What is homeopathy?

   HOMEOPATHY is a system of medical practice based on a theory of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann of Leipzig. He practiced this system about the beginning of the 1800's. He called it homeopathic to distinguish it from the older school of medicine, which he called allopathic.
   Hahnemann's theory was that a drug which will pro-duce certain disease symptoms in a healthy person will cure a sick person who has the same symptoms. He expressed this in the Latin phrase, Similia similibus curantur, which means like cures like.
   In spite of opposition by the leading physicians of his day, Hahnemann became noted and had many followers. Homeopathic medical schools, clinics, societies, and journals sprang up in various cities in Europe and the United States.

What is Jaundice?

   Jaundice is a yellow color of the skin and eye. It arises from coloring matter in the skin which the liver, whose province it is, has failed to remove. As one whose liver is out of order is not likely to look on the world with a pleased eye, the term "jaundiced" has been applied proverbially to one who is out of sorts.

All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.


—Pope, Essay on Criticism.

Pneumonia causes

   Pneumonia, an infection of the lungs, can be caused by (1) the pneumococcus or certain other bacteria or (2) virases. Both types are infectious and can spread from person to person. Most peo¬ple carry the pneumococcus and other pneumonia-causing germs in their throats at all times, but when they are well and strong, the germs do no harm. When the body is weakened, resistance to the pneumonia germs is lowered, and the body cannot successfully fight against them. The time to be most on guard is just after an ordinary cold begins, especially the third and fourth day, and during and after an attack of influenza, whooping cough, or measles. Overexposure to cold after a great deal of sweating, and insufficient rest, also create conditions favorable for an attack of pneumonia.
   If the disease affects one or more lobes of the lung, it is called lobar pneumonia. When both lungs are affected, the lay person usually calls it "double pneumonia." The doctor terms it bilateral. Bronchopneumonia refers to pneumonía that is localized chiefly in or around the bronchial tubes. It is usually, but not necessarily, milder than lobar pneumonia.

Causes of Epilepsy

    In acquired epilepsy, or symptomatic epilepsy the cause is physical, such as a brain tumor or a wound or blow on the head. These injuries irrítate the brain and set off the abnormal electrical discharge. A cure may be achieved by an operation to remove the tumor or repair the injury.
    Ordinary epilepsy is also called genuine epilepsy or idiopathic epilepsy, which means cause unknown. This is the most common type, and it is what most people have in mind when they speak of epilepsy. It usually begins early in life. This type of epilepsy is not directly inherited, although it is generally believed that a predisposition or tendency to it may run in families. While the cause is still unknown, a great deal is known about it, especially in regard to treatment.

What is narcolepsy?

NARCOLEPSY (SLEEP ATTACKS)

Narcolepsy is a condition that usually makes its first appearance in the late teens. Its most characteristic symptom is what many victims rightly call sleep attacks because they are so overwhelming. Regardless of how well they have slept the night before, people with narcolepsy may experience many episodes of sleepiness during the day that may last fifteen minutes or so and cause them to fall asleep—even in the midst of a conversation or at the dinner table.

As many as 80 percent of victims have another symptom, called cataplexy. Some or many body muscles may become suddenly and briefly paralyzed when a strong emotion such as fear or anger is experienced.
In addition, some victims may experience visual or auditory hallucinations when falling asleep during the day or at night, and they may experi¬ence fleeting paralysis when they wake.
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Eczema

Eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, is manifested by a rash of "weeping" blisters. Later, the area may become dry and scaly. Eczema occurs most frequently in the bends of elbows and knees and on the face and neck. It is common in children, many of whom also have hay fever and asthma. Some children benefit when an allergenic food is found and removed from their diet.

