Organic matter drives high interannual variability in methylmercury concentrations in a subarctic coastal sea.

Levels of neurotoxic methylmercury (MeHg) in phytoplankton are strongly associated with water MeHg concentrations. Because uptake by phytoplankton is the first and largest step of bioaccumulation in aquatic food webs many studies have investigated factors driving seasonal changes in water MeHg concentrations. Organic matter (OM) is widely accepted as an important driver of MeHg production and uptake by phytoplankton but is also known for strong interannual variability in concentration and composition within systems. In this study, we explore the role of OM on spatial and interannual variability of MeHg in a subarctic coastal sea, the northern Baltic Sea. Using MeHg (2014: 80 ± 25 fM; 2015:

[A century since the publication of Grossich's paper in Zentralblatt für Chirurgie--an innovation in the field of antisepsis]. / Hundert Jahre seit der Veröffentlichung von Grossichs Werk in Zentralblatt für Chirurgie - Eine Innovation im Bereich der Antisepsis.

This review recalls the first presentation of a modified method for the use of iodine tincture in preoperative disinfection of skin and minor injuries by the Rijeka physician Antonio Grossich (1849-1926), which was published in "Zentralblatt für Chirurgie" 100 years ago. It did not have to wait long before it received acclaim from 20 other medical journals, and in 1909, from the audience at the International Surgery Congress held in Budapest for an extended presentation on the subject. In the following 2 years, surgeons all over the world published their experiences with this optimised technique in over a hundred journals. Doctor Grossich put these articles together and published them with his commentary in 1911 in a monograph entitled "Meine Präparationsmethode des Operationsfelds mittels Jodtinktur" (English: "My personal approach for the preparation of the surgical field using iodine tincture"). Although iodine tincture was also used by other physicians and surgeons at that time, Grossich optimised the method for its use, and he was the first to publish his experience in surgical practice.

St Apollonia's tooth--a relic in the cathedral treasury in Rab (Croatia).

AIM: To anatomically identify and describe the changes on the tooth of St Apollonia which is kept as a relic in Rab (Croatia). SOURCES AND METHODS: Reviewing relevant literature, macroscopic examination of the tooth in the reliquary, photographing and further examining the enlarged photos. RESULTS: The tooth in question is the first upper right premolar. Observed pathological change is type II enamel lesion, i.e. cervical or gingival caries. Other discovered characteristics are enamel fracture on the distoaproximal surface, shallow fracture on the occlusal third of the crown and two enamel formations, a cluster of smooth and shiny enamel surfaces. CONCLUSION: Attention is drawn to a relic that was previously virtually unknown. It is presented how important this relic is for Christian and ethnomedical tradition. Additionally, anatomical determination and the description of pathoanatomical changes are used to affirm the anthropological approach as one of the prerequisites in the attempt to scientifically evaluate the relic phenomenon.

Public health problems in the medieval statutes of Vinodol, Vrbnik and Senj (West Croatia).

BACKGROUND: The ancient Croatian statutes were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The aim of this study was to seek out regulations concerning public health in the oldest medieval statutes of the towns on the northern Adriatic coast (W Croatia). METHODS: All translated text editions of the statutes of the three towns were examined. The statutes were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. RESULTS: The research of the materials revealed the examples of direct and indirect ways of protecting public health. Regulations on keeping towns clean and the rules for dealing with animal products were found. Additionally, witches and fortunetellers were found to be treated as a negative force and defined as the embodiment of evil: they were thus considered to be heavily connected to illness and misfortune. CONCLUSION: The aforementioned rules are not only important from the historical point of view, but also as a reflection of people's awareness of public health as a condition of survival and the progress of the community as a whole. Furthermore, since those statutes were created from people's customs that were to eventually become a law, they show substantial progress in medical history for that particular part of Croatia.

Miraculous healings as a time- and space-conditioned category--the example of St. Thecla.

The phenomenon of miracle has been present in each time period and each civilization, and what has changed was not its definition but its content. Gautama Buddha, Apostle Paul, Mohammed, Church fathers from Origen and Augustine of Hippo to Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas were all studying miracles and trying to find out the rules and systematization for them. The present paper explores the intriguing differences (e.g., the proportions of miracle types) and similarities (e.g. saintly "specialization") between some Eastern and Western miracle accounts, analyzing the possible underlying reasons. As a case study, the collection of miracles performed by St. Thecla (Basil of Seleukia, 5th c. AD) has been used. The major conclusion of the paper is that miracle accounts quite consequently reflect cultural differences between East and West.

Conception and pregnancy in several examples from Croatian sacral patrimony.

Starting from the viewpoint of the history of medicine, the authors analyze the themes of conception and pregnancy in examples from canonical and apocryphal iconography of the lives of Mary and Jesus. St. Anne's and St. Joachim's assignation and kiss at the Golden Portal is a symbolic moment of St. Mary's conception. Jesus' conception has been represented in the theme of the Annunciation. The physical perception of pregnancy is experienced by St. Mary in the Visitation to Elizabeth. Several paintings, wall paintings and mosaics created in the area of today's Croatia in the period from the 6th to the 17th centuries were chosen for explicit illustration of the themes.

Birth of St. Mary (St. Anne's parturition) in the light of messages from medical education: three examples from Croatian sacral heritage.

