Patterns of dysphoria in a Puerto Rican urban community.

This study was undertaken to explore the prevalence of perceived dysphoria in a poor, urban, predominantly Puerto Rican community. A cross-sectional sample of 704 adult respondents were asked a single validated question, with a five-item Likert scale response, about their level of perceived dysphoria. Chi-squared analysis and Spearman's correlation coefficients were used to assess the association of level of dysphoria with social characteristics, barriers to health care, health status, and substance use. Linear regression modeling was used to control for confounding variables. Twenty percent of the respondents were dysphoric. Respondents with no health insurance or no source of health care were least likely to be dysphoric. Persons who perceived distance to the hospital and the doctor, and understanding language of the doctor and office staff as barriers to care were more likely to be dysphoric. Ethnicity was not correlated with level of perceived dysphoria; however, age, gender, and health status were found to be associated with level of dysphoria after controlling for other correlated variables. These results indicate that the psychological needs of communities need to be understood and interventions that are appropriate for the population need to be devised.

Personhood and illness among the Kulina.

This article offers both a contribution to the ethnography of ethnomedicine among the Kulina Indians of western Amazonia--a region in which there has been little ethnomedical research--and an extended illustration of the value of the concept of "personhood" in the analysis of ethnomedical beliefs and practices. I argue that the current medical anthropological fixation on the Body is neither good ethnography nor productive theory, and I use the Kulina example to illustrate how the cultural dimensions of personhood provide a more satisfactory framework for the understanding of illness. Kulina conceptions of illness are closely linked to the substances and processes through which personhood is acquired, expressed, and transformed. I consider the two major categories of illness in Kulina ethnomedicine, and focus special attention on the more serious of these: potentially fatal illnesses that are linked to witchcraft and to the violations of prohibitions. I suggest how these illnesses serve as languages for the simultaneous negotiation of social issues and personhood.

Increased responsiveness of intestinal and vascular smooth muscle to agonists in rats infected with Nippostrongylus brasiliensis.

Rats were infected with the nematode parasite, N. brasiliensis. During infection, the responsiveness of intestinal and vascular smooth muscle to agonists changed. For example, the maximum response of isolated segments of intestine to acetylcholine were increased. In part, this enhanced responsiveness was due to hypertrophy of intestinal smooth muscle. In addition, there was an almost two-fold increase in the tension developed per unit of cross-sectional area, indicating that the contractile capacity of the muscle was also increased during infection. The responsiveness of vascular smooth muscle to agonists was also enhanced. In the perfused rat hindquarters, the maximum response to phenylephrine increased throughout infection, reaching a peak at a time (day 14 of infection) when the rate of worm expulsion was maximal. The possibility is considered that these changes in the responsiveness of intestinal and vascular smooth muscle are the result of an immune response.