Alcoholism and Drug Addiction

  Alcoholics and drugs addicts are chronically sick people whose ailment shows itself in their behavior, which is generally disorderly and antisocial. Unlike many other maladjusted individuals, they have turned to something outsíde themselves to find the characteristic "inadequate but temporarily satisfying solution" to their problems. As in the case of other maladjusted people, this does not solve their difficulties. But, in addition, they face the problems that result from excessive drinking or from taking drugs. In advanced cases, their physical condition is very poor; in fact, deterioration often sets in. In many cases, hospitalization is necessary if a cure is to be effected.
  Much of the progress in treating alcoholism and drug addiction has been made possible by the recognition that these are diseases, not crimes (although crimes are often committed by addicts). They have physical as well as psychological aspects, and there is growing belief that chemical abnormalities within the body may play a significant role. Also, alcoholism and drug addiction are recognized as social problems.

Medical advances in the 19th century

  Inventions and discoveries transformed the practice of medicine in the 1800's. In all three major areas of medical work—prevention, diagnosis, and treatment—new methods led to important breakthroughs. The French scientist Louis Pasteur established the effectiveness of inoculations as a means of preventing disease. An injection administered by Pasteur's assistant— with Pasteur himself watching in the background—saved a young man who had been bitten by a rabid dog (right).
  Once a problem arose, the remarkable new technique of X-ray photography allowed a doctor to diagnose the problem inside the body. Then, thanks to the invention of anesthetics, a surgeon could remedy the problem by painlessly operating on the patient.

The first human heart transplant

   Christiaan Barnard was the South African surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant. This historic operation took place on December 3, 1967. Barnard removed the healthy heart of a young woman who had been fatally wounded in an automobile accident. He transplanted her heart into the chest of Louis Washkansky, a 55-year-old man whose heart was failing. Washkansky lived for 18 days with the transplanted heart.
   Although Washkansky died of pneumonía soon after the transplant, the operation was considered a success—Washkansky's new heart beat strongly until the end. Barnard performed his second heart transplant opera¬tion a month after the first one. This time, the recipient of the transplanted heart lived for 18 months. Barnard continued doing trans¬plant operations with critically ill patients. His innovative surgical procedures included another first. In 1974, he transplanted a sec¬ond heart in a human being. The hearts were linked together, forming a kind of double pump to circulate blood throughout the body.
   Christiaan Barnard was born on November 8, 1922, in a small town called Beaufort West, South Africa. His father was a minister and the family was quite poor. Barnard's mother had high expectations of her children and urged them to work hard and strive to be the best in their classes. Barnard studied hard and was admitted to medical school in Cape Town, South Africa. He received advanced training in heart surgery at the University of Minnesota in the United States. It was in 1958 that Barnard returned to South Africa and introduced the revolutionary new technique of operating directly on the heart—the procedure called open-heart surgery.
   Barnard retired as a surgeon in 1983. The effects of chronic arthritis eventually made it difficult for him to operate.

What is asthma?

The disease 'Asthma,' which is characterized by periodic attacks of spasms of the bronchial tubes should not be confused with conditions having as a symptom difficult or rapid breathing such as heart and kidney disease, arteriosclerosis (hardehed arteries), thyroid gland disturbances (goiter), and overweight.
It is therefore very important that anyone having an asthmatic tendency receive a thor¬ough examination to determine whether the condition is really 'asthma' rather than a manifestation of some constitutional disease.

Causes. 'True asthma' is probably due in practically all cases to a 'hypersensitiveness' on the part of the individual to some bac¬teria, pollen, or other protein substance. As¬sociated with this condition of hypersensitivity there is frequently found a chronic irritation of the nose or throat, less frequently disease of the ear. Chronic bronchitis is often associated with asthma and frequently an acute inflammation of the lining membranes of the upper air passages will be the causative factor, particularly in persons hypersensitive to pollens.
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Causes of fever

Fever is a condition in which the temperature of the body is more than its normal 98.6° F. The term is also used as part of the name of certain diseases, such as typhoid fever and scarlet fever, in which a prominent symptom is a high temperature. Fever is not a disease, but a symptom of many different disorders, especially diseases caused by infections. Although people have survived temperatures of more than 110° F., a fever of 106° F. may have serious effects, particularly in babies or elderly people.
The course of fever varies in different diseases. The first signs of fever are often chilly sensations, frequently associated with flushed or warm feelings. The temperature may rise slowly or rapidly, and it may stay up or may fluctuate. As it rises, it may be associ¬ated with shaking chills. If it falls quickly, profuse sweating may occur.