Christian tradition treats birth in several characteristic motives. The most frequent is the Birth of Jesus Christ, while much rarer is the apocryphal motive of the birth of St. Mary. By analyzing three paintings from Croatian 16-17th-century sacral-art heritage, depicting the parturition of St. Anne (St. Mary's Mother), the authors of this paper are trying to define the role of ethnomedical notions in the formation of modern medical and general culture.

Arterial hypertension in correlation with age and body mass index in some occupational groups in the harbour of Rijeka, Croatia.

The research was carried out among 3787 workers in the harbour of Rijeka (Croatia), divided into six professional groups: harbour-transportation workers, administration staff, warehouse and assistant workers, artisans, motor vehicles drivers and seamen aboard the tugboats. The prevalence of arterial hypertension (AH) in relation to age and body mass index (BMI) was analysed. Significant correlation between prevalence of AH and age (r = 0.97) and between prevalence of AH and BMI (r = 0.98) was proven. Prevalence of AH for all the subjects was 10.6%. The lowest prevalence (7.3%) was established for harbour-transportation workers, who were the youngest on average and who were of lowest mean value of BMI. The highest prevalence of AH (16.6%) was for the warehouse and assistant workers, who were the oldest on average and were of highest mean value of BMI. Those differences were statistically significant in relation to other groups but in relation to the average age and the average values for those professional groups they fitted into the expected values. Results did not confirm positive relationship between potentially harmful working conditions of the surveyed professions and the development of AH. Age and BMI as reliable predictors of AH were pointed out.

Cult of St. Sebastian in Istria.

Sebastian is only one of the many saints honored in the Catholic world and invoked against different illnesses and misfortunes. The cult of this martyr who lived in the 3rd century A.D. appeared in Istria probably in the early Middle Ages and became a part of the popular "arsenal" against plague. In time, it was replaced by the cult of another late medieval saint, Rochus. Therefore, probably today's traces of the cult of St. Sebastian in Istria (three churches, frescos, paintings and statues) represent only meager remains of a once rich expansion.

[Link between familial arterial hypertension and blood pressure in children]. / Liaison entre l'hypertension artérielle familiale et la tension artérielle chez les enfants.

The purpose of the study was to examine the relation between the level of arterial blood pressure in control and hypertensive subjects and their parents. The study performed in Rijeka, Croatia included 1,472 men and 464 women aged from 20 to 59 years. Systolic and diastolic pressures were measured using WHO recommendations. The results show that with one hypertensive parents, males (4.1/3.7 mmHg) and females (5.8/3.9 mmHg) have higher arterial pressure than controls with normotensive parents. When both parents were hypertensive, the difference was more pronounced in males (7.6/5.8 mmHg) and females (11.1/6.6 mmHg). When both parents were normotensive, hypertension was present in 15.6% of male population and 5.9% of female population. When one or two parents were hypertensive, hypertension was more frequent in males (1.9/2.4 time) and females (3.9/6.2 time). Thus, the level of blood pressure in general population is related to the level of blood pressure of their parents. Familial hypertension is a strong predictor of hypertension.

[Evaluation of the quality of life of disabled workers based on the most frequently used type of health care]. / Procjena kvalitete zivota invalida rada na osnovi koristenja najcescih oblika zdravstvene zastite.

An investigation was conducted among the dock workers from the port of Rijeka, where disabled workers made 13.1% of the total number of the employed. The most common causes of disablement were musculo-skeletal and connective tissue diseases (27%), injuries (20%) and diseases of the nervous and circulatory systems (13%). Chronic diseases in these workers whose mean age was 43.8 years were twice as frequent as in other workers (mean age 39.7 years). The average working span of disabled workers was 12.2 years, compared to 8.9 years of the rest of the working population. Analysis showed that in the year after disability assessment, workers with reduced working capacity visited their physicians 2.1 and specialists 1.7 times less often than the other workers. In general, the rate of absenteeism in the year following the assessment of disability was reduced 3.5 times. All the differences were very significant, (P < 0.01). Results lead to the conclusion that medical and social rehabilitation of disabled workers as well as their integration into the working environment were very successful, which undoubtedly had a positive impact on the quality of their life.

The chronotropic effect of histamine, prometasin and cimetidin on rat heart.

The effect of histamine, prometasin (the blocker of histamine H-1 receptor) and cimetidin (the blocker of histamine H-2 receptor) on the frequency of the isolated right atrium of rat was studied. Histamine, prometasin and cimentidin were applied cumulatively in concentrations of 5.4 X 10(-6) to 16.3 X 10(-3) mmol/l so that each new concentration was 3.3 times higher than the preceding one. The positive chronotropic effect of histamine was shown to be strongest with a concentration of 5.4 X 10(-3) mmol/l. Prometasin and cimentidine applied in increasing concentrations gave a negative chronotropic effect. Prometasin and cimetidin applied in a concentration of 5.4 X 10(-3) mmol/l before histamine, decreased the positive chronotropic effect of histamine to more than 60% no matter whether prometasin and cimetidin were applied alone or together. This finding suggests that the effect of histamine on rat heart is mainly realized via histamine H-1 and H-2 receptors and partly through releasing catecholamines from the adrenergic nerve terminal.