[Tuberculosis in the Royal Norwegian Navy at the time of the Second World War]. / Tuberkulose i Den Kongelige Norske Marine under krigen.

Tuberculosis became a great problem in the Royal Norwegian Navy during the first years of the Second World War (when it operated in allied services mainly from the UK); with the highest incidence (9.6 per 1 000) during the first half of 1943. Main reasons were insufficient medical examination of recruits, crowded living conditions on board (favoured the contagion) and the physical and psychological pressure during sea operations, which may have reduced the immune defence. Prophylactic measures in terms of tuberculin testing of all personnel, chest X-rays of the positives, vaccination of the negatives, environment investigation when disease was discovered, and isolation of those infected, gave control from the second half of 1943 and onwards. The article also mentions treatment, repatriation and the incidence of tuberculosis in the Norwegian Navy before and after the war as well as in the Royal Canadian Naval Services (where the incidence was low) during the war. Today, the tuberculosis situation in Norway is so favourable that routine chest X-ray of the recruits is no longer performed in the armed forces.

[Abreugraphy and the introduction of mass X-ray screening to Norway]. / Abreugrafi og starten på skjermbildefotograferingen i Norge.

The Brazilian radiologist Manoel de Abreu (1892 - 1962) was the first who succeeded in developing an apparatus suitable for mass radiography of the chest in the fight against tuberculosis. Within a few years, many countries had started to use mass radiography. The German professor Hans Holfelder (1891 - 1944) improved the apparatus and made a transportable version to be used in special buses and in assembly halls. When Germany attacked Norway in April 1940, the Chief Tuberculosis Inspector Otto Galtung (1904 - 81), was making plans for a nation-wide screening programme with mass radiography. He was fired by the Nazis who continued his work and started screening in 1943. The first mass radiography in Norway was carried out in Bergen in September 1940. Almost 11 000 pupils and teachers from all schools in Bergen were examined under the management of Holfelder, then an SS-Standartenführer (colonel) and radiologist in the occupation force. The screening was performed in co-operation with the municipal health authority who bought the apparatus in spring 1941.

[Occupational lead poisoning 1892-1936]. / Blyeksponering i yrke 1892-1936.

The first Norwegian factory inspection act was passed in 1892. Until 1931, little attention was paid to occupational lead poisoning. In 1915 the physician Olai Lorange (1876-1965) was appointed chief of the factory inspectorate. In 1916 he initiated a registration of lead poisoning in Norway. In 1920 he also called on Norwegian doctors to report diseases considered to be of occupational origin. The results were scanty. Attention was paid to occupational lead poisoning in a draft legislation put forward in 1923. However, the motion was not put to vote during the depression after the First World War and was not passed until 1936. Historically, lead exposure has in periods been forgotten as a cause of disease, only to reappear. In Norway, occupational lead poisoning attracted attention in 1931-33, when 46 cases were reported from a shipyard. The inspectorate laid down regulations and the government granted compensations and pensions to 40 of the workers. Based on worker protection acts and regulations, yearbooks from the factory inspectorate, and medical literature, the article describes attitudes towards occupational lead poisoning in the early years after the first Norwegian factory inspection act was implemented.

[An Enemy of the People--about Dr Harald Engelsen and work-related lead poisoning in Horten]. / Enda en folkefiende--om Harald Engelsen og blyforgiftningssaken i Horten.

Little attention was paid to lead poisoning in Norway before 1930. In 1931-33, however, Dr Harald Engelsen, a naval surgeon, reported to the National Insurance Administration more than 40 cases among shipyard workers. The first worker in which he diagnosed lead poisoning had consulted other doctors, but only got a symptomatic diagnosis. Dr Engelsen was then consulted by several others with similar symptoms. At the outset his diagnosis was doubted and a considerable disagreement ensued with colleagues and yard representatives; he was compared with Dr Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People. The controversy escalated. A commission appointed by the government to examine the matter concluded that there had been cases of lead poisoning in the shipyard, that mandatory requirements had not been strictly complied with, and that monitoring of working conditions had been fragmentary. Most of the workers were granted compensation and pensions. For a publication on lead poisoning, Dr Engelsen was awarded the University of Oslo's gold medal, and for his work for improving seamen's health and welfare he was awarded the St. Olav Order. In 1938 he was appointed head of medical services in the Royal Norwegian Navy.

Prevalence of ankylosing spondylitis and other spondyloarthropathies among patients with inflammatory bowel disease: a population study (the IBSEN study).

OBJECTIVE: To study the occurrence of spondyloarthropathies (SpA) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) seen 6 years after IBD diagnosis. METHODS: In a population based cohort of 654 patients with IBD, 521 patients (80%) were investigated, which included a complete rheumatological examination. Radiographs of the sacroiliac joints and lumbar spine were performed in 406 of these patients (78%). The development of SpA was analyzed with regard to the presence of HLA-B27, duration of IBD symptoms, and the extent of intestinal inflammation. RESULTS: The occurrence of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) was 2.6% in ulcerative colitis and 6% in Crohn's disease (p = 0.08), yielding an overall prevalence of 3.7% in IBD. No correlation between localization or extent of the intestinal inflammation and presence of AS was found. HLA-B27 was present in 73% of cases with AS. The overall prevalence of SpA was 22%. Inflammatory back pain without AS (IBP) was found in 18% of the patients. Typical features of SpA were rare, while fibromyalgia was common in IBP, indicating that IBP is not a precursor or manifestation of SpA in patients with IBD. The prevalence of radiological sacroiliitis without clinical features of SpA was 2.0%. CONCLUSION: AS occurred frequently in patients with newly diagnosed IBD. IBP did not seem to predispose to AS or other forms of SpA. The overall prevalence of SpA was 22%, whereas the prevalence of asymptomatic radiological sacroiliitis was low.

[The corvette "Nordstjernen's" voyage to the opening of the Suez Canal--naval medicine in 1869]. / Korvetten "Nordstjernen" s tokt til Suezkanalens åpning--navalmedisin anno 1869.

When the Norwegian corvette Nordstjernen was in the North Sea bound for Port Said to be present at the opening of the Suez Canal on 17 November 1869, an officer suffered a rupture of m. triceps brachii when he was drawn into the machinery during a storm. He was put ashore in Harwich; four days after the injury he was hospitalized in Colchester. The voyage was eventful in other ways too. Another officer died from typhoid fever in Ismailia. On the Swedish frigate Vanadis, also present at the opening of the Suez Canal, one of the doctors died from lung infection and was buried in Smyrna; a twelve-feet high column of white marble was taken from the ruins of Aesculap's temple and put on his grave. Denmark was represented by the frigate Sjaelland. During a storm in the North Sea, one seaman fell down on the deck from the foresail yard and suffered contusions and a fracture of the left clavicle. These cases illustrate challenges that faced our ancestors. The accident happened when the ship was in the Netherlands sector of the North Sea as we know it today. Today the Coast Guard could have arranged transport by helicopter and hospitalized the patient in about two hours.