Causes of Fever
As its cells burn foodstuffs for energy, the body constantly produces heat. At the same time the body constantly loses heat to its surroundings through the skin, through breathing, and in other ways. The temperature of the body is a measure of the balance between heat produced and heat lost.
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What is sleeping sickness?

   Sleeping sickness is an endemic disease confined to equatorial Africa and characterized in its terminal stages by sleepiness, torpor, and coma. Sleeping sickness has been known since 1800. It was then endemic in a few localities, but in recent years it has become widespread. The disease is caused by a blood parasite, the Trypanosoma gambiense, which is conveyed by two varieties of the tsetse fly, Glossina palpalis and Glossina morsitans. Wild and domestic animals act as reservoirs for the sickness, the disease in the animal being known as nagana, the tsetse fly disease of cattle.
   Two types of sleeping sickness are recognized. The Uganda type, carried by Glossina palpalis and confined to the watercourses and lake shores, was first identified in 1901. It is violently epidemic. The variety occurring in Nyassaland and Rhodesia has been known only since 1908, is highly fatal but not epi¬demic. The fly that is the conveyer in this case is Glossina morsitans, which is independent of water.
   The name "sleeping sickness" is also applied popularly to an unrelated group of diseases which cause coma and are known medically as encephalitis.

The cholesterol problem

  The fatty alcohol called cholesterol is found in the cells of the body as well as in the blood stream; it is also present in bile salts and is one of the chief constituents of gallstones. In the blood stream. it protects the red blood cells from bacterial poisons, bile salts and other agents. If, however, it is present in excessive amounts, it can have certain undesirable effects. It may be deposited on the blood vessels and may lead to the serious condition called atherosclerosis, in which waxy cholesterol deposits are built up on the arterial linings. Gradually, they come to protrude into the lumen, or passageway, of arteries and thus reduce the supply of blood to a given organ.
  One method of dealing with this con¬dition has been to reduce the intake of foods rich in cholesterol, such as animal fats and egg yolk, and to substitute foods such as corn oil and cottonseed oil. It is by no means certain that such a diet will bring about a decrease in the amount of cholesterol in the body, since this substance is built up in the tissues (particularly in the liver) from various types of foods — carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
  There is some evidence that tension and stress may lead to a rise (at least a temporary rise) in the quantity of cholesterol in the blood. Tension causes the release of the hormone adrenaline; this hormone in turn, triggers the release of fatty materials from storage depots in the body, so that they may be available for conversion into energy. It would seem advisable therefore, for sufferers from atherosclerosis to avoid excitement as much as possible.

What does the psychiatric term fugue mean?

  Fugue in psychiatry means a pathological state in which an unacceptable and repressed part of personality gains control of the total personality. In this state the individual usually runs away from an in¬tolerable environmental situation and does not remember anything about his previous state. It differs from somnambulism in that the individual afflicted with fugue is in touch with his environment. He may buy a railway ticket, travel from place to place or even establish himself temporarily in some form of business. Fugue differs only in degree from multiple personality. If the secondary state is more complex and more permanent, it is looked upon as multiple personality. Sometimes the two are hard to difier¬entiate, since a fugue may lead to multiple personality. A fugue may last minutes, hours, months, or even years. Upon recovery, there is amnesia as to the fugue state.
  A case briefly stated may clarify the concept. A number of years ago, a bank clerk in Paris disappeared. Several months later he approached the police in Belgium and asked for help. It was established that he had worked for some time in a grocery store doing a good Job. All he remembered was that on his way home from the bank he felt a severe pain in his head. He could not tell how he got to Belgium.
  His life in París was intolerable since he had dificulties with his wife and mother-in-law. Circumstantial evidence pointed to him as an absconder of money from the bank. He "escaped" from this situation by "flight" into another country and different type of work.