane) (PMTDS) was immobilized onto this surface using different doses (50-120 kGy) of gamma radiation. These new phases were characterized using elemental analysis and infrared and solid-state (29)Si-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopies. These new stationary phases presented column efficiencies of about 68,000 plates m(-1), symmetric peaks for apolar compounds and retention factors that depend on the irradiation dose and show improved stability in high pH mobile phases. The separation of several pharmaceuticals at pH 11 is presented.